Skip to content
Whether you are merry and bright with your LED strip lights or romantic and chill, your lighting adds more to your mood than you might think
Picture this: you walk into your home; the lights are low. You get a glimpse of a slight shadow and maybe you hear a bit of rustling. Before your mind can quite put together that something is amiss, the lights come on to their full brightness, and friends and family shout, “Surprise!” The vibrant lights reveal people you love, ready to celebrate you. Bright lights set the tone for a fun, festive gathering.
Even if you’ve never been the beneficiary of a surprise party, you understand like in the above scenario the impact lighting can have. A surprise party is a stark example, certainly—going from no light to bright light. Between those two extremes, there is a wide array of styles, settings, levels, and even colors you can bring to any space to create a mood. And no form of lighting makes it easier to capture all those various lightscapes than LED strip lights.
How Can LED Strip Lights Create a Mood?
Here’s another common scenario: it’s movie night at home. The popcorn is ready, the show is ready to go, everyone has gathered around. What’s your next move? You dim the lights. Of course, you do! But why? If you’ve never thought about why it seems natural to dim the lights to watch a movie, your first thought might be that dimming the lights mimics what happens in theaters. True, but consider also that dimming the lights at home creates a certain feeling of specialness, that something magical and different is happening. You could watch the movie with the lights on full blast or completely off. But finding that midpoint that seems just right makes the whole event more captivating and elevated. Those dimmed lights make a normal den or living room feel like a home theater. You may have already been using lights to enhance the mood, and weren’t even thinking about it.
We’re going to discuss two main ways LED strip lights can create an atmosphere: light brightness (or levels) and color temperature.
We’ve already shared a couple of examples about how dim or how bright a room influences our perceptions. Modern LED strip lights like Premium Luma20 LED Light Strip can dim incrementally, allowing you to set the lights to the exact level you want. (We all remember the days when LEDs were either on or off—nothing in between.) Today you can use remotes, apps, or even your voice to set the light levels. HitLights even offers the 25 Watt U-Series Dimmable Driver which allows you to control LED strip lights from the wall, just like traditional lighting.
A couple of rules of thumb can be applied to light levels and mood. Exceptionally bright lights are associated with productivity or festivity. Slight dimming is connected to sophistication and elegance (more on elegance when we get to color.) The next time you have people over for dinner, slightly dim the lights and see if the guests perceive the ambiance as more fancy (even if you’re just eating pizza!) Noticeably dim lights indicate romance or relaxation (like for movie night.)
What About Color LED Lights for Mood?
When it comes to color, there are a lot of guides that will make obvious (but not necessarily true) references like red means love or blue means happy. At HitLights, we’d rather focus on how you can complement any room or style with a color you select out of millions of colors. Take for example the 32.8ft LED Strip Lights, HitLights 5050 RGB Color Changing lights which allow you to choose from a gorgeous palette of a dozen colors. Primary colors can evoke high-energy or high activity while subtle shades that you create yourself can convey a modern sensibility or draw your attention as an accent.
Colored LED strip lights can be used in coordination with décor and room design or serve as a contrast. Coordinating colors might give a sense of harmony while contrasting colors might give a dramatic feel.
What Kinds of White Light Can LED Strip Lights Make?
The color game can be understood more deeply after discussing white LED strip lights. If anyone ever mentions white LEDs the next immediate question should be: what kind of white? Let’s take for example the HitLights Premium Luma5 LED Light Strip, Single Color (UL-Listed) 16.4 Feet- Standard Density LED strip light that is available in bright white; cool white; warm white. Viewing the Premium Luma5 white light in warm white will show a faint golden glow (which provides the warmth.) The cool white strips have a hint of blue; the bright white lights focus on clarity. The warm white is often used in applications where sophistication is the goal. The cool white is often used in spaces that encourage innovation and accomplishment. Bright white is great where natural elements are used as there is more pleasing true-to-life coloring. Bright white with a dimmer can also achieve a luxurious, rich feel. One color—white; three different styles or moods: warm and glowing; crisp and energizing; natural and rich.
If you like the look of the Luma5, be sure to take a peek at the high density version of the strip which has an output of 252 - 300 lumens per foot.
How Can LED Strip Lights Celebrate the Holidays?
We’ve already written about how you can decorate with LED strip lights for Christmas and all the Holidays at the end of the year. LED strip lights can also play a role in the meaning of your celebrations. It’s not an understatement to say that the lights we illuminate for Christmas and New Year are linked to expressing joy. The more lights, the more someone must love the Holidays, right? Lighting lights, including LED strip lights, recognize the uniqueness of special days that we use to mark the passage of time and the passing of the seasons. Like the song says, Christmas comes but once a year!
As we pass through this season and are on the cusp of a new year, you still have time to set the stage in all of your spaces with LED strip lights. If you’re not sure where to start, you can call our knowledge-based support team and ask all of your questions. Shipping isn’t a problem and HitLights even offers shipping deals on orders over $199. Whatever the mood you want to experience with your lights, we’re here to help!