Although it can be easy to feel how lighting enhances a space, it’s more challenging and nuanced to understand exactly how indoor and outdoor lighting, with the right fixtures positioned properly and automated elegantly, can transform a dull area into a stunning recreational space.
In order to best understand the value of good lighting, consumers need to experience it. This presents an excellent educational opportunity for most dealers to help consumers recognize the benefits of having systems professionally designed and installed.
Lighting is a relatively easy sell compared to other home tech offerings, the options are endless, and you can get in and out of jobs quickly, most times. But before you race to jump into your next outdoor lighting project, let’s take a step back and explore the current trends shaping the category. Innovation is the name of the game, so knowing what’s hot keeps your business ahead of the pack and your clients thrilled with the results.
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Stray off the Beaten Path — Fixtures Take Root in Unexpected Places
Pathway lighting, while necessary, is usually not the most creative or expressive application of outdoor lighting. Let’s think beyond the basics and extend our systems to other lesser-known spots in the yard to lend greater visual interest to the property. Outdoor fixtures come in all shapes and sizes, like linear tape lighting, so they can be discreetly applied to the underside of steps, tucked within the capstone of a handrail, and recessed into the eaves, for example. Lights resembling tiles can be laid within a driveway or recessed around a swimming pool.
Lean Into Modernism, Minimalism, and Simplicity
Understated fixtures that blend in — or even seem to disappear — are becoming the go-to choice for outdoor lighting, as are fixtures utilizing LED technology for greater efficiency and longer lifespan. Leveraging the timeless, sophisticated aesthetic of a simple, minimalistic form factor are fixtures designed to withstand inclement weather conditions. Durable and rugged, yet elegant and eye-catching, today’s trending fixtures combine style with substance.
Let Nature Take Its Course With Interchangeable, Sustainable Components
The landscape and topology you’re dealing with today will likely be much different a few years down the road. Trees and plantings grow, decks are added and expanded, and areas are cleared and resurfaced for new gardens — the outdoors is a living, breathing entity that morphs and evolves continuously. Therefore, outdoor lighting will need to be adjusted accordingly. This has inspired manufacturers to design fixtures with interchangeable parts — instead of removing an old fixture and replacing it with a new one, today’s trending fixtures can shift location easily and lenses can be swapped to create the now-desired effect.
Look Up for Inspiration
We tend to illuminate outdoor spaces at ground level. It’s certainly a good plan to accentuate paths and planting, but don’t forget about the areas above eye level. Lighting designers and landscapers often choose to get creative by placing light high up in certain trees and angling the fixtures downward to create an effect similar to moonlight. Sometimes, they may choose to place a few lights at the base of a tree shining upward to accentuate the textures, the bark of trees, and a canopy of leaves. When doing so, however, lighting designers should be mindful of light pollution and make sure that the lighting is focused and hits directly on the trees and surrounding foliage as much as possible to avoid lighting that shoots directly into the sky.
Raise the Temperature
Like in fashion, certain trends can veer into tacky territory and are best avoided. Keeping the color temperature of outdoor fixtures at a cool “moonlight” setting seems to be the go-to approach. On the surface it makes sense: Moonlight is beautiful, and it occurs naturally at night, so why not emulate the effect with outdoor lighting? Unfortunately, the comparison doesn’t translate. Artificial “moonlight” puts off a cold, harsh, bluish hue — good for security purposes but certainly not design-friendly. To evoke a warmer, subtle glow that’s way more pleasing to the eye, the color temperature of outdoor fixtures should be set at 2200–2700 Kelvin.
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Bright Ideas Stem From Intelligent Illumination
Consumers want lighting that looks and feels luxurious, not obnoxious, fueling a desire for greater control of the illumination. A simple on/off switch no longer does lighting justice. Dividing the layout into zones, creating custom lighting scenes, and automating the fixtures to dim and brighten under certain prescribed conditions elevate the whole experience. As outdoor light fixtures continue to evolve, so must the mode of operation.
It’s time to take outdoor lighting up a notch. Your clients are ready for it, and manufacturers offer a plethora of designs and technologies to support more beautiful, functional, and customizable outdoor illumination. Know the trends before you dig into the landscape to ensure a stylish, sustainable, and smart system that adds real value to a home and its occupants.
Margie Meyers is the product management leader for Lighting at Snap One. She joined Control4 in 2018 as a product manager of interaction devices. In 2020 she transitioned to working with lighting and lighting controls. She started her career as a mechanical engineer creating titanium hinges for Air Force satellites and as a consulting engineer at Apple she worked on the first iPad, the first haptic trackpad, and many generations of iPhones and MacBook Airs. At Snap One, Meyers drives product strategy for lighting, which includes light fixtures and all things color control. She is passionate about lighting and its ability to enhance homes and lives. She has a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA in marketing and strategy from Brigham Young University.
