You may have seen colour temperature numbers when you were looking for a white LED strip. Not sure what it means or what to choose? Find out by reading on!
Set the colour temperature of an LED strip
Colour temperature is a way to talk about what colour light a light source gives off. It's measured in degrees Kelvin, and colours that are cooler are warm and yellowish-red, while colours that are warmer and more blue are cooler.
The following are some popular colour temperatures and reference points that you should already know:
Incandescent light bulbs (warm white) are 2700K (1900K), halogen light bulbs are 3000K, "neutral white" fluorescent light bulbs are 4000K, and "daylight white" fluorescent light bulbs are 6500K.
What grade of colour should my LED strip lights have?
It's not possible to pick just one "best" colour temperature for LED strip lights. That's because a different kind of light is needed for each kind of use. Here are some of the most popular colour temperatures and what they can be used for:
2700K: great for beds and other places inside where a warm, welcoming mood is wanted
3000K: 3000K colour temperature LED strip lights can be useful in places that need a little more energy. This colour temperature works well in museums, art galleries, restaurants, hotels, and other high-end places.
4000K: Most store features and the inside of stores are good places to put 4000K. This colour is often thought of as a balance between cool white and warm white. It's good if you don't like how sharp cool white is but also don't want too much yellow in a warm white area.
6500K: 6500K should be used in apps that need to make it look like natural sun. Film, photography, and uses in industry should all fit into this group.
What? The colour temperature of warm white is LESS. Don't get mixed up!
At first glance, the colour temperature scale doesn't make sense. How can warm white be slightly cooler than cool white? One thing that might help is learning about how the colour temperature scale was made.
Black body radiation is what colour temperature is based on. Theoretically, black things give off different colours of light based on how hot or cold they are.
A hot block of coal works like a black body heater, though it's not quite the same. It will give off a dull red glow when it is cooler. Because it is getting hotter, it will start to look brighter white. It will start to have a blue tint if we keep heating it up.
So, colour temperature, which is given in Kelvin, is the colour that a black body heater would have at that temperature. A lot of the time, 2700K is about the same temperature as the filament in an electric light bulb.
The confusion comes from the way that people in our culture talk about how they feel in different types of lights. People have long thought of incandescent lights as "welcoming" and "soft," which are both words that mean "warm." Also, daylight white has a "crisp" and "energising" quality that has made the word "cool" linked to it.
Keep an eye out for colour temperature mismatch
Two items may not look the same even if they both say they are the same colour temperature. There are a few reasons why this might be the case, and you should check these out before making a big buy or when colour matching is very important.
1) Different makers may use different measurement standards and methods. Colour measurement uses complicated sensors that need to be calibrated often using a standard method and a measurement standard. These aren't always followed by the people who make colour measurement devices or the people who are in charge of repair. Because of this, there might be a small colour change between two types of LED strip, even if they both say they are the same colour. As much as possible, keep the source of the LED strip the same if you need the colour to match.
2) Manufacturers keep an allowance. The fact that an LED strip is marked as 3000K by the manufacturer only means that they are very sure that the strips will give off colour that is close to 3000K. How close? That depends on the company that makes it and how well they can check the grade. A good company should be able to promise a tolerance level of +/- 100K for warm white colour temperatures and +/- 300K for cool white colour temperatures. If matching colours is very important, talk to your provider about binning.
3) The colour temperature doesn't tell you anything about pink or green tints. The colour temperature goes from orange-yellow to white to blue in the picture above. However, there can be a spread of green and pink tints at each colour temperature. This is called the Duv measure and isn't included in the specs for LED strips. If you use the LED strips for a task that needs to be sensitive to colour and one strip looks greener or pinker than the other, this could be the issue.
