How warm light differs from cold light in LED lamps

When arranging lighting in an apartment, house, office, it is important to choose the right lamp light. Often, cold and warm light, the difference between which is obvious, seriously compete with each other. This is due to the fact that shades of lighting have different effects on vision, mood, and also change the visual perception of interior items, the color scheme in it.

How lighting affects vision and mood

As for the impact on the human central nervous system, different shades of lamps (cold, neutral, warm) work like this:

• Cold - invigorates, tones, increases concentration.
• Neutral - almost equal to daylight, therefore it does not have a significant effect on the central nervous system.
• Warm - relaxes, creates a feeling of peace, comfort, softness.

No lamp shade has a negative effect on the eyes. Flickering light is an exception. It provokes an increased tension of the organs of vision at rest of a person and when performing work that requires increased concentration: reading, watching TV, manicure, sewing, etc.

Additionally, shades of light are able to change the colors of surrounding objects - to make them more muted or, on the contrary, bright. Incandescent light can enhance all warm colors. Cold lighting also works for related shades. Therefore, it is advisable to choose interior items and furniture for the house at the level of lighting that prevails in the desired room. Otherwise, unpleasant surprises are possible when placing the purchased item.

With age, the lens of the human eye turns slightly yellow. Therefore, all tones, lighting are seen in warmer variations. To correct this perception, you can add a cold lamp to the room.

What is color temperature

Any shade of light has its own color temperature. It is measured in kelvin (K). The scale from left to right starts at 800 K and ends at 20,000 K. The higher the Kelvin level, the colder the lighting level. The 800 K index corresponds to the dim glow of an incandescent red body. The maximum parameter of 20,000 K is equal to the color of the sky at polar latitude.

To create artificial lighting, the consumer is offered mainly lamps with the following color temperature value:

• 2700-3000 K. This is a standard tungsten filament lamp that provides warm light to the room.
• 4000-4100. This is neutral light, almost completely repeating daylight.
• 5000-6500 K. Cool lamps with an admixture of blue.

As a rule, on boxes with energy-saving bulbs, such a parameter is affixed by the manufacturer in a conspicuous place.

Which is best for a person: warm or cold light

The best option is a combination of all types of lighting in the room, which can be controlled as needed. For work that requires concentration of attention, intensify the cold light lamp, for relaxation in the evening - focus on warm shades of lighting.

Natural white light (neutral)

The most optimal illumination option for work and living quarters. Such bulbs do not distort the perception of interior items, do not change the color scheme and do not have a significant effect on a person's mood.It is better to place similar points of artificial light in the living room, nursery, hallway, bathroom, kitchen.

Neutral lighting around the women's dressing table is especially important.

Warm light

This type of lighting is more commonly used in living spaces. In accordance with the original shade of the interior item under warm lamps, such a change occurs:

• Blue - loses intensity, becomes expressionless, faded.
• Cyan - produces greenish tints.
• Purple - Converts to deep shades of red.
• Dark blue (indigo) - changes to black.

In warm light, red, orange, brown, yellow, cream colors and other shades from this range look bright and catchy.

Since a spacious room visually loses its area in the light of a warm lamp, it is better to use such lighting only as local. Or place several spotlights under the ceiling around the entire perimeter of the room.

Lamps with a temperature level of 2700-3000 K are ideally combined with all natural materials - wood, cotton, linen, brick, straw, vintage metal. It is good to combine such light with modern, Provence, retro, eco, classic, ethnic style interior styles. You can connect it to vintage.

At home, it is good to use the warm light of a light bulb in a nursery, fireplace room, living room, hallway, in the bedroom in the form of lamps by the bed.

For public places, lighting in warm colors is good to use in the halls of thematic bars, cafes, restaurants. In boutiques, jewelry stores.

Street lighting with a warm lamp looks good on boulevards, parks, squares with long alleys.

Cold light

This color temperature is recommended for use in offices, medical institutions, laboratories.

Cold lighting visually enhances blue-blue hues, gray, white, steel colors. Warm tones when using such lamps, on the contrary, become muffled, distorted, dull.

Lamps with cold temperatures fit perfectly into the interior of rooms with a predominance of geometric shapes, chrome or steel elements. The ideal combination of such lighting is celebrated with hi-tech, modern, minimalism, futurism, Scandinavian and classic interiors.

At home, it is better to use cold light as a local one or only in the bathroom, in the area of ​​the kitchen work surface.

For public places, energy-saving lamps with this color temperature are applicable in classrooms, offices, warehouses. For street lighting, cold light lamps are installed on highways, stadiums, hangars, and production areas.

How to choose a lamp for your home

To choose a light bulb for use in one of the rooms, you need to be guided by such criteria in addition to the color temperature:

• Functioning principle. Here, there are standard incandescent, LED, halogen, fluorescent lamps. The latter are less suitable for use at home, as they flicker strongly and have a very high color temperature. LED elements do not have a significant effect on the eyes or interior items, since they are local (point) backlighting elements.
• Efficiency. Here, the LEDs are in the first place. The last one is incandescent lamps.
• Color rendering index. Marked as Ra. The optimal indicator is from 83 to 100. The higher it is, the less distorted colors will be when illuminated with such a lamp.
• Flask type. It can be in the form of a spiral, a pear, a candle, a tube, a ball, etc. The required shape can be determined by the type of floor lamp / lampshade (open, closed).
• Cost. Incandescent lamps are considered the cheapest. The most expensive ones are energy saving ones. But the price of such elements is fully paid off by the low power consumption.

How much to spend on an element, each master determines for himself.

Lamps with different color temperatures in the same room

The main ban on the use of cold and warm lamps is screwing them into one chandelier. Otherwise, you can combine different color temperatures, but adhering to the following recommendations:

• In living rooms, the upper (main) type should always be warm or neutral white light.
• If you want to combine different levels of lighting, warmer sources are made below the ceiling level in the form of spotlights, sconces, floor lamps. They can be turned on in the evening during family vacations and other lighting levels can be dimmed.
• It is allowed to mount different lamps in the same room, if the first work as the main light source, and the second - accent. An example is local spotlights over paintings, panels, figurines.
• Different color temperatures are connected so that the beams of the lamps used never cross.
• A combination of cool and neutral white light looks good.

It is undesirable to simultaneously turn on both types of different lighting, which can be very different from each other.

What kind of light is needed for reading

For prolonged reading, doctors recommend combining the main and local type of lighting in the room. Moreover, their color temperatures should not have sharp drops. It has a beneficial effect on the eyes. If you use only local light (a table lamp), it is difficult to achieve the desired level of uniformity of illumination of the book. The organs of vision suffer from this.

The lamp must be positioned over the book so that it does not give glare, shadows. The light intensity level should be medium. Very bright or weak eye strain.

It doesn't matter whether the light will be warm or cold. The main thing is that both sources (main and local) do not differ (they are either cold or warm).

Color rendering index (CRI or Ra)

The color rendering index refers to the quantitative ability of a lamp to correctly display colors in an interior. In English it sounds like "color rendering index" or simply "CRI" (Ra). The latter type of marking is often affixed to the product box.

The Ra value is calculated on a scale from 1 to 100, where 1 is the worst color rendering with distortion, and 100 is the most accurate. A value from 80 to 100 is comfortable for the human eye.

For different types of lamps, the following Ra indicators are characteristic:

• incandescent - 80;
• cheap fluorescent - 60-70 Ra;
• models of well-known manufacturers - 70-90;
• LED sources - from 80 and more;
• halogen - close to 100 Ra.

When choosing a light bulb for your home, always pay attention to the Ra level. The cardinal differences in this indicator in two adjacent elements lead to the prevalence of the worst of them.