Everything You Should Know About Ambient Lighting

Can you see in the dark? No, you can’t! As light is the essential requirement to explore the surrounding around us. One needs properly light up space to perform different tasks, from reading to even working or streaming on screen. Watching your favorite movies in the dark can cause eye strain and fatigue.

Are you setting your newly made home? If yes, you must pay special attention to designing your interior lighting, as lighting has absolute power to influence your mood and productivity. Dim light can cause a lack of focus and eye strain, while an extremely bright light can also have harmful effects.

All you need is well-balanced ambient lighting to ensure proper focus and a clear view. It will not only enhance your productivity but will also entertain you with refreshing and cozy vibes. If you are a cinematographer, you must have used it whether you know it by name or not.

Before diving into the world of ambient lighting, you must first get to know about the three basic lighting layers.

Three Layers of Lighting

The lighting designers have distinguished it in three basic layers to aid in designing. Designing the three layers ideally will make your space worth staying in and relaxing. Let’s briefly discuss the three layers!

Ambient Lighting

Ambient lighting is the main lighting layer for illumination and seeing things clearly. Ambient light sources include natural lights combined with all your room lights. This layer is often white or yellowish hue and acts as a base layer for the other lighting layers.

Task Lighting

Task lighting forms the second layer and is the lighting you use while performing different tasks. A table lamp on your desk to aid reading, writing, and drawing properly; is a task lighting source. Focus on the task lighting fixtures precisely to meet the need of required brightness for working with ease.

Accent Lighting

The third and last layer of lighting is accent lighting and is used to accentuate different details. A light source above your furniture or the one behind your newly purchased painting masterpiece to highlight them specially and catch attention; all are accent light sources.

Let’s dive into the world of ambient lighting to get to know everything about ambient lights!

What are Ambient Lights?

Ambient lights are the sources of light we use to illuminate the objects around us and make things visible. The ambient light source is the first light bulb or any other light fixture you switch on after entering your room. It’s not the only example! You will find them everywhere; even the sunlight and moonlight are all ambient light sources.

Ambient lights serve the purpose of the main lighting layer in our indoor or outdoor spaces. You will find a properly light-up space; much more relaxing and welcoming. Moreover, ambient lights with dimmer enable you to adjust brightness according to your mood. Maybe brighter in the day and dimmer at night to best fit your mood.

Read the article until the end to find everything from setting up ambient lights in your room to their benefits. All that you need to know about ambient lighting!

Ambient Lights Vs. Natural Lights

One of the central myths of this era is that the ambient lights are natural lights, even though both the terms are often used interchangeably. But it’s a myth! The fact is that all natural lights are ambient lights, but all ambient lights are not natural lights. Let’s find out the key difference between both types of lights.

Ambient Light

Ambient light covers both the natural light and the light coming from artificial sources like; bulbs, lights, etc. You can set up and customize this light type according to your need or mood.

A bulb in your room is an ambient light source; you can turn it off or on whenever required; thus, you can control it. You can also control the brightness of ambient lights using dimmers.

Natural Light

Natural light refers to the light emitted by any natural source like; the sun, moon, etc. You can’t control natural light’s brightness or existence. It is when it is, and when it’s not, you can’t use a different way to get it.

The basic natural lights, sunlight, and moonlight come with the sun and moon respectively and go with them. You can’t have sunlight at night or moonlight in the day.

Key Difference Between Ambient Light and Natural Light

The main difference between natural and ambient light is that you can’t control the existence and brightness of natural light but can do so with the latter. In other words, customizing ambient light is possible, but customizing natural light is not. Let’s explore a complete guide for designing ambient lighting for your room.

How to Use Ambient Lights in Your Room?

Ambient light is the primary light source in any room. While adding ambient lights in your room, you must ensure it isn’t too bright or glaring. If you are wondering, how can you use or set up ambient lights in your room? Follow the guide below.

Choose the Right Place

The first step is to choose the right place for the ambient light source. Figure out where to install ambient lighting to get an entirely lit room. For that purpose, you must first pick out the key places you want to illuminate.

Your ambient lighting must be placed correctly to light up all of your room’s corners. Don’t worry if your room is left with a few darker places in the end. As you can cover them with the use of accent lighting and task lighting sources like; lamps, pendants, wall mounted lights, etc., afterward.

Consider Color Temperature

Color temperature is the measure of light temperature on the Kelvin scale. Cooler lights occupy the top position on the sale, while warmer lights are placed at the bottom. You can select from 2000K to 6000K light temperature while choosing a light. The lower extreme is for the warmest light, and the upper extreme is for the coolest light.

For balanced ambient lighting, you must select the LED lights with color temperatures between 2000K to 3000K. It is excellent for providing enough illumination required for performing different tasks. Warm white light with cozy vibes will not only relax you but also make you feel refreshed.

Adjust the Brightness

You must choose the fixtures which come with dimmers. It is because your room needs lively brighter ambient lighting to perform different tasks conveniently. However, when you lay in the bed at night, tired of the whole day’s work, all you need is a dimmed light giving you relaxing and cozy vibes.

Use dimmable LED bulbs to access the adjustable brightness controls. These bulbs will enable you to set light brightness relevant to your mood. It must be preferred to switch to these bulbs as they are economical and energy-efficient, saving your money and providing the best adjustable brightness output at a time.

Color Rendering Index

Color Rendering Index, abbreviated as CRI, refers to the ability of light to reveal colors of different objects compared to the ability of natural light to do so. Its value is measured on a scale with numbers from 0 to 100. The ambient lighting you want to use in your room must be practical besides being pretty.

The rating 0 symbolizes the light with a poor CRI rating, while the rating of 100 is for the light with a high CRI rating. You should prefer a light source with a rating of at least 75; the same for sunlight. The CRI rating of 80 or above is best for the ambient lighting of your room.

Check for Efficiency

Ambient lights are to be used all day and night as they are the basic lights used in your room. Therefore, the ambient lighting fixture you are planning to buy for your room must be energy efficient. It means the light source must consume lesser energy and give the best output.

If you use ambient light with higher energy consumption, you will end up paying inflated utility bills. However, it’s preferred to save money by looking for the product’s energy consumption before purchasing. Economical ambient lights are indeed the best choice!

Check for the Brightness Output

When buying the ambient lights for your room, you must look for its brightness or Lumen output to estimate how much area it can light up? And how many lights will you require for proper illumination? The Lumen output of above 90 is best for having ideal brightness.

Another vital thing to consider before buying the ambient lights is; figuring out what you need? A single bulb with greater brightness output or multiple dimmable LED bulbs or strips with lesser brightness outputs. It all depends on the way you want to style your room.

Benefits of Using Ambient Lights in Your Room

Are you wondering; why to choose ambient lights for your room? Have a look at their benefits to answer the query. Ambient lights have a bundle of benefits, including the ones detailed below.

See Things Clearly

Ambient lighting forms the base lighting layer of your room with a warm white or yellowish-white hue. It enables you to see things clearly and conveniently perform different tasks like reading, writing, sewing, etc.

While designing the main lighting layer of your room, you must prefer ambient lights with suitable brightness. It must not be too bright or dim to produce a glare on your screens or make it difficult to see things clearly.

Effects Physical and Physiological Behaviors

Recent research has shown that the improper lighting of your room dramatically impacts your physical and physiological behaviors. It can influence your productivity and affect your health, causing eye strain, headaches, and migraines.

While switching to ambient lights will enable you to get rid of all of these issues. The world is even working on different technologies to use ambient lights in computers, laptops, etc., to avoid several problems. Let’s discuss in detail; what well-balanced ambient lights can do so?

Prevents Eye Strain

If you are exposed to working on computers or laptops all day or are addicted to your favorite game, be careful with your room lighting! Studies have proved that a long span of screen time accompanied by poor lighting and light glare at the back can cause eye strain, headache, or migraine.

According to recent research, using ambient light in your room will eliminate such problems. Ambient lighting, with its ability to avoid glare, is best for use in indoor spaces like your room or office.

Influences Productivity

Your room’s lighting also influences your productivity. Glaring light can irritate you, leaving you frustrated, thus decreasing your productivity. If you are wondering how to get rid of it? Switch to ambient lights!

Well-balanced ambient lights are glare-free and relaxing. Be careful while designing your room lighting and opt for ambient lights as they can significantly influence your mood and productivity.

Provide Warmth and Relaxation

After spending a tiring day at the workplace and coming home frustrated with the workload, you only need your bed and dimmed ambient lights to relax. The bright warm ambient light; lighting up your room has the power to comfort you with its warmth.

Ambient lights are great for providing warmth and relaxation. In the shaking cold winter breeze, all you need is to relax in the calm and cozy vibes of your room’s ambient lights!

Final Thoughts

Never overlook paying attention to the interior lighting of your room, as poor lighting can impose worse impacts on your physical and physiological behaviors. Ambient lights are free from such effects and are able to light up your room properly.

Illuminate your room with ambient lighting to take advantage of the various features detailed above. You can use the guide in this article to set up the ambient lights in your room and avoid complications like eye strain, headache, poor productivity, etc., caused due to insufficient room lighting.