Aesthetic Question: Which to go with in a living room situation, 2700k or 3500k?

After a bit of work gone into decorating a new apartment, my roommate drops the news that he intends to replace the existing lighting with much whiter tones. (He uses 6500k in his bedroom and attempted a bulb in the living space.)

This has caused a spat, with me saying that his choice in lighting is ridiculous for an interior; hospital-like and institutional, and is likely to be less comfortable for visitors. He claims the yellow of 2700s "has a harshness which hurts his eyes"

He said he would go down to 3500k, and insists that there is barely a difference between this and 2700k.

Is this true? What is generally preferable?

I totally agree with you man - bright white lightening reminds me of hospitals and police stations!
In an apartment you need warm low light that makes you feel cozy rather that something very bright that blinds people.

Not sure about the Ks but in my place I hardly ever use overhead lights and when I'm alone I rarely use lights at all, I do everything in the dark at night or use flashligths: human beings did not evolve to have light around them all the time!

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This is one of those "try it and see" things I think. The results will also depend on the exact choice of light source, tint/color of lampshades, and color/decor of the room.

I've got a 219 P60 drop-in (4500K) in my 6P, and playing around with it in the basement I would be happy using a 219-based light source in that environment. HOWEVER - it is a high-CRI emitter, there's wood paneling on a few walls and the remainder are a very "warm" beige, lots of earth tones in the furniture etc. If the walls were closer to a true white or a cool color it might in fact look horrible.

3500K might be fine in your environment or it might not. But I would try to help roommate out and try to find something that he finds acceptable that also has a high CRI.

What kind of lighting are we talking, anyway? Ceiling fixtures that take regular bulbs (so you'd be looking at CFLs or LED "bulbs") table lamps, can lights, other?

At least your roommate cares about lighting, even if he's wrong Mine uses the cheapest CFLs he can find and thinks I'm odd because I replaced all the lighting in my bedroom with L-prize bulbs save for my desk lamp which uses fluorescent tubes... I actually started a thread about that but seems to be going nowhere :/

I've been playing around with different temps in the house I just moved in to. I put some Philips 3500K tubes in the kitchen and it looks great thru a white plastic diffuser. Above the sink is an 18" fixture and I could only find 3000K in the store so I went with that. It's much "pinker" but it's also a different brand and CRI. I put some 3500K Sylvania CFLs in the garage and those looks great too.

I went a bit cooler for my 4' shop light, also in the garage. These are 4100K and it's MUCH bluer. Nice for a task light and VERY bright (2x4' 32 watt tubes), but it would look rediculous in a home. So I have no idea what he's thinking with that 6500K. I wouldn't use that for ANYTHING.

I wouldn't put 6500K in a living room for sure but I'm not seeing what's wrong with 3500K or even 4100K, depending upon lighting levels. I can sympathize with his claim regarding 2700K because I have a similar reaction. It hurts my eyes, it's useless for doing reading under (and some people still do read in living rooms), and it makes colors in the room look completely different at night compared to during the day under sunlight. Just my opinion but 2700K or 3000K really has no place anywhere. 3500K is still warmish and non-institutional without all the color distortion and other problems warmer lighting causes. Let him put in 3500K and you'll probably get used it in short order. In fact, once you do you'll see how yellow 2700K really is.

BTW, we have 5000K, 90 CRI CFLs in the table lamps in the living room and everything looks fine. The shades actually yellow the light a bit, but directly under the lamp the light is white and easy to read under. In my bedroom I have an LED bulb I modded with 4500K Nichia 219s. I actually find those a bit too warm for my tastes, but when combined with another, identical LED bulb with 6500K XPGs the light is perfect-around 5500K and high CRI, nearly like sunlight. And I also have a 4x32W T8 fixture with 5000K, 93 CRI tubes for those times I want the room really bright.

SemiMan said:

If you have it fairly dim, I lean towards 2700-3000K. Without knowing what lights you have, I would say 3500 in the ceiling and 2700K in table lamps perhaps.

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I've found even at low lighting levels there's nothing wrong or unnatural using high CCT lighting. Outdoors at night under starlight and a new moon it wouldn't surprise me if the CCT was well above 6500K. Even moonlight is something like 4100K. There's really no analogue in nature for low CCT and low lighting levels other than the few minutes when the sun is near the horizon.

languageofchaos said:

This has caused a spat, with me saying that his choice in lighting is ridiculous for an interior; hospital-like and institutional, and is likely to be less comfortable for visitors. He claims the yellow of 2700s "has a harshness which hurts his eyes"
He said he would go down to 3500k, and insists that there is barely a difference between this and 2700k.
Is this true? What is generally preferable?

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1. There may or may not be perceived "harshness" in a 2700K source, depending more on visible glare from an exposed bulb, the CRI of the light source, and more subtle differences that go beyond what CRI measures. But I would not call just any yellowish light harsh. Does he consider a dimmed incandescent to be harsh too?
2. Does he have normal color vision? He may be compensating for partial color blindness without even realizing it.
3. My preference for general indoor use is 3500K, other things about the source being equal. It has nowhere near the pronounced "outside" or "in the beam of an arc searchlight" effect of 4000K and up. And yet it does not have the pronounced yellowing effect associated with warm-white. I see a big difference between 2700 (the warm end of what is usually called warm-white) and 3500. I just prefer 3500.
4. I do agree with you about the effect, short term at least, on visitors entering the room from an area lit at a cooler temperature. I find even 5000K disconcerting, at least at first.
Possibly after society gets used to a different palette of light color temperatures opinions will change, but some of it is hard wired.
5. To a large extent people are more sensitive to changes in color temperature than to its absolute value. But the other factors involved in perceived glare and harshness will not go away.

jtr1962 said:

There's really no analogue in nature for low CCT and low lighting levels other than the few minutes when the sun is near the horizon.

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Except, of course, for sitting around a fire or other slightly less "natural" sources like candles and oil lamps which have conditioned effects on our mood, etc.
I would call those just as much a part of the natural human environment as I would sunlight.
Low lighting levels during the day, however, can be found under dense forest canopies and of course in caves and huts. The CCT under those conditions varies tremendously with the path the light has to take, but will generally be on the cool side too.

BTW, if the light levels of starlight and moonlight are high enough that our color vision really comes into play, I agree with you about their high CCT index, although most sources rate moonlight at 4000-4100K, compared to a range of 5000 to 6500 for different conditions of natural daylight. Clear blue sky at the poles, without direct sunlight, is way up at 15,000K or more.

A good first-cut comparison of 2700K, 3500K and 5500K can be seen in the photograph at this link.

inetdog said:

A good first-cut comparison of 2700K, 3500K and 5500K can be seen in the photograph at this link.

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That's a nice quick comparison. I saw something like this the other day at Home Depot by their light bulbs. I believe Lowes did something similar in the paint dept with swatches under the light. Menards even has a row of like 20 bulbs burning - HUGE help when purchasing a bulb!

Maybe I'm color blind; I don't know how 5500-6500K is daylight. I still see the same blue in that wiki photo as I do in person, and with any cool "white" flashlight for that matter. I still have my H51 and every time I turn it on I just shake my head and ask myself "how do they sell these?"

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I'm fond of high CCT lighting up to around 5000K and have a good deal of it in my house, but would agree that 6500K is too cold/clinical/institutional. I use 4000-5000K for outdoor lighting and in work/utility spaces, but not in living spaces.

I think you would both find something to like in 3500K. Your rooommate will appreciate the decidedly less yellow cast, and you will be spared cold operating-room lighting.

There is a key element that has been left out of this discussion. CRI. There is a huge difference in perceived lighting quality between high CRI (82 or better) and low CRI (70 of less). Some years ago I had a couple of huge rooms to light when I re-modeled, and I went to a lighting expert for advice. The key as far as he was concerned was CRI. I ultimately choose 4100K Phillips Ultralume F40's (don't think they exist any longer), and as they died, I replaced them with GE SPX series lamps. At the time I had to buy the SPX's by the Case because no one stocked them locally, the demand for $9 F40 Fluorescents wasn't exactly vast. Anyway for general purpose use, and good color rendition qualities, I'd pick the 3500K's over the 2700K's any day of the week as long the 3500K's had a high CRI.

languageofchaos said:

my roommate drops the news that he intends to replace the existing lighting with much whiter tones. (He uses 6500k in his bedroom and attempted a bulb in the living space.) with me saying that his choice in lighting is ridiculous for an interior; hospital-like and institutional, and is likely to be less comfortable for visitors. He claims the yellow of 2700s "has a harshness which hurts his eyes"

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You do realize that "color temperature" is not the only factor here affecting whether the lighting is going to look hospital-like and institutional. Think about it. 3000K fluorescent still looks hospital-like and institutional. And natural sunlight, at a much higher color temperature, looks pleasant and natural. So obviously there is something else going on.

That being said, is there any way to combine halogen lighting with LED in the same rooms in your apartment? Depending on where you live, 3000K halogen bulbs may be fairly common. Then use 4000K LED with that. If you have the combined light from both an incandescent source and LED in the same room, the light will be much better quality and look less institutionalized. If you have recessed fixtures, this could involve using some LED lamps and some halogen PAR. They will not be exactly the same color, and this is the only downside.

Because the light from incandescent/halogen is better, but your roommate just wants it to be more bluish, so doesn't it make more sense to use halogen light, and then just add in the bluish light from a cool white LED ? Combining halogen and LED together also gives a greater variety of different frequencies of blue light, easier on the eyes and better color rendering. I know this because I have experimented with it.

Another question for you. Have you actually seen "2700K" LED lighting in an apartment? Because it is not the same as incandescent. I might be wrong here, but I suspect you may be mistakenly thinking you want a "lower color temperature" just because you do not like the bluish LED lighting you see your roommate has.

mattheww50 said:

There is a key element that has been left out of this discussion. CRI.

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And it's not just color rendering. The difference in light quality between incandescent and LED is more than just about CRI. I am just mentioning this because CRI should only be used as a loose indicator of light quality. Don't think that just because it is the same "color temperature" and has similar CRI it is going to look exactly the same. Of all the many bulbs I have experimented with, there's something about incandescent light that looks like incandescent, and something about LED light that looks like LED, regardless of a range of different color temperatures, and even using high CRI LEDs.]

SemiMan said:

High CCT is not relaxing, and that is okay if that is the goal. I have lots of high CCT lights in my house.

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It might be that high CCT from LED is not relaxing, but higher CCT from other sources (like sunlight) potentially could be.

languageofchaos said:

Is this true? What is generally preferable?

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I prefer incandescent/halogen, and do not really care for LED light. However, if I absolutely had to use LED, I would choose 2800-3000K. I can only speak for myself, but I prefer different rated color temperatures depending on what type of light source it is (incandescent, fluorescent, LED, or sunlight). LED is somewhat of a new thing, so I do not think there is any consensus yet on what color temperature most people tend to prefer. Most of the recommendations seem to be just extrapolations based on the fluorescent or incandescent fixtures being used before, which might not be such a good thing.

I really cannot answer your question without more detail about your situation, such as what type of lighting you had before, and what type of fixtures are being used in your apartment, and what region you live in (if 3000K halogen bulbs are available), whether you have actually tried 2700K LED and like it. What I can tell you is that there is no way I would let anyone change out the lighting in my apartment with >3500K LED. It's unreasonable in my opinion.

It also depends on whether it is LED downlighting or retrofit LED bulbs. The downlighting is usually available with "high CRI", which helps.

I will bet you $100 USD Anders that I could set up LED bulbs and incandescent bulbs and you would have no clue which is which. If 100+ designers who are color critical can't then I don't think you will either.

Semiman

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SemiMan said:

I will bet you $100 USD Anders that I could set up LED bulbs and incandescent bulbs and you would have no clue which is which. If 100+ designers who are color critical can't then I don't think you will either.

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Those LED bulbs would probably have to have a CRI over 95, because I have a 95CRI LED bulb (3000K) and can tell the difference between halogen (3000K). The color rendering is actually nearly identical, but there is something about the light that looks different, and the color tint is different on a white surface. The LED just seems slightly "harsh" in a way that is difficult to describe, harsher than the daylight that comes through my window. I do not know if it is just me, if I am extremely sensitive to these things, or whether there is indeed a subtle but significant difference in the light quality.

The blue tone from sunlight seems soft, the blue tone from LED light seems harsh. So not about "color temperature"

Anders Hoveland said:

The blue tone from sunlight seems soft, the blue tone from LED light seems harsh. So not about "color temperature"

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Must be that doggone pinkish tone.

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I thought they were pinkish not blueish?

Maybe its because sunlight it really bright and your eyes are adjusted? .... As opposed to a side by side unadapted comparison .....

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This topic is quite related to something I have been wondering about quite some time... someone above mentioned the possibility of abnormal color perception being unknowingly compensated for, and I can't help but wonder if this is the case for those of us who prefer colder CCTs than what is considered "normal".

I agree with your room-mate. Anything with a lower CCT than about 3500K gives me eye strain headaches, for even short exposure times. I have a 3900K DX Hg vapor HID lighting my office and I consider this to be too warm to be optimal; I'll be replacing it with a 4200K MH as soon as it arrives in the mail. In the bedroom I have a desk lamp with a 25W Incan that appears to be around 2700K and I just cannot stand using it. It even has a blue plastic shade on it that helps to raise the effective CCT, but it still is not enough to prevent the headaches. I only have that bulb in there because it is too small of fixture to accommodate a CFL and the misses refuses to let me put in anything with a higher lumen output.

I find 4200-6800K to be optimal and comfortable for all applications. >6800K is still OK to me for decorative or special applications as well (I have a 22000K MH decorative light).

Oddly enough Low Pressure Sodium light does NOT cause these headaches. It has to do more with red spectrum content I believe. Driving at night is often painful whenever I am behind someone at an intersection as the intensely bright red light from the brake lights instantly gives me shooting pain in my eyes.

Has anyone heard of any research or information relative to this subject/occurrence?