Office Ceiling Lights: How To Choose The Right Ones?

Studies have shown that lighting can have a huge impact on a worker’s health and focus. Therefore, office lighting can affect an employee’s productivity. Deprived of natural light, an individual is more prone to eye-strain, fatigue, insomnia, and distractedness. If your office doesn’t have windows or skylights to let the light come through, then choosing the right office ceiling lights becomes very important.

A great advantage of using LED office ceiling lights is that they come in daylight colors such as blue-light (5000K) or white (4000K). This has the ability to imitate the feeling of being in the sunlight and employees can benefit from that. Using less energy than traditional lamps and providing more output, LEDs are a more and more popular option in office lighting. 

Switching to LED can provide companies with significant savings too. It’s never a bad time to upgrade the office lighting, in order to make it more energy-efficient, but there are always factors to consider as to make the right choice. 

Office Ceiling Lights: Factors to Consider

When looking for the right lights to accommodate your needs, there are several factors to take into account. The most crucial ones are the height of your ceiling, its type, as well as the purpose of the facility. 

• Ceiling Height

When thinking about upgrading your lighting and installing LEDs, knowing the ceiling height of your space is a must. This piece of information will help you decide on the right beam angle and level of brightness. The beam angle determines how the light is spread across the floor. remember that lumens refer to how bright a light bulb seems in connection to its output or brightness. 

Higher lumens mean a higher brightness level, and these should be used in spaces with a higher ceiling. The lower the lumen, the lower the ceiling will have to be. Knowing the ceiling height will help you get the beam angle right and ensure proper lighting in your space, avoiding an overly lit or very dim space. 

• Ceiling Type

Ceilings come in different types, so when choosing office ceiling lights, you should consider the differences. For instance, recessed ceilings may require suspended cables whereas concrete ceilings need surface mounts to install LED troffers and panels. Moreover, recessed ceilings need special lighting systems like downlights, which are ideal for commercial and architectural applications. 

• Facility Type/Purpose

The purpose of the lights, which is strongly connected to the type of facility or room, is as important as ceiling heights and types. For example, if you are converting an old auto car shop into an office, you need to be prepared to change the lighting system as well, because the lighting needed to work on cars will not fit the new purpose of the space. There are several functions of lighting and they depend on the space you have and its purpose. So, when choosing the right lighting system you need to determine if you are looking for lighting fixtures fit for general comfort, task-oriented lighting, or accent lighting.

How To Choose The Right Office Ceiling Lights?

Everyone knows that one wrong measurement could either make or break a recipe. And that’s exactly what happens when choosing the wrong sized light fixtures as well. It can easily disrupt the design of the entire space. Designers recommend choosing a medium-sized fixture, nothing too big or too small. This way, the fixture will go perfectly with the scale of the space, without feeling oddly small or overpowering the space. Always consider scale, clearance, and spacing and you’ll get the lighting right in just about any room. 

1. Pick The Right Style

When it comes to modern office lighting, you need to consider style. Picking the wrong kind of bulbs is pretty much the worst mistake you could make. Bulbs have a clear range in intensity and color, measured using the Kelvin scale. 

Also, always think of balance. You need to make sure that your office has the same color temperature through the entire space. 

If you don’t have it in your budget to upgrade to LEDs, then you can also go for fluorescent bulbs, ideally the 6500k ones. Their intensity is not over the top and the light they shine resembles regular daylight. By placing a few low-intensity bulbs on your desk, you can improve the clarity level. 

2. Supplement Overhead Lights With Task Lighting

It is important to remember that office ceiling lights, as crucial as they are, should not be the only type of lighting you consider. Task lights with low glare are equally important and a good way to supplement the overhead lighting. 

As far as task lighting is concerned, make sure you position the lighting source away from the computer screens. This will reduce the lighting effects caused by too much light. Gooseneck lamps are the best option in this scenario because they have the ability to cast more or less light at a particular angle.

3. Use Indirect Lighting

Direct lighting can cause eye complications, including severe headaches arising from eye strains. Eventually, all these issues can lead to low productivity. This is why the positioning of your overhead lighting is very important. In addition, the spacing between light sources is a vital factor to consider. Lighting needs to be distributed evenly around the office, so light can reach every corner of every room. 

4. Choose Neutral Colors

Neutral colors work best in any type of office. Whether you have a modern design or more of a traditional office space, you might want to stay away from very dark or bright colors. This particularly applies to you if your office ceiling lights include pendants, or sconces or any such fixtures. 

Extreme coloring can cause an exaggerated ambiguous appearance which is not exactly office appropriate. Always keep in mind that the office is the place for people part of different age groups. So, using neutral colors is a better idea.