When Should You Upgrade Your LED Lights?

Why it may be worth the switch from old to new LEDs.

If your lights are more than 5 years old, it may be time to consider an upgrade. The improvements in efficiency, design, and other technological aspects of LED lighting have been extreme over the past 10 years. Even around 4-5 years ago, everything was max 100 lm/W. Shortly, the baseline will be 200 lm/W. If you bought your LED lights in 2014 or earlier, it is certainly worth upgrading to newer LED options.

Why would it be worth it? Firstly, the luminous efficacy. The numbers we mentioned above (100 lm/W vs. 200 lm/W) directly affect your bottom line. Legacy LED lighting was efficient for its time but pales in comparison to options available today. For example, a cutting-edge high bay we offered in 2014 ran at 95 lm/W. Now, we offer high bay LED lights that run at 180 lm/W. That is nearly twice as efficient!

For a lumen-to-lumen comparison, let’s look at a legacy 240W LED High Bay. It had an output of 21,000 lumens, a luminous efficacy of 87 lm/W, and it cost over $500. Today, you can swap it out for a 150W LED High Bay, with a slightly brighter output of 22,000 lumens and a luminous efficacy of 150 lm/W. Best of all, it is priced at less than $100.

You may be wondering what those costs would look like for a whole building. Well, let’s say you have a warehouse and in 2014 you installed 50 high bays. Your annual energy costs would be around $4,150. Today, if you replaced those high bays with upgraded versions, your cost annually would be closer to $2,600. That means you would save over $1,500 each year!

In addition to the internal updates LEDs have received, they’ve also gotten some external upgrades. LED lights are sleeker, lower-profile, and much less bulky. Just take a look below at a 100W 2014 flood light compared to one of our newer commercial LED flood lights!

Another game-changing advancement LED lighting has seen in recent years is the inclusion of smart features. If you want control options like motion sensing, daylight harvesting, and other cost-reducing improvements, it might be time to upgrade to more modern lights. Since smart controls weren’t an option 10–or even 5–years ago, switching to control-ready or control-integrated fixtures will open up more opportunities for your lighting and help you get more out of your LEDs.

So, if you have LED lights in your building that are 5 years old or older, it might be time for a lighting upgrade! Get improved efficiency, lower monthly costs, more attractive fixtures, and a variety of modern features to improve your lighting experience. Upgrade with ELEDLights and you will have a super easy upgrade process thanks to our dedicated team. Plus, ask our team about cost-reducing rebates that could be available for your project or check for yourself using our automated rebate assistant.