Recessed lighting fixtures

[salum]

Hello,

Doing a remodel on my home and my integrator has suggested installing new canned LED lighting fixtures (Tech lighting Entra 3” canned lights) and trulux tape lights.

Anyone have experience with this brand?  They are quite expensive at almost $150 a fixture.  Would you suggest  Is it cheaper to just go a standard Edison type fixture and purchase LED bulbs. And then bulbs these days aren’t as expensive, and you also have the option to swap them out for different colors/temperature bulbs. 

The trulux tape lights have that “dot less” look.  Any other suggestions?

Thanks

[Cyknight]

Element lighting is very good.

You WILL NOT get the same look (I mean visually of the fixture but more so the actual light throw being uniform) using a standard can and LED bulbs, but the obvious advantage is the flexibility. I'm not so sure you'd actually be cheaper off for a nice looking fixture plus good LED bulb, short or long term (running time of the fixture vs LED bulbs)

 

There's no right or wrong.

Personally I'd go with what your dealer suggested over a standard can and bulbs, but again, that's not the 'right' answer - just a preference statement.

[NIK640]

I currently have 4” cans with standard A19 led bulbs (some philips hue). I just got a couple 4” led retrofit bulbs that have the trim ring built in; I’m probably going to change most of them to the retrofit led because they’re much cleaner looking then the standard A19 bulb with separate trim ring. I can post some pics if it would help. If I were in the build stage I would definitely be going with a clean recessed led and not the screw in bulb cans. I don’t know if that helps at all.

[anon2828]

I have TechLighting fixtures on the outside of my home.  It does appear that the Element / Entra lighting line from TechLighting is a separate product line, but that said, my experience with the brand has been pretty rotten.  Of the outdoor fixtures from them that we have (6 in total) we have replaced 5, some of them twice under warranty.  Burned out LED elements, finish issues, you name it.  All of this stuff is ultimately coming from overseas, so quality I think is always an issue.

The level of lighting you are looking at is true architectural lighting.  I believe that the installation of that line of lights requires the housings to be taped and mudded into the drywall at the drywall finishing stage.  Thus, your increase in cost is not just the fixture/housing, but also the additional drywall finishing for every fixture.  Certainly it will look cool as hell and is very high end if money is no object.  Personally,  I'm not sure I am a fan of true recessed LED lighting where the light source is hidden up in the ceiling and just shining down through an open aperture.  That said, it can look very high end and architectural if done right.   You will also have far more options for beam spread, and angling the light as opposed to a traditional downlight.

I am a huge fan of lighting and spent tons of time doing the lighting design in my home construction.  Modern house and every single downlight is aligned with others in a row, lots of careful planning as to where each light was going to go, etc.  And guess what?  We used LED housings that were more traditional in nature that you can put your choice of any manufacturer's retrofit LED downlight into (from Home Depot to something more high end).  In our case we used American Lighting's 3" housing, and we were going to pair with the American Lighting 3" LED (recessed smooth trim), but ended up liking way better the NICOR 3" LED (recessed baffle trim).  The electricians were comfortable with the housings and putting the LED downlights in them without a bunch of extra expense or complaining.  The integrated trim rings makes it such that mudding in the housing is not required (traditional rough cut around the housing aperture).

The light source itself is great with good color accuracy, fantastic lumen output and great warranty.  Couple years in and no failures yet (knock on wood because some of them are up 30 feet in the air).  Can't focus the beam, or angle it, but we did use some other type of LED fixtures (2")  where we needed wall washes.  The 3" fixtures look great and modern versus a 4"-6" can light - I don't think anyone would say it looks cheap.  All of this saved a ton of money versus going balls to the wall with an architectural line of lighting, makes eventual LED replacement easier, and in the end equation the lighting looks fantastic from inside and outside of the house.  Rarely do you look up and focus on the actual light fixture and study it from below whether on or off.

 

PS - I continue to recommend Philips Wiz for tape lights - simple, simple to install, everything you need included (no sourcing tape, driver, Zigbee module), available at Home Depot, comparable in quality to Philips Hue (see online comparisons), 1/2 price of Hue, and with the available driver great integration into Control4 (it does use WiFi as opposed to Zigbee for the record - I've had zero issues and have tons of it for architectural details and studied every available option including the surf from TechLighting, American Lighting).

[ejn1]

I love Tech Lighting.   Generally viewed as premium brand.

[salum]

Anon2828, thanks for the detailed response.

Unfortunately I'm not an expert in lighting design, and I'm having difficulty deciding between 6", 4", or 3" recessed lights and figuring out the spacing.  My integrator provided a lighting plan for the 3" entra lights, but unfortunately they couldn't get samples out to me in time for me to decide if I wanted to use them.  And furthermore, their lighting design didn't include measurements (ie how far from the wall, how much spacing between each light, etc).  It's just light fixture icon placements on my kitchen remodel plan.  Perhaps my electrician would know how to interpret that.

My house has existing 6" recessed lights everywhere. For consistency, I am considering keeping the 6" recessed lights throughout the new kitchen remodel rather than changing to 4" or 3" (even though the 6" look more outdated).  Given my time constraints, I'm probably going to pick new construction housing thats available at local retail stores (either 6" or 4").  From there I'd go to the retrofit LED option.  I like the LED lights to be a little recessed and not completely flush with the trim.  But I understand that the more flush it is, the more light can spread.  Lots of things that I unfortunately did not have the time to find a lighting design expert to explain.

Now the issue becomes figuring out spacing with the 6" and 4" cans.  6" cans I'm reading its 3' from the wall (or 2' off the cabinets) and then space them every 5 feet (we have 10 ft ceilings).  My existing kitchen actually has the lights about 43" spacing.  Our ceiling drywall has been removed, so we have all our ceiling joists exposed and can make a good decision on lighting placement.

I have found traditional bulbs annoying.  They usually flicker and die out.  But I'm not sure if thats because of my traditional builder grade dimmers.  Eventually I will be adding control4 dimmers throughout the house. 

The main reason for not sticking to integrated LED is we are very particular with our color temperatures.  We cannot decide on the temperature until the kitchen is complete with paint and furniture.  

I will look into the Philips wiz as an option

 

[anon2828]

Now that you are going with a traditional housing and using a retrofit LED light/trim, there are tons of choices.  I have also seen there are newer sets of lights that will allow you to pick the color temperature and change it on demand (not sure about color accuracy with those), the same types of bulbs can also be programmed to change color temperature throughout the day for your circadian rhythm.  

Given that you have everything opened up, I would certainly go to the level of replacing the 6" with something a bit more modern and smaller that will still give you similar lumen output and light spread.  All of the bulbs will have this listed on them or on the manufacturer website.  In your case, 4" may be a happy medium - smaller and more modern than the 6", but not as hard to find as the 3" I discussed above.

In my opinion, more is better than less - my motto is you can never have enough light, and I have tons of glass in my house.  If you are on a dimmer, you can always dim them down, but if you don't have enough cans for the amount of light you need you are SOL.  I remember my builder challenging me and saying - why the hell do you need 8 cans in your study (plus a Big Ass Fans light)??  I said just do it - my house.  And so glad I did, the extra lumens are great, can be dimmed if necessary, and I don't need a desk lamp.

You'll have to make the decision and find a happy medium between "architectural placement" and "function."   As I mentioned, I went for architectural placement - everything lines up - I mean everything.  Some go for function and have lights placed where they need the lumens, but I think that can often end up looking really strange and not thought out.

Spacing really comes down to the look as well as the throw and beam angle of your bulbs.  You want there to be overlap so you don't wind up with individual "spot light" effect in your rooms.  Look at the specs and beam angle and spread specifications and make certain they overlap.  If you can try it out with samples, do it.  I had a bunch of different types of bulbs wired to plugs and then had them held up at ceiling height to ensure the light spread and coverage was correct.  2-3 feet from wall is generally good (again depending on specs of bulb) to avoid washing the wall too much and wasting lumens lighting up the wall as opposed to the space.

Good luck.  People do lighting design for a living for a reason.  I got smart enough on it to come out with a good end product, but it took a ton of work and planning.

[booch]

10 hours ago, anon2828 said:

Now that you are going with a traditional housing and using a retrofit LED light/trim, there are tons of choices.  I have also seen there are newer sets of lights that will allow you to pick the color temperature and change it on demand (not sure about color accuracy with those), the same types of bulbs can also be programmed to change color temperature throughout the day for your circadian rhythm.  

Given that you have everything opened up, I would certainly go to the level of replacing the 6" with something a bit more modern and smaller that will still give you similar lumen output and light spread.  All of the bulbs will have this listed on them or on the manufacturer website.  In your case, 4" may be a happy medium - smaller and more modern than the 6", but not as hard to find as the 3" I discussed above.

In my opinion, more is better than less - my motto is you can never have enough light, and I have tons of glass in my house.  If you are on a dimmer, you can always dim them down, but if you don't have enough cans for the amount of light you need you are SOL.  I remember my builder challenging me and saying - why the hell do you need 8 cans in your study (plus a Big Ass Fans light)??  I said just do it - my house.  And so glad I did, the extra lumens are great, can be dimmed if necessary, and I don't need a desk lamp.

You'll have to make the decision and find a happy medium between "architectural placement" and "function."   As I mentioned, I went for architectural placement - everything lines up - I mean everything.  Some go for function and have lights placed where they need the lumens, but I think that can often end up looking really strange and not thought out.

Spacing really comes down to the look as well as the throw and beam angle of your bulbs.  You want there to be overlap so you don't wind up with individual "spot light" effect in your rooms.  Look at the specs and beam angle and spread specifications and make certain they overlap.  If you can try it out with samples, do it.  I had a bunch of different types of bulbs wired to plugs and then had them held up at ceiling height to ensure the light spread and coverage was correct.  2-3 feet from wall is generally good (again depending on specs of bulb) to avoid washing the wall too much and wasting lumens lighting up the wall as opposed to the space.

Good luck.  People do lighting design for a living for a reason.  I got smart enough on it to come out with a good end product, but it took a ton of work and planning.

anon -- it's awesome to read your posts and realize I'm not the only crazy one (about lighting) -- well said! (I use traditional housings so I can pick my bulbs, go for higher lumen and dim, etc.)

OP -- forgive me if anon has covered this, but I'd also suggest trying/testing bulbs before committing. It's ridiculous how many "high CRI, XXXK, XX degree, etc." bulbs look totally different IRL (many with ugly undertones or poor quality light).

Lastly, the one area where I'd respectfully offer a different opinion on is strip/tape lighting -- the newer 24V COB products are far superior IMO, and I've tried a bunch. And also, RGB LEDs can't make great 'normal' light IMO (as it's inherently blended/an illusion).