Proper lighting is essential for both residential and commercial settings. But with a plethora of lighting options available on the market, sometimes finding the right lights for your specific needs becomes an overwhelming experience. Not only is price a major consideration when choosing the best lights, but there are more factors to consider such as energy efficiency, watts and lumens, color temperature, voltage as well as color rendering index (CRI).
LED and Induction Lamp for Outdoor Lighting
There are two popular retrofit options when it comes to outdoor lighting which are LED and induction lighting. They are both durable and low maintenance making them an ideal option for street and parking garage lighting, tunnels, building walkways, pole and other industrial applications where regular replacement of defective lights becomes impractical.
How Long Lasting are These Two Options
Though there are more light options on the market offering quality white light, none comes close to LED and induction lamps in terms of lifespan. Induction lights, for instance, don’t have electrodes or filaments, the items that frequently cause other bulbs to burn out quickly. As a result, induction lighting systems can have an extremely long life of up to 100,000 hours.
Induction and LED perform considerably better than other light sources in terms of longevity. But when compared against each other, there are more subtle differences that make each option stand out from the other. Let’s first understand how both LED and induction lights function.
1. Induction Lighting
Induction lamps, also known as an electrodeless lamp, produce lights by use of electromagnetic ballast that stimulates mercury atoms reaction with a noble gas. The introduction of electromagnet for induction has replaced the use of metal prongs, which become easily ineffective.
Induction lamps operate like fluorescent using the electromagnet principle, but they are different in that, induction lights are not prone to leaking mercury than in fluorescent. When a bulb leaks it exposes allows active gases such as oxygen and nitrogen to seep inside and mix with inert gas, this compromises the light quality with some bulbs failing even to light. This light source is designed for high bay lighting applications including warehouses, shopping malls, and sports lighting.
2. Light Emitting Diodes(LED’s)
Commonly referred to as LED’s, this type of lighting source neither uses filaments nor inert gas for illumination but rather depends on electrically charged electrons to react and release energy in the form of light. A typical LED lamp contains a positively and negatively charged semiconductor parts which transmit electric charges into the electrons that then flow through from the negative layer to the positive layer, creating light along the way.
Though LEDs and induction lamps are more energy-efficient lighting sources, today’s LED bulbs can be six-seven times more energy-efficient than conventional incandescent lights and cut energy use by more than 80%.
Key Differences Between LED and Induction Lighting
Induction and LED lighting are somewhat similar in that they share a lot of features and specifications in terms of their overall performance, color rendering capacities, color temperature, and durability. When choosing between these two options, consider your application to find the best light for your needs.
Application
If you’re looking for more focused light, LEDs are your best option since they good at generating one-directional lights. For broad area illumination such as parking garage or walkways, induction lights are highly effective in producing light in multi-directions.
Limited Options
The two lighting technologies are relatively new, however, LED being more recent than induction lacks more options for high bay lighting application. For example, induction lights come with lumen packages of up to 36,000, whereas the highest lumen package in LED’s is 20,000.
Lumen Depreciation
When choosing between LEDs and induction lights, consider the lumen depreciation rate over time. For instance, after 60,000 hours of illumination, induction lights start to depreciate, which is about 65% of the initial lumens advertised. On the other hand, LED’s will offer 100,000 hours of lighting with less than 70% depreciation.
Environmental Impact
Induction lights operate using mercury, however, this substance is highly toxic and proper disposal is required. LEDs are environmentally friendly because they are free of mercury and no caution is needed when disposing of defective units.
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