Lights

I'm guessing your wife said "nicer lights in the garage" because they are BRIGHTER than the ones in the living room. Not really because they are fancier or more elegant or whatever. I bet if you put up 25 of those single bulb basement lights and had a 100 watt bulb in each, she would still say they are nicer in your garage than your living room because they are so bright. If you don't want to put new lights, brighter lights, in the living room, you could put really dim bad bulbs in the garage lights. Show her how unbright they are. Then in a month or so she will forget about it and you can put the good bright bulbs back in.

Go with dimmable LED lights.

That is a possibility. Bright in the living room is not better though. Reading lights or a warm light while watching TV makes more sense. I'd find out for sure what she wants before changing things.

Spousal survival 101--make _sure_ you understand what she likes about the lighting in the garage. Don't assume that you know.

Ed Pawlowski snipped-for-privacy@snet.xxx wrote in news:sti3H.112308$ snipped-for-privacy@fx18.iad:

Good point. I wonder if I can temporarily mount a fixture somehow to see how the lights will look when on. We desperately need more light in the room, but I'm not sure how much. If I do two fixtures, I'll split the room in half but if I do 4 fixtures I'll have to split it into 3rds.

Puckdropper

Just Wondering snipped-for-privacy@jw.com wrote in news:0fd3H.60171$ snipped-for-privacy@fx24.iad:

I'm loving the integrated LED fixtures. The light seems to be very even without being a bright point source. Not all are dimmable, but I'm sure many of them are.

My experience has been that dimmers are usually full on or full off anyway, so spending extra for them doesn't make sense.

Puckdropper

Dimmable LED's and LED dimmers can be quite an adventure.

Many LED's flicker when dimmed beyond a certain level. Some people notice the flickering more than others. I am very sensitive to the flickering and notice it right away.

They make dimmers specifically for LED's that are supposed to help eliminate the flickering.

Some LED dimmers have 2 controls, one internal and one external. You adjust the internal slider (behind the switch plate) to dim the fixture to the lowest setting before the flickering starts. Then when you use the external control, the lowest setting will only dim the fixture to the brightness set by the internal slider.

It works, but I have a fixture in one bathroom that forces me to use a minimum setting that is brighter than I would like it to be. However, I have a fixture in another bathroom where the same style dimmer dims the fixture to almost off with no flickering. It has to be the fixtures themselves.

BTW...many of the slider dimmers have an On-Off switch so you can pick a brightness with the slider and then use the switch to always maintain that brightness. In my main bathroom, I usually dim the light before I go to bed and then turn it off. That way, when I get up in the middle of the night, I can use the switch and not get blasted by bright lights.

Is 21st century. "Fancy lighting" means that you can individually dim, brighten, or set the color of any single bulb in the system, even if they are all in the same fixture.

"Fancy lighting" means that if the internet goes down you can't turn your lights on or off...

For the living room, you will not want the bluish light common in shops - far too harsh. My wife likes the ~3000 K LEDs with very high Color Rendition Index (CRI), so colors don't look wierd. She hates the shop light look.

As other have mentioned, most home-use LEDs don't dim well or at all. For applications where dimming is essential, I stick with incandescent.

Industrial overhead LED lamp units can be fully dimmable.

For navigation to the bathroom at night, I use a LED based nightlinght that turns off when the room is already lit.

Joe Gwinn

DJ Delorie snipped-for-privacy@delorie.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@delorie.com:

It also means I can adjust the lights in a room I'm not in, at a house I'm not at, in town I'm far away from, to light a path I can't traverse.

Puckdropper

Yeah, I can see that.

Why not? You don't need "the internet" unless you've done something boneheaded in your network setup. You do need access to the hub, which is over your local network.

We have dimmable 5k to 6K LEDs throughout the house. Don't have fimmers on all of them but I use dimmable bulbs everywhere for consistancy (except for the flourescent tube replacements) The only non LEDs I have left are decor bulbs in the bathroom - and they will be replaced with LEDs when the next bulb blows as I have no more "spares". The price and availability of the specialty LEDs gets better by the month.

Also, review what you do in that room. If at times your wife does some crafts she may want a bright light where she is working but later wants a softer light for conversation with guests.

My preference in a living room is lamps with shades that soften the light or a torch light in a corner. Bright ceiling fixtures are great in the kitchen, not so good elsewhere. Dimmable is nice too.

Don't forget color temperature too.

Oh ma, tht is terrible. Last week I'm laying in bed and say "Alexa, turn off bedroom" and nothing happened. That lamp is on the other side of the bed so I thought I'd have to walk all the way around to pull the chain. It was terrifying but it came back on in a few minutes. Close call.

Ed Pawlowski snipped-for-privacy@snet.xxx wrote in news:ZrC3H.410246$ snipped-for-privacy@fx48.iad:

At the moment, a single light behind the couch would be a tremendous improvement. It's a long room so it's actually been broken into two rooms with furniture. There's a good 8 feet behind the couch that's in the dark.

It's just the opportunity cost is so low to put in the second light... probably be another hour total so I'm just debating which way to go.

Puckdropper