The state-of-the-art these days for undercabinet lighting is LED ribbons that you can cut every couple inches to get continuous (and energy efficient) lighting along the counter.
I first tried to find who makes these. It isn't so easy. The web is filled with retailers that don't disclose who made what they are selling.
These seem to be the major manufacturers:
My first question is how many watts per foot makes sense? I find one
0.73/watts. Too low. The next level of brightness is 1.44-1.52/watts. That seems to make sense. Then comes 2.4-2.6/watts. And one manufacturer has 5/watts. Way too much.I hear that some people go for a higher wattage and then put a dimmer on them. Other than over a dining table I'm not a big fan of dimmers. I'd rather pick what is appropriate upfront.
Then comes the color choice. People are into the warm colors as that is what they are used to from incandescent lighting. But what is so bad with a cool white? Especially in a kitchen that is supposed to be sleek. Looking at the manufacturers I find colors all over the place, with each having a different color temperature for warm white, neutral white, and cool white. What I'd like most of all is the undercabinet LEDs to be the same color as the MR16 pendants that will hang over the sink and over the eating peninsula. But the MR16s have different color temperatures for WW and CW and again they vary my manufacturer.
Then I just stumbled on Diode LED's new High Output Tunable Color Strip Light. You have two sliders. One to change the color and the other the brightness. Seems like overkill.
Has anyone in this group installed these and can give us their experiences?
Don.