What Can You do with Halogen Lighting?

Halogen lighting gives longer lasting light without all the noise factor of the fluorescent light bulb. In the old days, you only had a few options for lighting; you were stuck with either incandescent bulbs or fluorescents. Each had their drawbacks, and there seemed to be no other option. Halogen lighting allowed for a brighter, cleaner light, drawing most of its light from the blue end of the light spectrum rather than from the yellow end.

Halogen lights, popular in certain styles of lamps, does have its own drawbacks including its extreme heat, which makes it a potential fire and burn hazard. The lights are also finicky about how they are handled. An inadvertent fingerprint while putting in a new bulb can cause it to overheat and blow rather quickly from the accumulated oils on the glass. There are a number of new safety guidelines that are meant to make the new generation of halogen lighting far better than the earlier models. These can include grills and other safety barriers. Great care should be used with halogen lighting, even with these safety features.

While they have some use inside of the home, halogen lighting has even greater applications outdoors used for automotive and watercraft lighting as well as for floodlights mounted outdoors. Because they are typically much brighter than other lights, halogen lights are often the light of choice for commercial applications, especially in areas where lighting becomes so much more important. One of the most famous of all commercial applications for halogen lighting has been in Times Square. Not only was the ball dropped during the New Year’s celebration created with halogen lighting, so were the numbers for the new year. That practice ended in 2009, however.

Another advantage of this type of lighting is the bulbs’ smaller size, which allows them to be used in a wider variety of applications. Other types of lights might be too big and bulky to achieve the light output of the same number of the smaller halogen bulbs. If handled and installed correctly, halogen lights can also be much longer lasting than traditional bulbs. In some cases, halogen lighting is only a matter of personal preference rather than any real advantage over other lighting choices.  Pros and cons should be carefully evaluated before choosing halogen lighting for your project, whether it is indoors or out.

Some styles of lights have hazardous materials inside of them making them a problem when disposal is necessary. Halogen lighting has no such issue and presents no environmental problems when they burn out or need to be replaced.