What is Lighting Temperature and How Can It Affect Your Business?

With the advent of LED lighting comes a consideration that wasn’t relevant in the era of incandescent bulbs: what color temperature should your lighting be?

 
First, what is color temperature?  
Color temperature refers to the appearance of a particular light. Incandescent bulbs emit a warmer, yellowish light, similar to candlelight. With LED lights, temperatures can be cool or warm. If you prefer the warmer light of an incandescent bulb, you can still get the same sort of lighting from an LED bulb—with the added benefit of a bulb that is more durable and energy efficient. 
Unlike temperatures relating to weather, the higher the lighting temperature, the cooler the light is, and the more directly it imitates pure sunlight. Color temperatures range in number from about 2,000 degrees Kelvin (K), which resembles the warm light of a candle, to about 6,000K, which resembles the bright, cool white of sunlight. Natural white, cool white, and warm white temperatures fall between the two extremes.

So now that you know what lighting temperatures are, what do they do? And what effect can they have on your business?  
Like everything else in your space, you’ll want to match your lighting temperature to the feel and function of your space. In general, warmer temperatures are calming, inviting and relaxing, while cooler temperatures can enhance concentration and alertness. The pleasing glow of a warm light might be right for your restaurant, coffee shop or spa, while cooler, white light might be better for your office space. Cooler lighting, and lighting that more closely resembles daylight, is also recommended for task lighting and display areas, and might work better in a retail setting. 

While they sound similar, a bulb’s color temperature is not the same as a bulb’s Color Rendering Index (CRI). The CRI refers to a bulb’s ability to render colors accurately, which is especially important if you’re lighting a space for artwork, factory production, printing or photography.

The temperature of a room's lighting can also affect how people perceive the actual temperature in the room. Warmer lighting temperatures can cause people to think the room is warmer than it actually is, and cooler lighting temperatures can cause people to perceive the temperature as cooler. Making a swap for the hot and cold seasons can cause customers or employees to feel warmer when it's cold outside and cooler when it's hot outside, which improves their mood and also can help you save on your heating and cooling.

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(The Lightbulb Company, Forbes)

Spring into new lighting.

Whether you’re changing out your product displays, your seasonal menu, or otherwise embracing the change in seasons, there are a few ways you can bring spring indoors, including changes to your lighting design.

Reevaluate your accent lighting

If you have a retail space and you’re changing out displays for the season, you’ll most likely need to change up your accent lighting to better accentuate new displays or products. If changing out displays and locations in your store is something you do often, you may want to consider whether your current accent lighting setup is working for you. Track lighting can help if you’re often moving displays and need to adjust lighting.

 

Add plants

What would spring be without the return of green and blooming plants? Adding plants, whether they’re natural or artificial, to your space can help bring the look and feel of spring inside. If you decide to add plants, or perhaps already have plants, adding accent lighting, such as spotlights, can emphasize these natural elements and mimic the effect of sunlight passing through the greenery outside.

Add mirrors

Now that winter has left us, your space might be getting a lot more natural light. Although they’re not technically a lighting fixture, installing a few strategically placed mirrors can help reflect more light, artificial or natural, throughout your space. Mirrors are a great quick, low-cost solution—and they can be as long-term or short-term a solution as you’d like. For example, in the summer, you might find that reflecting extra sunlight into your space can make it significantly warmer (in terms of atmospheric temperature, not lighting temperature) and negatively impact your cooling costs, in which case the mirrors can be easily removed.

Add an LED skylight

If your space doesn’t get a lot of, or any, natural light, or if you’d like to add the feel of natural light, consider installing LED skylights. If you’d like to add the look and feel of a skylight to your space, but for whatever reason don’t have the capability of installing them in your building, installing LED skylights instead can be a good way to achieve a similar look and feel without altering your building. These panels are LED projectors that emit white light in a spectrum that mimics the sun’s output. Typically, the color temperature and brightness can be controlled with a remote or switch. Sunlight, and lighting that mimics it, has been shown to be beneficial for health, and keep your employees and customers feeling cheerful. And, because the “skylight” panels are LED powered, they’re designed to last three times longer than fluorescent tube light bulbs.

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(Discover Magazine, FitSmallBusiness)