Has anyone here looked into metal halide lamps? They seem to be cheap, similarly efficient as LEDs, and since they are available in basically arbitrary brightness they solve the problem that it’s really hard to find space for all these fixtures for LEDs. I’m moving in a few months and I’m currently planning to outfit my new place with at least 1–2 of them in addition to LED, so any advice is welcome.
Did you end up using metal halide fittings? If yes, how did that go?
After recent research finding Opsin-5 present in multiple tissues, sensitive to ≈380nm, I’m considering options that have different emission spectra from typical LED lighting to potentially shore up gaps.
I did try it. It is extremely hard to find fixtures for these bulbs. You can find studio / stage lights for extreme prices, or you can find outdoor lights for facade illumination for cheap (-ish). The latter are not all that nice to set up indoors, and the one I had used a cheap current converter which caused the light to flicker.
I was very happy with the actual light quality and with the space efficiency of the lamp, but lack of consumer market really screws you over here. The same used to be true for bright LEDs, which were only available as plant lights or industrial lights, and also flicker and have bad CRI, but I see way more improvements with LED lighting for consumer use than I see with metal halide.
I’m running a GE Lighting 17259 ceramic metal halide bulb in a HANG-A-LIGHT brand fixture now, either alone or in addition to a string light with dicuno high CRI LEDs.
There’s something nice about the harsh shadows from the closer-to-point source arc than a string or large COB LED, feels a bit like I have a star in a bottle.
Sadly no superpowers or major life changes attributable to it. I think it might be slightly more effective at promoting wakefulness than my previous LED only setup but I haven’t done any proper empiricism here and have no way to distinguish whether that’s related to the spectrum or just MORE DAKKA.
Has anyone here looked into metal halide lamps? They seem to be cheap, similarly efficient as LEDs, and since they are available in basically arbitrary brightness they solve the problem that it’s really hard to find space for all these fixtures for LEDs. I’m moving in a few months and I’m currently planning to outfit my new place with at least 1–2 of them in addition to LED, so any advice is welcome.
Did you end up using metal halide fittings? If yes, how did that go?
After recent research finding Opsin-5 present in multiple tissues, sensitive to ≈380nm, I’m considering options that have different emission spectra from typical LED lighting to potentially shore up gaps.
I did try it. It is extremely hard to find fixtures for these bulbs. You can find studio / stage lights for extreme prices, or you can find outdoor lights for facade illumination for cheap (-ish). The latter are not all that nice to set up indoors, and the one I had used a cheap current converter which caused the light to flicker.
I was very happy with the actual light quality and with the space efficiency of the lamp, but lack of consumer market really screws you over here. The same used to be true for bright LEDs, which were only available as plant lights or industrial lights, and also flicker and have bad CRI, but I see way more improvements with LED lighting for consumer use than I see with metal halide.
Thanks for sharing.
I’m running a GE Lighting 17259 ceramic metal halide bulb in a HANG-A-LIGHT brand fixture now, either alone or in addition to a string light with dicuno high CRI LEDs.
There’s something nice about the harsh shadows from the closer-to-point source arc than a string or large COB LED, feels a bit like I have a star in a bottle.
Sadly no superpowers or major life changes attributable to it. I think it might be slightly more effective at promoting wakefulness than my previous LED only setup but I haven’t done any proper empiricism here and have no way to distinguish whether that’s related to the spectrum or just MORE DAKKA.