Why no "frosted" porch lights

[Dean Hoffman]

A few game cameras scattered around in obvious places do that too. They don't necessarily have to work.

[micky]

It turns out I had in mind what's called by vendors water glass or water ripple glass, not frosted glass.

[rbowman]

I've got a battery powered LED with motion detector on the porch. A cat likes it since he can announce he wants to come in without a lot of meowing.

I bought it this summer in an attempt to discourage a marauding skunk. The skunk wasn't impressed but I resurrected it when we went back to standard time and it was dark when I got home.

[rbowman]

I got one to see what was wandering around at night. The deer fill up the memory taking selfies.

[gfretwell]

That is an irrational assumption to have unless George Zimmermann lives there. Criminals aren't even scared off by high resolution cameras connected to people's phones. How can a neighbor across the street and a light on your porch be more effective ... unless he is willing to go confront them.

[Ed Pawlowski]

A quick search shows some conflicting information but this seems reasonable

Does good lighting deter crime? In most people's minds, there is a simple and direct relationship between lighting and crime: better lighting will deter offenders who benefit from the cover of darkness. Improved lighting means that offenders are more likely to be seen by someone who might intervene, call the police, or recognize the offender.

[gfretwell]

The operative term is "in their minds". "Like the safety of gates", it is just an illusion.

Compared to a nest camera that calls your phone, a light is nothing to a bad guy. Is the whole house lit up? If so your neighbor probably has their shade pulled to get the glare off the TV. I don't want to see lights coming in my window.

[Jim Joyce]

When it comes time to buy LED bulbs, my wife and I agree that they must be 4000K or higher. We dislike any sign of yellow.

[Jim Joyce]

Amazon is great for buying, but sucks for shopping. No matter how specific your search is, they insist on showing what they think are related items, with related being a very vague term.

[angelica...]

I don't live on a "street". There are no street lights. No sidewalks. The houses are so far apart that one porch light is a dim glimmer from the neighbor's yard.

Except the damned mercury vapor light that my next-door neighbor has on a pole. Thing lights up my back yard like an airport and we can barely skinny-dip in our hot tub.

Cindy Hamilton

[angelica...]

YMMV. I don't even know what my neighbors look like. Neither of my doors is visible from the street or from the neighbor's yard. I'm better off hoping a criminal will trip over the patio furniture in the dark.

Cindy Hamilton

[angelica...]

Good thing you found each other. We prefer incandescent light, but in the kitchen we've settled for LEDs at 4000K. We've done the kitchen in shades of yellow and brown to tone down the lighting.

Cindy Hamilton

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I'm like that too. I want light that's WHITE. Real white incandescent bulbs are hotter, less efficient, and don't last as long. But now we don't have those problems, I don't really know why so many people insist on pale yellow.

BTW, I have WHITE LED lights in my refrigerator/freezer and microwave.

BTW2, IIRC, white light will appear brighter than pale yellow (with the same power) because it is what people's eyes are adapted to.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Usually, the problem gets worse the more words it takes t specify what I want.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

That reminded me of the Christmas lights people used to have out here. In the nineties, everyone surrounded thier front yard with these lights (plain C9 incandescents) that were too bright, making the street look like an airport runway. It made driving dangerous, since it would be hard to see anything except those lights.

[gfretwell]

Racist Now it's the Asians. ;-)

I suppose light is a personal choice. That is why that fixture has 3 settings. I am OK with bright white for task lighting but it reminds me too much of work to have it where I want to relax. We keep our house pretty dark by some people's standards. The advantage is I have excellent night vision, even at 75. I don't think it even gets dark around here. I walk the dog up on the trail without any artificial light at all, only the glow from all those people "being safe" hundreds of feet away. What you can't see is stars. On a clear night you might see a hundred when there are tens of thousands that should be visible.

If you have even been at sea on a war ship you know what I mean.

[rbowman]

With developing cataracts I get pale yellow for free.

[micky]

No wonder you don't understand my situation. ;-)

[micky]

Once I find something close to what I want, the horizontal row in the middle of its ad is often a better selection, more similar, than the original search page.

There are usually two rows and I'm not sure which is better. I look at both.

[Jim Joyce]

You might be confusing the color temperature with the lumens, if I have the terminology right. A typical LED bulb that I have here is rated at about 800-850 lumens at 4000K, so the light is very white but at only

850 lumens or so it's not overly bright. The exceptions are the bathrooms, where there are 6 bulbs in a relatively small area, but that's exactly what we want.

I've been to the desert about 40 miles outside of Las Vegas so I know what "dark" is and what it means for viewing stars. I also frequently fly for work so I see light pollution from that perspective, as well.