Learn to talk like a lighting geek – like us
In specialized businesses like industrial lighting, the terminology can seem like a completely different language. So it can be difficult to understand some of the features of industrial lighting products, which makes purchasing decisions more difficult. That’s why we want to help our clients pick up the lingo.
Too often, we hear industrial lighting terms being used in the wrong context or simply misunderstood. Rather than trying to use this information gap to take advantage of clients, we prefer to work with them to get on the same page and build trusted, long-term partnerships. Take a look at our cheat sheet of some of the top lighting terms so you can stay in the know:
Aperture: The diameter in the opening of a downlight, measured in inches. Sometimes manufacturers round up to the next whole-inch increment.
Average Rated Life: The number of hours at which half of a large group of product samples fail under standard test conditions. Since this is a median value, any lamp or group of lamps may vary from the published rated life.
Beam Angle: The angle at which luminous intensity is 50 percent of the maximum intensity.
Candela: The Systeme International d’Unities (SI) unit of luminous intensity. One candela equals one lumen per steradian. This term was formerly known as candle.
Color Rendering Index (CRI): A rating index commonly used to represent how well a light source renders the colors of objects that it illuminates. At its maximum value of 100, the colors of objects can be expected to be seen as they would appear under an incandescent or daylight spectrum of the same correlated color temperature (CCT). Sources with CRI values of less than 50 are generally regarded as rendering colors poorly, meaning colors may appear unnatural.
Efficacy: The ratio of the light output of a lamp (expressed as lumens) to its active power (expressed as watts), expressed as lumens per watt.
Illuminance: The density of luminous flux incident upon a surface. Illuminance is measured in footcandles (lumens/square foot) or lux (lumens/square meter). One footcandle equals 10.76 lux.
Lumen (lm): A unit measurement of the rate at which a lamp produces light. A lamp’s light output rating expresses the total amount of light emitted in all directions per unit time. Ratings of initial light output provided by manufacturers express the totallight output after 100 hours of operation.
While these are some popular terms you’re likely to come across, you can dive into even more depth by taking a look at this glossary from the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
