And near me that seemed to mean they also need to be cool white LEDs (which, being more efficient than what they replaced, will be run brighter) tilted slightly upward so they shine both into the sky and second story bedrooms.
Agreed. I've seen plenty of street lights that have diffuse, warm/yellow LEDs and a good downward pattern.
But my city keeps insisting on installing the blinding cool LEDs that cast everywhere! I don't get who thinks these look good, except that some people associate the cool temperature = modern.
Then again, when I walk around at night, I see a lot of houses and apartments lit up with wildly different bulb temperatures, or cool color temperatures in their living rooms. It would drive me crazy but it's possible some people don't notice these things.
A bit off topic but I never understood why the higher Kelvin numbers are called cooler. The bluer hues are actually the colours from hotter stars hence the higher kelvin numbers (which are temperatures)
Anyone knows where the cool/warm terminology comes from?
And yeah I hate when my bulbs aren't matched. It already annoys me that I can't exactly colour match my IKEA RGB bulbs with the warm/cool ones. They just won't do the exact same hue.
Color temperatures over 5000 K are called "cool colors" (bluish), while lower color temperatures (2700–3000 K) are called "warm colors" (yellowish). "Warm" in this context is an analogy to radiated heat flux of traditional incandescent lighting rather than temperature. The spectral peak of warm-colored light is closer to infrared, and most natural warm-colored light sources emit significant infrared radiation. The fact that "warm" lighting in this sense actually has a "cooler" color temperature often leads to confusion.
I moved into my current home about 2 years ago, and it's been a slow process to replace cooler lighting with warmer lighting. Part of it is that it isn't a huge priority for me, other part is that it feels bad to take out and toss perfectly working bulbs just because they're the wrong temperature.
What I did is used the cooler bulbs in different rooms. Like my electronics lab where I need strong light to solder, and the bathroom where I don't spend a lot of time anyway.
> cool color temperatures in their living rooms. It would drive me crazy but it's possible some people don't notice these things
That's a deliberate choice for me. I have colour temperature adjustable lighting, and prefer the cooler temperatures (~6500k), particularly when reading.
We do this in our house. We have intentionally done this based on the use of the room. Laundry room/kitchen/bathroom, light that sucker up. Living room or bedroom, not so much.
I use yellows in lamps and blues in the ceiling. The ceiling lights are turned on only when I need to really see what's going on (cleaning, can't find something, etc)... most of the time I'm using the lamps.
And near me that seemed to mean they also need to be cool white LEDs (which, being more efficient than what they replaced, will be run brighter) tilted slightly upward so they shine both into the sky and second story bedrooms.