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For
certain areas and lighting requirements, 2700 is the magic
number everyone in the LED lighting community has been
looking for. For office and industrial spaces, higher
numbers are just fine but for residential, retail, and other
more nuanced spaces, 2700 is just right. What does 2700
Kelvin refer to and no, it's not a new trendy club
downtown. Let's take a look at the whole Kelvin scale as it
pertains to lighting and specifically target 2700, an
elusive target until recently.
Let's
first tackle Kelvin and then we'll turn our focus towards a
particular temperature of interest. Kelvin is a measurement
of temperature with 0 Kelvin (also know as absolute zero)
being the lowest possible temperature possible not just on
some arbitrary measuring stick but in the universe. Zero
Kelvin is the point at which all atomic motion comes to a
complete stop which according to Quantum Mechanics, is
impossible but rather than delve to far in the deep end of
the pool, let's bring the discussion back to the more
practical consideration of the color of light.
Kelvin
is traditionally used to describe the temperature of light.
That may sound strange to a layman but light does indeed
have a temperature and it's essentially a characteristic of
the wavelength at which a light is generated. In the
visible spectrum of light, this color temperature is
perceived by our eyes differently and "warmth" is actually
not a bad description to convey the differences. Why does
this matter with LED lights and more specifically, why is
2700 is number of importance and interest? We'll turn our
attention to the temperature of LED light now.
The
original LED lights were not good for more than electronic
sensor indicators (think of the red pegs in a light bright
or the lights of your digital clock. As scientists combined
different chemicals and substrates, more colors were
generated with some of the first generations of white light
or even daylight. These tend to have higher color
temperatures of 5400 or 3500 respectively. Keep in mind
that they're not "dialed" in values with really an infinite
array of wavelengths between the two numbers above for
slightly different and varying perceptions by the eye.
These types of lights are fine and even advantageous for
office, industrial, warehouse, and other brighter white
spaces. That's not entirely true of residential or retail
space however where people have become accustomed to the
very warm color temperature of incandescent lights. We'll
leave out CFL's and fluorescents since the color generated
was never so much liked as tolerated.
Things
have changed. Most LED's you'll find in the store have a
lower range of 3000 Kelvin which pushing towards the warmer
end of the spectrum but still not quite there. We now have
2700 Kelvin lights which are ideal for retail and
residential space. This may be the warmest LED light
commercially available on the market at a price point and
lumen generating quantity that's not only competitive but
superior to most other lights available. 2700 Kelvin LED
lights have been the Holy Grail of LED lights for quite some
time although we don't recommend you buy a suit of armour,
you may want to take a swing at Excalibur. A soft, warm
2700 Kelvin LED light will light your endeavors. |
