There’s An Outdoor LED Lighting Solution For Every Application

There’s An Outdoor LED Lighting Solution For Every Application

LED lighting has been adapted for use just about anywhere, including many outdoor lighting applications. LED’s excellent efficiency, reliability and controllability are all reasons why facility managers and property owners are making the switch.

The question is, what exterior lighting applications are LED lights appropriate for? There are many, including:

• Wall pack lighting
• Parking lot and street lighting
• Post top lighting
• Security lighting, including flood lights
• Landscape lighting
• Outdoor signage and display lighting, including gooseneck fixtures

We’ll take a closer look at each application and why LED is a good fit for each.

Wall Pack Fixtures Illuminate Building Exteriors and High Traffic Areas

You’ll normally find wall pack fixtures mounted to building facades, around gas stations, on underpasses and around warehouse loading areas. These wall lights provide a big boost in visibility, safety, and security for people around the building and workers inside.

Traditionally, wall pack lighting has been powered using metal halide and high-pressure sodium fixtures, but LED technology is now a frontline choice. Here’s why:

• Better efficiency – Metal halide and high-pressure sodium fixtures are older lighting technologies and are inefficient by LED standards. The typical HID bulb will provide up to 100 lumens per watt, though most fall short of that ratio. An LED lamp exceeds that ratio by a significant margin, but the real efficiency advantage is at the system level.
  Metal halides emit omnidirectionally, while LEDs are directional, so their output can be aimed with precision. Because more LED illumination reaches its intended target, LED lighting systems require less power to match the output of HID fixtures.

LEDs Outperform HID Lamps In Parking Lot And Street Lighting Projects

Parking lot and street lighting must produce high quantities of high-quality illumination wherever they are installed. Outside a store, along a neighborhood street, or out on a stretch of highway, every street light is illuminating the way.

For decades, HID products have been the first choice in parking lot and street lighting, but LED is also changing that. Here’s one reason why:

• Light quality – HID fixtures were long preferred for parking lot applications, primarily because HID fixtures produce a lot of bright illumination. However, LED can match HID in terms of brilliance, partly because of their directional nature. LED parking lot lighting systems generate even illumination that improves visibility over longer distances. That’s critical for parking lot and street safety.

LED Post Top Fixtures Look Good Anywhere

Post tops are mounted on shorter poles than street lights, but they generally serve the same purposes. Their job is to improve visibility along neighborhood roads, along a walkway or inside parks. They’re also designed to look nice, with intricate metal and glass designs in every style. HID fixtures were, again, the most popular option here, but LED is taking over here as well. Why?

• Low maintenance design – HID fixtures are engineered with sensitive components like metal filaments or pressurized gas chambers. An LED fixture, though, is built on solid state circuitry, which is far more durable and shock resistant, so it can take the occasional bump without causing damage. LEDs also age gracefully compared to older lighting technologies, and they can operate for years without needing maintenance.
  With their low-maintenance build, LED post tops cost less to operate. That’s a nice perk for municipalities that don’t have a fleet of bucket trucks on call.

Improve Security And Night-Time Visibility With Flood Lights

LED lamps have also been adapted for flood light fixtures, which can be found in residential, commercial, and industrial settings. In every application, floodlights are all about raw output and lighting quality. That’s because they’re the choice for any large outdoor area.

Flood lights are often installed in places where additional security is needed, and LED lighting is a strong choice for security lighting purposes. There are several reasons for this, including:

• Controllability – Security lighting works best when it’s controlled with precision, and no form of lighting is as controllable as LED. An LED security lighting system can be paired with pretty much every lighting control available, whether it’s a motion sensor, a timer, a photocell, or dimmers. LED security lighting can be designed for dusk to dawn operation with ease, so it’s a good choice for lighting a patio, porch, deck, or driveway.

LED’s Reliability Means It’s A Good Choice For Landscape Lighting

You’ll find landscape lighting in residential areas mostly, but it’s also installed in commercial landscaping and in public parks. These fixtures operate at a small scale (to the point where they can be solar powered) and are meant to accent landscape features rather than provide general visibility. For this purpose, LEDs are ideal. In addition to their efficiency, reliability, and quality performance, LEDs also excel in safety. LED lighting generates close to zero radiant heat, so it’s a good choice for garden lighting applications and can be installed in high traffic areas, like pathways. In fact, LED pathway lights are a popular option for homeowners with young children or pets.

LED fixtures also contain no harmful chemicals like mercury gas, so if one does break, it will not create a health or environmental hazard.

Gooseneck Lighting Is Perfect For Illuminating Signs, Displays And Entrances

Gooseneck fixtures, called such because of their goose-like curved neck, are an inexpensive way to focus illumination on a sign or product display. They’re usually installed in close proximity to their subject and are aimed directly at it. With LED’s directionality and low heat output, it’s a natural choice for gooseneck lights.

Some LED bulbs come with excellent color rendering index (CRI) scores, in excess of 90+. Excellent color rendering is necessary for display and security lighting, especially if there’s surveillance in use as well. High-CRI lighting ensures that any illuminated signage or display is presented with its true color values, so that nice-looking sign gets the attention it deserves.

LED Lighting Excels Outdoors

LED lighting has come a long way in the last several years and, before long, it’s going to be incorporated into every outdoor lighting application imaginable. With its superior efficiency, reliability, lifespan, performance, controllability and safety, there are a lot of reasons why the future of exterior lighting is LED.