A well designed room creates ambiance and soothes away the rough edges of the psyche. Lighting is the canvas of any space, setting tone and painting hue across every design element. It deserves to be treated with respect. Too many consider their lighting only after they’ve finalized their design or chosen decor, but it should be an integral part of the architecture.

Virtual Design

Virtual 3D renderings flesh out designs and test every aspect of the space. They can present your lighting choices with a surprising degree of accuracy and make it possible for you to design your fixtures before you even install your floor treatments.

Form and Function

Glare can make dim portions of your space seem darker, so ambient lighting should cover the entire space evenly. Layering allows you to highlight important features, and when it works well with your ambient lighting, accents won’t detract from dark corners. Safety and security features should also be worked into lighting design.

Smart Lighting

Lighting systems and motion detectors keep your space secure while adapting it to different times of day.

Light Fittings

Cheap light sources tend to create blue-toned glare, so choose high quality systems that let you adjust temperature and color throughout the day. You can achieve a halogen effect with warm LEDs without glare.

Creating Emphasis

Lighting must achieve enough contrast to emphasize important design features and hazards. A well layered room has task, accent, and ambient lighting. It draws the eye across the room without creating clutter.

Interested in lighting design for your home? Check out Premier Lighting or visit one of our showrooms in Scottsdale and Tuscon. Lighting is one of the core design and build elements in any space. Don’t treat it as an afterthought.

Vintage lighting needn’t come at the expense of high utility bills. They can be rewired and restored like the art works they are. Even if your idea of “vintage” is more industrial than Victorian, a custom restoration job will add vibrancy to your home.

What Can Restoration Achieve?

Restoration involves refinishing and repair work as well as engineering and wiring. Even if your fixtures are catastrophically damaged, a skilled restoration artist will repine and repair crystal chandeliers and lacquer or sandblast finishes to bring out their youthfulness without removing that valuable patina. An excellent restorer will even repair silver plating and gold leafing. Restoration involves safety testing, too, so keeping an antique light poses no additional risk.

While there is always the option of recreating a vintage look through replication, custom engineering will lend your home that historic ambiance. Specialized tasks such as hand-blowing glass will naturally require a restoration artist who loves fixtures back to life.

New Light Source Upgrades

Upgrading bulbs is as important as aesthetic restoration. Your restorer’s choice of globe is as important as his aesthetic work since the hue and brightness of the light influences the attractiveness of the fixture. Fluorescents and halogens are no longer needed to achieve warmth, so you can enjoy vintage with contemporary energy efficiency. New generation LEDs are tiny, so they’re frequently preferred for restoration. That said, they’re sensitive to heat, so older technologies are sometimes better.

Restoring antiques affects your return on investment as much as it does your decor. When you restore the look, you frequently restore its value, which can have dramatic results on your property’s resale price.

Interested in elegant lighting design for your home? The experts at Premier Lighting can illuminate you.

If you spend any time hunting for lighting solutions, you will have heard plenty of chatter about LED’s temperature challenges. When LED bulbs first hit the marketplace, they were severely limited to cool colors, which meant if you wanted a natural aesthetic, you had to choose a halogen bulb. Over the last five years, LED has evolved to achieve such an incredible range of temperatures that halogen has become all but extinct in new buildings.

Understanding the Basics

Even white light can have different temperatures, so regardless of how creative you become with your colors, you need to get a feel for different kelvins. Halogens have a temperature of about 2700K, while daylight usually has a temperature of about 6500K, which is much cooler.

Blue Light

Light that’s over 4600K is invigorating and crisp, but it is certainly not blue, only cool. Kelvin measures the perceived warmth of light, but nanometers measure precise wavelengths. This measurement is responsible for the vibrant indigo, green, and amber you might see in city-scapes. In contrast, kelvins indicate the temperature of white light. If you’re looking for dramatic hues, you’re seeking more saturation, and not necessarily more kelvins.

Why it Matters

Kelvins will change the way your room or building’s palette appears at night. You can choose lower values if you want to accentuate the blue or green in your décor. If you need the room to gain warmth by night, a 2500K light will contribute well. A 5000K provides more accuracy and thus makes excellent task and commercial lighting. The latter can lack ambiance.

The lighting industry has evolved dramatically enough to offer a huge range of LED temperatures, even in the same device, so playing with saturation, hue, and kelvins gives you enough precision to achieve your goals.

Does your home’s lighting need an upgrade? Visit Premier Lighting to find lighting fixtures for all your indoor, outdoor, and specialty needs.

Google Home and similar digital assistants (such as Amazon Alexa) have the ability to control a wide range of appliances and devices. This includes lights, as long as the light bulb or the light fixture has a Wi-Fi connection. These specialized devices can communicate back and forth between Google Home and the light.

How it Works

Before Google Home is able to tell a light to turn off or on, it first needs to know the light is there. To do this, a partnering application must be installed onto a phone or tablet. The partnering app is specific to the brand of light bulb used (such as Philips Hue). Once the application is installed, it will detect the bulbs in the house. It will then search for any active digital assistants. When Google Home is detected, the application will ask if you want to pair the two together (similar to a Bluetooth pairing). After you select yes, the bulb and assistant will connect.

Using Google Home

Some lighting systems allow you to assign each bulb or fixture to a room. This way, you can tell Google Home which rooms you want lit. These options are available in the partnering app.

Now that everything is configured and set up through the partnering application, all that needs to be done is tell Google Home to turn the lights on or off. Google Home responds to “OK Google.” This tells the assistant to prepare for a command. Following the prep command you need to say “turn on lights” or whatever custom commands you configured with the app.
Whatever your light needs entail, Premier Lighting has the product for you.

Full spectrum light is the new darling of the lighting industry. Intended to mimic natural daylight, it’s said to emit ultraviolet radiation, help plants to grow, and improve vitamin D levels. The marketplace is heaving with pseudoscientific claims, but also some impressive benefits:

Full Spectrum Light Improves Sleep: Myth

The Lighting Research Center discovered many benefits for full spectrum sources, but sleep quality wasn’t one of them. This kind of light source can boost productivity and mental awareness. It can even boost retail sales, but results for insomnia weren’t quite what some marketers might have hoped for.

Full Spectrum Fluorescent Lamps Can Provide Enough UV Radiation: Myth

Full spectrum lamps don’t quite emit enough UV light to impact health. Their UVB intensity will only provide the equivalent of one minute of natural sunlight every eight hours.

Brightness Affects Plant Growth: Fact
If you’re using grow lights to aid your indoor plants, don’t look at lumens. Plants require the kind of light that the human eye cannot pick up. Since LEDs produce a little heat, they should be placed a safe distance from your plants to avoid photoinhibition.

Full Spectrum Sources Improve Alertness: Partially True

If you want your light to make you feel more focused and alert, you need a blue white LED, which will suppress melatonin and might improve circadian rhythms. Since there are a huge array of approaches to full spectrum light sources, there is no easy way to establish efficacy beyond that short wavelengths are needed during the day.

Full spectrum light sources provide a positive association with daylight, which can be good for psychological well-being. They also reflect color faithfully, which makes them superb task lights. Of course, your reduced utility bills will lighten your mood and wallet, too.

When it comes to lighting your home, leave the design in Premier Lighting’s expert hands. Visit our site or check out our show rooms in the valley.

Thomas Edison might not have invented the first electric light bulb, but he probably invented modern scientific ambition. He spent as much time at the patent office and national newspaper as he did in his laboratory, which is why, when you think of the light bulb, its true inventor doesn’t pop into your head. The light bulb resulted from almost a century of trial and error by scientists who weren’t as invested in their public image as Edison was. He even had a snappy name for his laboratory: The Invention Factory.

Like any aspiring celebrity scientist, he also had a professional enemy: Tesla.

Edison’s Failure

When Edison began his grand project of installing electric lights in every rich household, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse had just invented AC (alternating current) power. Edison’s light relied on DC (direct current) power, so his “eureka!” came with a significant drawback: after working so hard to corner the market, Tesla snatched it from right under his nose with an improved way to deliver electricity.

General Electric

Edison’s project needed a banner, so he started a company so iconic that it’s a household name over a hundred years later: It’s now called General Electric. With the advent of AC power, Edison was swiftly fired from his own business, but not before going to war with Tesla over the violation of his patents. Edison was nothing if not a marketing mogul, so he did his fair share of insulting his rival product, publicizing the grisly deaths caused by AC electrocutions. Even this wasn’t enough to win the lucrative market his lightbulb had created.

Tesla walked away with most of the proceeds and a reputation as The Wizard of Electricity, but Edison changed the world. He probably would have preferred to remain on top of the world he changed, but invention demands constant investment in new research and development.

Premier Lighting appreciates the history of light and innovates its design for the future. Contact our experts today and revamp your home’s lights tomorrow.

If your version of the invention of the light bulb features one excited “eureka” and an equally thrilled Thomas Edison, you’re wrong. The electric streetlight existed long before Edison’s globe. There were several alternatives to the gaslight in those days, but their inventors weren’t as gifted at self-promotion as Edison was.

Alessandro Volta invented the first electric light: a glowing copper lamp that conducted electricity with salt water, cardboard, and zinc. Invention is rarely a solitary enterprise. It evolves through the discoveries of generations of innovators. The second person to contribute to the light bulb’s development was Humphrey Davy, who used charcoal electrodes to build an arc lamp. Joseph Swan substituted paper filaments with platinum, but his bulb wasn’t economical enough to hit retail shelves.

Edison’s Eureka

In 1874, Edison bought a patent for a carbon rod electric lamp from Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans. He hired a team of researchers and began testing thousands of bulbs until he finally arrived at a design that was safe, lasting and economical enough to sell. Unlike his predecessors, Edison spoke to the New York Times about his invention, and so a legend was born.

The Patent King

Edison accumulated 1,093 patents in his lifetime. Whether he was better at publicity or invention, his bulb was a crucial point in the industrial revolution. Factory owners learned that they could stretch their investment further if they could keep their production line moving 24 hours a day. This massive acceleration in production birthed the contemporary consumer economy.

The light bulb has never stopped evolving. LED lamps are the most innovative modern versions, with hues and luminosities that are constantly being improved upon. Edison may not have invented the first electric light, but he certainly inspired the first century of its advancement.
Premier Lighting has taken the patents and inventions of those before us and perfected them for your benefit. Contact us today to begin on your home’s new lighting design.

Lighting’s journey from inefficient halogen to earth-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and light emitting diodes (LED) has not been a simple one. When LED bulbs were first released, their limitations made them too rudimentary a solution for ambitious designs. Years of innovation have passed since then, so the question of whether CFL or LED is best has become a little more complicated to answer.

LED: A Lasting Solution

LED lights have an incredible lifespan, but a higher upfront cost. They now give designers far more exciting effects and colors than CFLs can manage, but they are directional by design. Even LED floodlights have some degree of directionality, so they make poor ambient lights unless they have diffusers. When layering lighting, new LED innovations are better than CFLs at diffusing color. They can be dimmed and tend to generate less noise. They burn coolly at 75% fewer watts than halogen.

CFL: The Easy Option

CFLs resemble the look of halogen because they diffuse light naturally and can be fitted into standard light sockets. This means if you’re upgrading from halogen and want to save pennies, CFL stretches your money further in the short term. For this reason, 100 million of them were sold in the USA alone in 2009. This kind of bulb is incredibly subtle, but it contains mercury, so it’s somewhat more challenging to dispose of. CFLs can’t be thrown away with last night’s leftovers. They should be recycled, which might come with an extra charge. Some retailers will recycle used bulbs safely for free.

Comparing CFLs and LEDs is like comparing oranges and apples. Depending on your home, they might function best as a team, with CFLs handling ambient and natural lighting and LEDs taking over floodlights, task lamps, and colorful accents.
Need help picking which one’s best for your home? The experts at Premier Lighting can help.

When most people think of LED bulbs, they automatically think of a longer-lasting, more efficient bulb. While this is true, LED technology introduces some drawbacks that have to be noted.

Each year, bright city lights impact the environment in many ways that remain unseen by the average person. Today, energy-efficient bulbs are playing a rather significant role in the disruption of ecological cycles. Of course, all of this has to be weighed against the benefits of using LED technology to mitigate climate change, which certainly disrupts ecological systems itself.

The Impact of Artificial Light

Since 2012, the total artificial light on Earth has brightened the planet 2.2 percent every year. The most notable changes occurred in Asia, Africa, and South America.

This increased light is putting large amounts of stress on plants, animals, and even humans, disrupting ecological cycles. Currently, this excess light disrupts:

• Reproduction patterns
• Night habits (sleeping, hunting, mating, etc.)
• Migration patterns
• Biodiversity

The fact is, the artificial light doesn’t just affect one or two species. It includes many different species including bats, birds, fish, amphibians, insects and others.

Light Color Impact

As infrastructure increases globally, we introduce artificial lighting to a larger and larger area. Developing countries chose LED lighting as a long-term, more sustainable lighting solution. However, a huge problem with first generation LEDs is their color. Making the switch from sodium lights that are orange-yellow in color, to the higher powered, bluish-white LEDs worsens light pollution. Blue light can scatter farther into the sky, which makes it more dangerous to both mammals and insects.

Additionally, this change in bulb color means that most studies are underestimating the emission of artificial light in areas that are lit by LEDs. Currently, the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer) satellite sensor being used only detects light in 500 to 900 nanometer bands, meaning it can’t “see” blue light and takes place at wavelengths under 500nm.

What’s the Solution to LED Light Pollution?

Manufacturers have released warmer colored LED street lights that decrease light pollution and its ill effects. Low-income regions that invested significantly in high intensity LED lighting now face the question of how to pay for replacing them with newer, warmer colored LED lights. Changing to the newer technology and choosing the warmer lights in new construction projects will slow the trend toward increased light pollution. Smart lighting with timers, motion sensors, and different light settings can further reduce excessive glare from our modern, well-lit world. At Premier Lighting, we’re dedicated to innovative lighting designs.

With it now being summer we know you and your friends and families are spending more time outdoors. From swimming in the pool, family BBQ, or just having a little get together, having the perfect lighting can make the experience that much better.  Lighting in any of your outdoor areas can set the mood just right on these summer nights. With so many to choose from here are a few lights for any style.

RUSTIC

This light is perfect for the outdoor types. With everyone’s busy lifestyles it might be hard to get the whole family to go on an outdoor excursion. No need! This light brings that look and feel to you.

NAUTICAL

The beach is a common get way for most in the summer time. With the relaxing feel of a beach house on everyone’s mind, why not bring it to you! This light is perfect for transforming your outdoor space to just that.

MODERN

This light is perfect for a modern home. Its sleek futuristic design it will be the topping to the cake to your outdoor soiree.