August 18, 2022
The best LED grow lights for indoor plants give precise control over your indoor plants. Speed up flowering time or customize your plant structure for better rooting and easier management by wirelessly adjusting your custom full-spectrum grow lights. These lights are closest to the dynamic properties of sunlight. The best LED grow lights for indoor plants, are designed for scientific or commercial applications that require precision.
The answer is a tricky one, as plants will always benefit from natural light over artificial. For most hobbyist growers, indoor lighting will not be enough to keep your plant as healthy as it would be outside. However, with the best equipment, it is possible.
The main problem with growing plants indoors is the cost involved. Buying the right lamps and bulbs that replicate the sun can get very costly.
Likewise, the amount of electricity needed to replicate the sun will be very high. Your electricity bill will also be astronomical.
The best use of indoor lighting is with plants that need a little bit of extra light. For example, countries in the extreme north or south of the planet can have very long winters in which the sun is hardly ever out. During this time extra light might be needed for a temperate house plant.
ECO Farm DBL5000 Full Spectrum LED Grow Light 480W
Features:
This ECO Farm LED grow light uses the most advanced design to effectively expand the light area. At the same time, the illumination is more uniform. This grow lamp makes the effective PPFD of our plant light improved, and it can also make the light more concentrated. No longer worry about heat dissipation even with high power. The grow light adopts aluminum cooling plate made of advanced small molecular material, plus a small heat sink for each chip to achieve excellent heat dissipation. All of these designs made heat efficient dissipation. No fan, no noise. The LED growth lamps have a low energy consumption and there are no problems with heat generation. So you can leave the lamp on for longer times. The plant lamp burns for up to 50,000 hours, 10 times longer than conventional light bulbs. Adequate energy consumption. This grow lamp is suitable for the indoor plant seedlings grown in a hydroponic greenhouse at your home or your office. It helps to accelerate the growth of different plants for all stages, such as succulents, tomatoes, peppers.
Spider Farmer SE5000 480W Full Spectrum LED Grow Light
Features:
This Spider Farmer LED grow light features a uniquely designed 6 extended LED strips that provide more even canopy coverage, especially on the outer edges of the growing area. With 1680 SAMSUNG LM301B diodes, the SE5000 Led Grow Light consumes 480 watts at 1333 umol/s, achieving an impressive PPE of 2.75 umol/J, covering a high yield full-cycle growth of 4'x4'. The full spectrum (380–410nm, 660–665nm, 730nm, 3200–4200K, 4800–5000K) is ideal for vegetable flowering to suit every stage of the plant cycle. The dimmer knob is ideal for growers to adjust the light intensity for different growth stages. The daisy chain feature allows you to connect up to 30 spider farm grow lights — dimming multiple lights at the same time.
Mars Hydro FC-E 4800 480W LED Grow Light
Features:
This MARS HYDRO LED grow light features 2646 BridgeLux diodes, market leading 2.8 µmol/J PPE, max yield/watt 2.5g, 480 watts, smaller footprint, better crop quality and more cost-effective. Built-in removable rod spacing and dimmable light allow precise dynamic PPFD control for each plant growth stage, the FC-E4800’s easy-to-install removable rod provides uniform, adjustable PPFD levels throughout the plant canopy, ideal for more uniformity density of buds. Detachable power supply can be remotely mounted on the side of a grow tent/shelf or on an adjacent wall to remove heat from the grow space; true aluminum radiator and 6 ultra-thin passive cooling strips (thinner and larger surfaces ) produces less heat and lowers electricity bills by 50% than HID lights!
Viparspectra KS5000 500W LED Grow Light
Features:
VIPARSPECTRA LED Grow Light uses market-leading Samsung LM301H diodes (3.10 μmol/J) and Osram 660nm diodes, more energy-efficient LEDs that increase crop yields and save operating costs. High-end components give the KS5000 incredible performance. The KS series is designed for individual or commercial growers who want to optimize their growing space for maximum crop yield while producing the highest quality crops. The KS5000 Dimmable Grow Light with Daisy Chain allows you to connect up to 100 KS5000 grow lights to your commercial grow, horizontal and vertical farming, greenhouse grow, pipe grow, hydroponics, 4x4 grow tent. A built-in dimmer allows you to dial in the perfect PPFD for your plants at all growth stages. The KS5000 features a detachable power supply that can be remotely mounted on the side of a rack or on an adjacent wall to dissipate heat from your grow space.
TotalGrow MH Lumyre 480W LED Grow Light
Features:
TotalGrow LED grow lights feature multiple high-intensity light strips in a slim profile and built-in power supply to distribute the ideal light intensity evenly across your growing area to meet your growing goals. Superior, customizable full spectrum supports efficient, high-quality growth of any life stage and crop variety. This plug-and-play solution with direct daisy chaining is easy to implement, has low up-front and ongoing costs, and sustainably produces high-quality crops. The efficacy of this LED grow light is as high as 2.8 μmol/J to meet the light intensity your plants need. Robust, reliable, ideally shaped design for ease of use and excellent uniformity.
Not all grow lights will yield the same outcome for your plants. Make a well-informed choice and consider the following:
Type of Light
One of the most important is the type of light to use. The latter impacts energy efficiency and effectiveness.
LED: This is the best option for growing plants. They produce no or minimal heat and are also known for their energy efficiency. They also contain fewer heavy metals compared to other types and have no electrical interference.
Fluorescent: It uses an electric current to activate mercury vapor. In turn, the light generates short-wave ultraviolet. Meanwhile, the photons collide with a phosphor coating, which is then responsible for producing light. However, it contains a toxic coating and is not long-lasting.
Incandescent: A traditional option for indoor lighting, this is no longer popular today. Incandescent lights have a wire filament that electric current heats. One of the problems with this lighting option is that it generates excessive heat.
Colors
The colors or spectrum affect the compatibility of the light to the plants, especially in terms of its growth stage. For the best results, we recommend picking one that generates a full spectrum. The combination of all colors will support the healthy growth of your plants.
Wattage
One of the most important technical specifications to look at is the wattage, which measures the amount of electricity the light uses at a specific point. The higher the wattage, the brighter the light. Meanwhile, the lower the wattage, the lesser power it consumes. Ideally, each light should have at least 20 watts.
Energy Efficiency
Lights for plants operate continuously or for an extended time. This makes it vital to pick one that has incredible energy efficiency, so you can save money on electricity. LEDs are great because they are known for their minimal power consumption while maintaining superb performance.
For best yields, you’ll also need the best soil for your plants.
When you are growing indoor plants, grow lights are one of the most critical elements of your entire indoor setup. They play an important role because the light that comes from them acts as a replacement to the natural light of the sun. However, this light, unlike the natural sunlight, can be controlled and manipulated based on your needs. This is why it is essential for you to make sure that your grow light remains in top condition and lasts you for a long time. Having a good performing grow light gives you a direct benefit when growing plants.
Here are some tips that you can follow to ensure that your grow light remains well-maintained for a long-term period.
Avoid Excessive Daisy Chaining
One of the biggest mistakes that people often tend to make while using grow lights is that they go overboard with daisy chaining, especially when using them in a larger setup. Generally speaking, it is not advised to daisy chain more than 3 grow lights together. For the fourth one, we recommend using a separate, dedicated, plug point instead of having it connected to the other three lights. Sometimes, daisy-chaining can cause an overload on the power source and can even lead to short circuits or fire-related damage, which are dangerous situations!
Ensure Proper Temperatures
Another thing that needs to be kept in mind is the temperature of the area that you are growing in. If you are growing in a hot place, we recommend you to make use of grow lights that emit very little heat (check out some 2022-build fanless LED grow lights for that). Besides the lights heating up, make sure you are using sufficient cooling mechanisms to keep the grow area cool because heat can often damage the lights and cause the circuits to melt — a damage that can take a long time to fix. If not treated in time, this can even result in damaging your plants as heat is bad for your plants as well. We recommend using air conditioning to ensure lower temperatures.
Keep Them Protected From Water
Just like you would with any other electronic item, make sure that your grow lights remain protected from water too. Water and electric devices don’t go together and water can be extremely damaging to them. Given that plants need a lot of water to grow, and nutrients are also provided to indoor plants along with the water, you will need to be extra careful that you don’t accidentally spill over any water on them. You can find a number of waterproof grow lights in the markets, which are considerably safer to use vs regular grow lights that don’t have any such security measure.
Keep Them Away From Dust
Dust is often the biggest enemy of most electronic items. The problem that dust causes is that it does not allow the heat to escape and can often damage (the often delicate) internal mechanics of the grow light. Dust traps heat inside the light and heat leads to a damage in the circuits. To ensure that your grow lights are remaining safe from dust, try cleaning them up with a brush from time to time, or just make sure you are using them in a dust-free environment. This is usually something that isn’t that big of a problem when you use grow tents, but if you are using lights outdoors, or in a grow room with open ventilation, you might have to watch out for dust. Make sure you’re cleaning your lights from time to time to avoid any dust-related damage.
Don’t Move Them Around Too Much
Grow lights, especially the modern-day panel-based variants, aren’t the most durable ones. You have to move them around very carefully to ensure that they do not bump into something or accidentally fall down. This is a general practice that applies to pretty much any piece of electronic item that you are working with, try not to bang it around too hard and it will work just fine.
Every grower wants the perfect solution for his beloved plants. It doesn’t matter if he grows one or more. In the end, the yield per square meter is what matters. For maximum yield, you must understand the growing requirements of your Grow tent and then purchase LED grow lights accordingly.
Here I must say that LED grow lights can solve your problem by producing the best light spectrum to control the temperature inside the grow tent. Therefore, only buy the one that fits best among the many Grow lights.
And, hopefully, I can help you identify the most important equipment for growing plants. I know you’ve found the best light for your grow tent!