Hi All
I posted a few months ago regarding a lighting question and since then have trawled the internet looking for possible solutions but ultimately just getting more and more confused.
What I am trying to do is replace the central decorative light in our living room with a number of recessed down lights which I can then control using HA to give various mood lighting effects. The room is 5m long by 3.5m wide with a ceiling around 2.3m high.
So the first question is how many lights and of what type? I need to light the room brightly for general use but also be able to reduce the lighting to 2 task lights over the seating area. I have looked at various options including dimmable lamps or a mixture of different wattage lamps to give the same effect. I have experimented with X10 LM12W and love the controllability which this gives. The only problem with this is the running cost of using normal GU10 / MR16 Halogen lamps which can easily be dimmed. This is why I then started to look at using X10 appliance module to simply turn the lights on or off and therefore could use CFL lamps. The plan being I could have the lights controlled by 2-3 modules and be able to turn on or off the lights to give the required effect. I have looked at LED but am unsure if these would give enough light spread to avoid bad shadowing. Also cost is a large factor given that I may need quite a few lights.
So in summary . . . . . . . .
How many lights to light the room adequately?
Standard GU10 / MR16 Halogen, CFL, LED, Mixture? (Purchase cost V Running cost)
Lamp specification ie wattage, angle?
To Dim or not to Dim?
Sorry for the number of questions but I was hoping to start the decoration/rewire soon so need to get a finalised plan together.
Thanks
I posted a few months ago regarding a lighting question and since then have trawled the internet looking for possible solutions but ultimately just getting more and more confused.
What I am trying to do is replace the central decorative light in our living room with a number of recessed down lights which I can then control using HA to give various mood lighting effects. The room is 5m long by 3.5m wide with a ceiling around 2.3m high.
So the first question is how many lights and of what type? I need to light the room brightly for general use but also be able to reduce the lighting to 2 task lights over the seating area. I have looked at various options including dimmable lamps or a mixture of different wattage lamps to give the same effect. I have experimented with X10 LM12W and love the controllability which this gives. The only problem with this is the running cost of using normal GU10 / MR16 Halogen lamps which can easily be dimmed. This is why I then started to look at using X10 appliance module to simply turn the lights on or off and therefore could use CFL lamps. The plan being I could have the lights controlled by 2-3 modules and be able to turn on or off the lights to give the required effect. I have looked at LED but am unsure if these would give enough light spread to avoid bad shadowing. Also cost is a large factor given that I may need quite a few lights.
So in summary . . . . . . . .
How many lights to light the room adequately?
Standard GU10 / MR16 Halogen, CFL, LED, Mixture? (Purchase cost V Running cost)
Lamp specification ie wattage, angle?
To Dim or not to Dim?
Sorry for the number of questions but I was hoping to start the decoration/rewire soon so need to get a finalised plan together.
Thanks
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