How Many Lumens Do Outdoor LED Floodlights Need?

March 12, 2020 jake ovenden 0 Comment

The number of lumens you need from your floodlight Is determined by what you are using your floodlight for and where it is situated. LED floodlights come in a range of powers and lumens. Ranging from 10watts, 30 watts all the way to 100watts. The best way to discover how many lumens you need is to look at lumens themselves and color temperature to calculate how many you need. It is important to specify that the number of lumens calculated and the number of lumens you will be able to purchase from light will not be an exact figure. 

What Are Lumens? 

In basic terms, lumens equal brightness！ Lumens measure how much light you are getting from a bulb. The more lumens the brighter the light. When it comes to measuring light we are more interested in how many lumens fall on a surface, this is lux. A Lux is one Lumen per square meter. These can be both measured by a lumens or lux meter. 

How Many Lumens Do You Need For Outdoor Lighting? 

For outdoor lighting, it would depend on what you’re trying to illuminate with your floodlight. Smaller patios, gardens, and driveways will require fewer lumens and larger driveways, gardens, and patios will require more. To give a rough estimation here is a table below: 

Color Temperatures For Outdoor Lighting

The ideal solution for exterior floodlights is an RGB Floodlight. This is because they provide you color options along with a daylight beam. The color options can adapt to different outdoor lighting needs while a daylight beam can be used for security and practical reasons. The ideal color temperature for security lighting would be 5000K daylight, as it provides the most contrast from darkness allowing you to identify objects easier outside.

Watch Out with Your Outdoor Lighting

With outdoor floodlights, especially if they are security motion-triggered, you need to watch out for them disturbing your neighbors. The lights need to be directed away from neighbor’s windows so they can’t be disturbed in any way. 5000K beams can really grab people’s attention and cause disturbances. Especially 5000K with high lumens.

What You Need

The number of lumens your outdoor LED floodlight needs is going to depend on their application. For accent lighting the home or highlighting a feature, the lumens are going to be lower and maybe more colorful. Making a 10 watt RGB Floodlight a good option. For security and general illumination purposes, a 50-100 Watt LED Floodlight would be a better option.