How Long Do LED Grow Lights Last?
It can be easily argued that lighting is one of the most important factors when growing a garden, especially indoors. Choosing the correct type of lighting can be critical to the success of your garden. To make things simpler for most gardeners, LED grow lights can be made to function in almost any setting. Plus, using LEDs for your garden uses less electricity, space and generates less heat.
The expected lifetime of your garden lighting is also a very important factor in deciding which type of light to use. Generally speaking, most traditional light bulbs will burn for approximately 1,000 hours. LED lights can burn up to 100,000 hours, much longer than most traditional bulbs. However, one must keep in mind that most LED bulbs will only burn for around 25,000 to 50,000 hours.
Although many believe that LED bulbs will burn ‘forever’, make sure to keep in mind these constraints. However, it is also important to understand that LED lights deteriorate in a strikingly different manner than traditional bulbs. Most light bulbs will burn at the same brightness for almost their entire lifetime. When they ‘burn out’, they do it in a dramatic fashion, which usually coincides with the most inconvenient time for replacement. Conversely, when an LED light has burned its 25,000 to 50,000 hours, it has used up around 30 percent of its luminance. This means that your LED bulb is still burning at 70% of its original brightness. Although this is statistically the point where one can tell that the bulb is no longer burning at its original brightness, it is by far not the end of the bulb’s lifetime. This, of course, puts the lifetime of an LED bulb into an entirely new perspective.
If it takes 25-50,000 hours for a bulb to burn down to 70% of its original brightness, then there is obviously much more time left in the bulb. With LED bulbs, you also have the option of pumping more electricity into that particular bulb. This will, of course, negate some of the energy and heat saving benefits that the bulb had before. One must also take into account the chip and other electronics that go into powering a bulb. Although your bulb may last almost ‘forever’, the other electronics involved may not last nearly as long.
Why Choose LED Garden Lighting?
When you choose an LED Grow Light, you use only 25% of the energy you would use with traditional HID lighting. In addition, since there is little to no heat emitted from these lights, you also reduce the amount of money and energy spent on cooling systems. Furthermore, your plants can use almost all of the light emitted by LED lights. This is a stark difference to HID lights. HID lighting emits a lot of light in the infrared spectrum and much of it that cannot be absorbed by most plants. LEDs, on the other hand, emit light that can be used by most plants, with little waste.
With all of the benefits of using LED grow lights, it is easy to see why so many indoor gardeners choose to use them. By bringing their plants indoors, it is easier to control environmental variables and to increase the quality of air inside. Because of the incredibly long lifetime, low energy and heat consumption and other benefits, LED garden lighting is by far the most cost-effective solution for providing your garden with the light it needs.