High-quality LED grow lights are special and advanced artificial light systems designed to offer customized light for indoor plants.
These lights function by allowing current through light-emitting diodes, and light results from the recombination of holes and electrons.
Surprisingly, high-quality LED grow lights offer a targetted and energy-efficient output with more benefits than incandescent, metal halide, and high-pressure sodium lights.
Moreover, the lights are highly durable and emit less heat, thus limiting plant damage. As a result, you’ll experience less maintenance/replacements and save energy costs.
Today’s article looks into high-quality LED grow lights highlighting the best options. Let’s get rolling!
Understanding LED Grow Lights
LED grow lights are artificial light sources designed to provide customized light to support plant growth. Thanks to their high energy efficiency, these lights are now replacing other options like incandescent and high-pressure sodium lights.
Researchers point out that they convert at least 90% of their input energy into usable light. Therefore, they save power consumption and, in the process, save power costs.
Moreover, LED grow lights won’t generate much heat, thus not exposing your plants to damage. Furthermore, the lights have a high lifespan, lasting at least 50,000 hours compared to less than 10,000 hours for conventional options.
Manufacturers are now designing LED grow lights with customizable settings to allow users to control different aspects like wavelength and intensity.
Generally, you’ll never find a more sustainable and effective indoor gardening light source than LED grow lights.
Features of High-Quality LED Grow Lights
(An horizontal LED grow light)
High-quality LED grow lights have the following critical features that help them achieve maximum efficiency and durability.
Full Spectrum
A high-quality LED grow light is full-spectrum and provides almost all wavelengths, including white, blue, and red. This is the closest thing to natural light, ensuring your plants receive the relevant light for optimal growth.
Adjustable Spectrum
Most high-quality LED grow lights have adjustable spectrum settings allowing gardeners to tailor the light to meet a plant’s needs. Manipulating light aspects like intensity and wavelength improves plant processes like flowering and fruiting.
Energy Efficiency
The main feature of these lights is their high energy efficiency; they convert a more significant percentage of their input energy into useful light.
Therefore, they minimize energy wastage and reduce the overall energy costs. Moreover, high energy efficiency causes reduced heat production and, in the process, prevents plant damage and limits the need for extra cooling systems.
Long Lifespan
(Female cannabis plant growing under LED light)
Another feature of advanced LED grow lights is the high lifespan which could extend to about 50,000 hours. The improved durability translates into fewer replacements/maintenance, ultimately reducing running costs.
Heat Management
As mentioned above, high energy efficiency in these lights reduces heat production. In most cases, the lights are designed with heat management systems like heat sinks which emit heat faster, thus eliminating overheating cases.
Uniform Light Distribution
Your plants can only eliminate hotspots and achieve optimum growth by uniform light distribution.
Fortunately, all high-quality LED grow lights are designed to offer uniform light distribution to cover the whole growth area.
Excellent Built Quality
Most LED grow lights are designed with durable materials and robust construction. Such materials guarantee high durability and high performance, especially with quality LEDs.
Maximum Safety
A good and reliable LED grow light should meet the required certifications and safety standards. In most cases, the standards require that the lights go through serious testing for fire hazards, electromagnetic interference, and electrical safety testing and compliance.
Top 3 High-Quality LED Grow Lights
(Organic hydroponic vegetables under LED light)
Below are the best high-quality LED grow lights worth your attention:
600W LED Lights
This product is known for its full-spectrum light, similar to natural light, thus supporting all plant growth phases. The lights also come with BLOOM and VEG switches that come in handy for all growth stages.
Moreover, they have quiet fans and cooling heat sinks to facilitate faster heat dissipation.
Another exciting feature is the daisy chain function which allows gardeners to connect many LED grow lights on limited power outlets. And the company’s professional operations guarantee you a 3-year US warranty.
VS1000 Grow Light
This grow light employs Samsung LM301, making it one of the most durable products. It’s also energy efficient, consuming only 100W of electricity for 2.75 umol/J.
Moreover, the light has dimmability features that let you set the lights to conform to specific growth phases.
And the manufacturer did everything to mimic natural light by providing sunlike full-spectrum lighting. Interestingly, the package includes a user manual and one grow light glass.
LED X Series Bar
This is the perfect grow light solution as far as portability and versatility are concerned. Also, it’s a multipurpose light that you can use for mixed-light, supplemental light, propagation, and seedlings.
Surprisingly, it differs from full-spectrum lights and contains only two spectrum options (vegetative and flowering).
And depending on your plant’s needs, you can choose between 4-feet and 2-feet grow lights. With ETL listing and IP65 rating, few grow light options can compete with this solution.
How To Complement High-Quality LED Grow Lights for Optimum Plant Growth
(Growing vegetables using colored LED grow lights)
You’re wrong if buying a high-quality LED grow light is enough. We have some critical factors to keep in mind to achieve optimum plant growth, as we’ll highlight below.
Pay attention to light intensity and distance: Consider the recommended distance between the plant canopy and the LED light.
Since different plants require unique light intensity, set the intensity accordingly. And if you don’t know the appropriate intensity, check the manufacturer’s manual or ask an expert.
Light duration: Secondly, your plant can only grow optimally if you set the grow light to a suitable duration. Limit yourself to about 12-16 hours daily during the vegetative phase and 8-12 hours daily during the flowering stage.
Nutrient management: Thirdly, your plant doesn’t only require light to achieve optimum growth. Balanced nutrition is also a critical component of plant growth.
Therefore, monitor and provide the required nutrients and, where possible, check and maintain an appropriate pH.
Proper ventilation: Another essential element is proper air circulation and ventilation. Generally, proper ventilation limits humidity and heat buildup.
Moreover, it eliminates regular cases of diseases and pests. Therefore, maintain the humidity and temperature at 40-60% and 18-26 degrees Celsius, respectively.
Proper watering: Besides light and nutrients, plants also require water to survive and grow. And since we know an indoor environment doesn’t have a water source, there the need for regular and proper watering is needed.
We recommend measuring the soil moisture visually or with a meter to determine whether it needs watering.
Pruning: Ensure you do regular pruning and training to achieve proper airflow and light exposure. And if you don’t know how to prune a plant, seek the service of an expert.
FAQs
Will using LED grow light increase your power bills?
Not at all! Using LED grow lights will reduce your power bills compared to other options like incandescent and high-pressure sodium.
Generally, LEDs are the most efficient option converting over 90% of their energy into light usable by plants. And all this happens with limited emission of heat.
Are high-quality LED grow lights costly?
High-quality LED lights can be costly at the beginning, but the cost of running them is way lower than incandescent and fluorescent lights.
We can attribute this reduced operation cost to higher energy efficiency and lower replacement/maintenance requirements.
How long will high-quality LED grow lights last?
No grow light option, including incandescent, fluorescent, or metal halides, comes closer to the long lifespan of LED grow lights.
These lights will last over 50,000 hours compared to less than 10,000 hours for the other options.
Final Remarks
High-quality LED grow lights are among the most energy-efficient lighting option you’ll ever come across.
As per research, at least 90% of the LED input energy is converted to useful light that supports optimum growth.
Besides energy efficiency, be assured of a long lifespan, excellent build quality, uniform light distribution, and maximum safety.
We guarantee that any LED grow light from our guide above will offer the required outcomes.