ECO Farm ECOD Samsung UV+ IR 800W Dimmable LED Grow Light VS Spectrum King Phoenix 840W LED Grow Light
Which LED grow lights are best for indoor plants? LED grow lights are fast becoming a necessity for indoor plants, and they happen to be a must for most gardeners to keep their plants healthy.
There is no doubt that LED grow lights are highly efficient, not only do they illuminate your indoor plants, but they also offer you a low energy-efficient option compared to fluorescent and incandescent lights.
There are several reasons to choose LED grow lights, and there are many LED grow lights on the market today. However, you need to make sure you choose the right plants that are good for your houseplants.
LED grow lights are not only effective, but very effective. They can last up to 50,000 hours. Equipping indoor plants with LED grow lights is ideal, as most indoor plants are susceptible to pests and diseases. You also need to make sure your plants get enough light.
The plants you grow indoors will determine the type of LED grow lights you need. So, to make this easy and help you grow any type of plant in any situation, we’ve compiled some of the best LED grow lights.
The importance of grow lights
If you decide to start growing plants indoors, one of the major steps you need to take to complete the setup is getting the best LED grow lights. Indoor plants require different wavelengths of light for photosynthesis — the process by which the plant makes its own food. They use blue light to support growth and leaf formation and red light to support stems and flowering.
Outdoors, the sun provides these wavelengths at different times of the day to ensure continued crop growth. However, in an indoor setup, you have to manually provide light and wavelength changes. You can do this by using LED lights that simulate sunlight. Quality LED lights for grow pots contain many diodes that can be adjusted over time to provide blue and red light so your plants can grow as if they were outside.
ECO Farm ECOD Samsung UV+ IR 800W Dimmable LED Grow Light
Features:
This ECO Farm LED grow light adopts the top quality equivalent diodes, producing a 800W PPF output of 2019.6 μmol/s and a PAR efficacy of 2.8umol/J, ideal for home and vertical farm planting. This full spectrum grow light meets the lighting requirements of every stage during the plant’s growth cycle. It consists of 660nm of red light, IR, 3000K and 6500K of the white light spectrum, providing plants in all stages from veg to flower with everything they need in the natural sunlight.LED plant lights enable cultivators to produce density buds, the 8-bar configuration allows widely application in the home grow (grow box and grow tents), climate rooms, commercial growing (horizontal and vertical), greenhouse cultivation, vertical racks, hydroponics.
Spectrum King Phoenix 840W LED Grow Light
Features:
Spectrum King’s Phoenix 840W is ideal for photon-hungry crops that can handle strong light. With 16% less wall power than standard HPS fixtures, the 840 provides some decent output compared to other fixtures while still saving electricity and heat. Spectrum King’s custom spectrum is tested and customized to maximize plant and flowering cycle growth. The intensity of this dimmable light can be as low as 10%, enabling growers to simulate a sunrise/sunset effect. Spectrum King’s innovative Cryo-Therm cooling technology features an ultra-thin profile that maximizes airflow and minimizes microclimates. The Phoenix 840 grow light is optimized for single or multi-level planting close to the canopy.
What to Consider When Buying an LED Grow Light
So what should you look for when purchasing a grow light? In this section, we will discuss the various factors that lead to finding a good grow light. Some of the language in this section may be technical, so we will link to definitions for your convenience! Let’s take a look at the various factors you should consider when purchasing your next LED grow light.
Wattage
Wattage determines the potential energy available to plants. The “wattage” listed on the sales page of an LED light (or other type of grow light) refers to the watts that are drawn from your home outlet, but in reality that is not the amount that is emitted and arrives at the surface. Instead, look for a conversion rate, rated in micromoles per Joule (µmol/J). A good amount conversion rate is around 2.5µmol/J.
Now, something important to remember when we are talking about light is that light is subject to the laws of physics and all the strange, quirky reality that comes with it like the fact that light is both a wave and a particle simultaneously! Light arrives as a “photon,” which is essentially is the carrier of the electromagnetic force, and is the quantum form of all electromagnetic radiation, whether that be from the Sun or your grow light.
When light is delivered (falls or pours) to a surface, it arrives as a photon, or a packet of electromagnetic radiation, and we can measure this arrival to help us see how effective our grow lights are at covering a surface!
We measure the amount of photons that arrive in a given area through a term called the Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD for short), which is then mapped onto what we call a Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR) map. Big terms, but both of these are quite important for growers! Let’s take a look why that is.
Coverage Area
PPFD measures the number of photons that arrive in an area over a given amount of time. PPFD is measured in micromoles per square meter per second (µmol/m2/S). Usually, the higher the number the better.
A PAR map shows a comparison of PPFD spread across an area. One of these maps should be included with every grow light and they will look like the one below.
This PAR map is from the VIVOSUN VS4000. It says that the VS4000 was hung at 12 inches above the floor and covers a 5×5-foot space. In the center of this map, we can see the PPFD is very high, while near the edges the PPFD is much lower, which is to be expected as the light coverage is weaker. An analogous example would be shining a flashlight in the dark and noticing that the light looks weaker around the edges of the coverage.
Light Intensity
Since the height of the LED grow light determines the intensity of the light, you might be wondering how high you should hang your light. It’s a great question because it depends on the kind of light and the stage of growth your plant is in. Ideally, we want intense coverage over a large area, but this is only possible with very high-end equipment, so we need to find a balance between the two and a couple factors play into this: heat produced by the light, brightness, and stage of plant growth.
Light Spectrum
Light spectrum is a crucial factor for grow lights. In the most general sense, there are three categories of LED grow light spectrums available: targeted (meaning blue light or red light focused) and broad (meaning white light focused). These days the majority of LED systems are full spectrum. This is because full spectrum contains enough variation in light that allows it to cover the entire grow cycle of a plant and spectrums can be adjusted to match the current stage of growth. These tunable LEDs usually have a switch that says “Bloom/Veg” that allows you to emphasize coloration. Newer models can be programmed using controllers that can control schedules, light intensity, and spectral range.
Plants mainly utilize light that is within the visible spectrum or just outside of it. Therefore, grow lights aim to produce the exact coloration that plants desire — this allows for the most efficient use of electricity while having the best results.
We measure color wavelength in two ways: nanometers (nm) and Kelvin (K). Nanometers refers to the actual wavelength of the light, measured from peak to trough, while Kelvin refers to the “temperature” of the light.
Plants go through four main stages of growth: germination, when the seed sprouts its taproot and first shoot; seedling, before the seed grows its first set of true leaves; vegetative growth, when the plant has its first set of true leaves until it matures to being ready to flower and reproduce; and flowering, when the plant produces flowers for reproduction and is mature enough to spread its fertilized seeds.
Price
Price is the most crucial component in decision making for a new hobby. LEDs tend to be a little more expensive than HID or T5 systems but the cost saved in electricity over time is worth the initial startup. Let’s take a look at the price range for various types of LEDs — the price is a range because the larger the grow light, the more expensive it will be.
Conclusion
LED grow lights for plants are a relatively new phenomenon in the field of plants cultivation. Nonetheless, they continue to rapidly gain popularity due to their efficiency, low power usage, and ability to stay cool and generate high yields. When looking for LED lights for your interior setup, it’s best to consider factors like your pressure, space, and budget. That said, here are some of the best LED grow lights you can try.
