Lighting planning - mixture of spots, strips, and lamps

Good evening,

we have taken a step forward with our construction project and had the planning done with the electrician. (=> )
He made us a proposal regarding lighting and ceiling spots. After many threads here in the house building forum, the opinion is that spots should rather be reduced and various (indirect) light sources should be used.

We tried to implement a mix of "normal" lamp outlets, LED spots, LED strips, and floor lamps.
Now we are considering whether the planning really makes sense and hope for your opinion and suggestions. Additionally, I am unsure about the number and illumination of the LED spots in the hallway and would appreciate your opinion here as well.

But now to the information:

For the spots and LED strips, the planning currently includes the following luminaires (not final yet):
Spots: CIVILIGHT HALED Downlight 10W 2700K-2100K DTW 600lm 36° 230V white
LED strips: LED Lichtfuge 25W per/m 2700K warm white, 2000lm/m & RGB LED light strip (I don’t have more information)

Basement - Hallway
Here, 4 spots were planned at a distance of 1.8m and one white LED strip above the built-in closet. The ceiling height in the basement is 2.39m (final measurement).
Due to the 36° beam angle and the fairly long hallway, we thought about using 5 spots to achieve more homogeneous illumination. Or maybe better to increase the beam angle of the spots? Also, according to Dialux calculation (without the LED strip!) I currently get about 90 lux for the hallway, which is relatively low, even for a hallway?

Ground Floor – Hallway
Here again, 4 spots were planned at a distance of 1.8m. The ceiling height on the ground floor is 2.50m (final measurement).
The question is whether the spots are sufficient and if 5 spots or a larger beam angle should be used for more homogeneous illumination. Or would the hallway then be too bright? Dialux currently shows about 115 lux on average.

Ground Floor – Living Room/Kitchen
On the back wall of the kitchen, 4 spots will be built into the niche under the tall cabinets to illuminate the work surface.
Above the kitchen island, we are planning 2 lamp outlets and want to accentuate the work surface there with a smaller beam angle.
Our electrician also suggested placing two spots between the island and back wall (dimmable) in case brighter light is needed sometimes.

In the dining area, we will only install one lamp outlet with a 3- or 4-arm lamp.

In the living room, indirect lighting is supposed to be used mainly. We are planning a floor lamp here (exact position still to be defined) and possibly decorative lighting on the lowboard. Our electrician also suggested three dimmable spots between the living room and dining room, which can be used dimmed either as "residual lighting" or walkway lighting towards the kitchen/hallway. Useful?

Upper Floor – Hallway
Above the stairwell opening, we want to place a lamp that shines into the stairwell downwards.
For the hallway, we have planned 3 spots (dimmable). The ceiling height on the upper floor is 2.65m (final measurement).
Would three combined up/down lights on the wall maybe produce nicer lighting or would that be too dark for the room?

Upper Floor – Bathroom
Multiple light sources will be used in the bathroom.
In the center of the room, there are three dimmable LED spots for general room lighting.
Directly above the washbasins, there is one LED spot each for illuminating the sinks (bright light if necessary or dimmed as singular bathroom lighting). On the wall, we plan to install a lighted mirror.
In the shower and WC, an LED strip with a warm white and an RGBW light band will be installed.

Here too, we wonder if this is sensible or if, instead of the spots, a second LED strip on the bathtub side would be better?

I somehow feel the brightness in the hallways is too low and the beam angle of the spots too narrow. We need to specify the exact positions for the concrete ceiling soon, so I am thankful for any comments. We look forward to your opinions and thank you very much for your support!

PS: I know a lighting plan would be the optimum at this point
PPS: I did not find the right LED spots in Dialux and used the next possible ones with 40° beam angle and similar values

Or maybe better to increase the beam angle of the spots?

Without going into all the details here: If you increase the beam angle, the brightness on the floor decreases, but you illuminate more floor area – in the case of 36 degrees and 2.50 m ceiling height around 1.60 m in diameter, so the 1.8 m distance is somewhat too little. Therefore, I would place the lights closer together, which automatically increases the number and thus the total luminous flux.

Otherwise, as always: There are other luminaires than spots, or more precisely: downlights, and the general problem I have with the cheaper representatives of this group: they are usually so weak that you have to install larger numbers of them to achieve a proper and reasonably uniform illumination. That is why I like to give the tip to look at higher quality models, which can then achieve 1000+ lumens per spotlight. Then the larger beam angle also makes sense. Just as an example: In a hallway at our place, recessed spotlights with almost 6000 lumens are installed (of course dimmable), where the arrangement then depends only on the illuminated area and not on the required luminous flux. For that, you would need ten pieces at your place, and the ceiling looks like it was hit with a shotgun. (A spotlight with half the power would have been enough for us too, but the principle remains the same.)

PPS: I did not find the correct LED spots in Dialux and used the next available ones with 40° beam angle and similar values

With the better manufacturers, you can find the photometric data for download to use exactly this lamp with its characteristics in Dialux.

I would also relate the brightness to age. When you are older, you need more brightness to perceive the same as a young person. We had a lighting plan made, coming from the old building everything was too bright for me at first. We only turned on a part. Five years later we need it.

LED area floodlight with 4000 lumens, dimmable, 3000K, that is completely sufficient as lighting

Without going into all the details here: If you increase the beam angle, the brightness on the floor decreases, but you illuminate more floor area – in the case of 36 degrees and 2.50 m ceiling height about 1.60 m in diameter, so that the 1.8 m distance is already somewhat too small. Therefore, I would place the fixtures closer together, which automatically increases the number and thus the total luminous flux.

Thank you for your feedback, I somehow also had the concern that the spots are too few or the light output too low.

That’s why I like to give the tip to look at higher-quality models, which can achieve 1000+ lumens per spotlight. Then the larger beam angle also makes sense. Just as an example: In a hallway at our place, recessed spotlights with nearly 6000 lumens are installed (of course dimmable), where the arrangement is then only determined by the illuminated area and not the required luminous flux.

Could you give me examples of high-quality spotlights or what you have installed? Then I’ll gladly take a look.

I would also relate brightness to age. When you get older, you need more brightness to perceive the same as a young person. We had a lighting plan done; coming from an old building, everything seemed too bright at first. We only turned on part of it. Five years later, we need it.

Thanks, that’s another good hint. That’s also why I think it’s currently too dark.

LED floodlights with 4000 lumens, dimmable, 3000K, that is completely sufficient as lighting

We actually wanted to go for flush-mounted solutions. I’ll see if there’s something comparable there.

Gladly more experiences and comments about our planning.

There are LED recessed spotlights from several manufacturers, but the more powerful models are usually quite large, which not everyone likes and can also be expensive to install (with concrete ceilings without suspension). If it should be very compact and rock-solid, feel free to check out Illuxtron. They easily deliver twice the amount of light in the standard size for [UP-Dosen] with selectable beam angle. With that performance, they absolutely have to be properly dimmable, otherwise you'll regularly need sunglasses. :D