Number of required spots (Halox) and which ones?

Thanks for the many replies!

I sat down last night and looked through recommendations. They pointed to 100-150 lm/m². For the kitchen 250-300 lm/m². I then calculated that with the respective square meters and divided again by 400 lm (as an example) per LED.

The kitchen island will now also get pendant lights, as the LEDs on the ceiling there might be inadequate for cooking.

If you work exclusively with recessed spotlights, I would go to a lighting planner. They can simulate that. Costs about 500-700 euros, depending on the size of the property. You’ll regret it hugely if you forget something here or if the ceiling ends up looking like someone shot it with an MG.

It seems there isn’t a lighting planner around here or nearby; it’s not about the money anyway. I have to find a solution without a lighting planner.

It is important that you decide in advance which recessed spotlights – presumably not spots but ones for even illumination – you want to use, because that determines where and how many installation boxes you should provide. If you take the simple recessed frames with GU10 bulbs, there tend to be (considerably) more than with high-quality models, as the latter simply have more power.

Just as a guideline: We have – for a similar area for living/dining – four above the dining table and four above the sofa/coffee table, which can each be switched in groups of two spotlights. At the lowest dimming level, you have a pleasant basic illumination; at full power, it is dazzlingly bright. I would probably also provide three in the hallway and one each in the cloakroom and the toilet. For the kitchen, we did not use recessed spotlights so that the light source sits lower and can also be better directed. However, there are overall eight lights plus under-cabinet lights on the wall cabinets.

If you have no plan at all and no desire to at least get a little into the subject (luminous flux, brightness, beam angle, ceiling height, visual planning, ...), going to a lighting planner might make sense.

Oh, right, I always talked about spots, but that might be an important point. Which recessed spotlights do you have installed? I do want to get into the subject, but you just read so many contradictory things...

Hello MS-t-89

Are you getting a prefabricated ceiling or in-situ concrete? For larger rooms, like the living room, I would always distribute the lighting over 3 switches. Let’s say 6 each evenly on the longer side. Then you have 12 in total. Plus 2 each on the narrow side. 16 in total. You switch them on over each other. In the middle another row, separately switched. I have 3 more in front of the window, again controlled by a separate switch. They are equipped with 3 watt slightly bluish light. This is pleasant when watching TV. One can vary endlessly here.

Steven

For the ceiling of the ground floor, no prefabricated ceiling. Basement yes, but there we said normal ceiling lights suffice. Regarding switches, this will later be controlled anyway with KNX. We have planned different circuits, which I want to control via MDT glass switches. And if I separate them upfront, I can later control them together via KNX but remain more flexible. Thanks again for the hint.

The question for me is whether you want a basic lighting like with normal ceiling lamps and/or accent lighting which is usually installed 20-30 cm in front of the wall.

Basic lighting, no indirect lighting or such. There will be a floor lamp, but only as "decoration."

Hopefully it is now clear how important it is to define the fixtures. If I calculated Steven’s correctly, that is 21 spotlights for the living/dining area. That would be simply overkill for our model – and massively so.

Another point: recessed ceiling spotlights are probably only intended for basic lighting. This is then supplemented by accent lighting (floor lamp, wall lamp, ...). Keep that in mind in your planning.

I also find 21 spotlights quite a lot.

If you are planning with the GU10 China sockets and corresponding lamps, that could definitely work. Our lights are from Illuxtron. Even the 75 mm versions achieve around 1200 lumens each, so they replace three lights with 400 lumens (and also offer corresponding beam angles). Additionally, there are various dimmable versions available, so you can perfectly integrate them into a KNX system.

Exactly for this reason I started the thread here, now I already have something new I can plan with. I assume they also fit accordingly into the Halox enclosures? I'll just expand my Excel sheet

The HaloX housings come in different diameters (18 cm is probably standard) and are initially completely sealed with a lid, which is then plastered over. Afterwards, a suitable hole is drilled (matching the recessed spotlight), so that anything from zero up to about 16 cm in diameter can be used. Depending on which variant you choose, however, I would have all the boxes installed with a tunnel - for the LED driver -.

We have distributed 83 Halox 250 units across three floors. For example, the living room has 6 units. Google LED recessed panels. Ours have a diameter of about 20cm and a light output of approximately 1000 lumens. There are dimmable and non-dimmable versions. In the kitchen, we have smaller ones with less power but slightly more in number.

... LED recessed panels. .

Do recessed panels bring you that much more aesthetics than the ultra-flat normal LED panels? For the recessed panels you need expensive HaloX boxes in the ceiling (min. €60 each) and additionally the LED panels, which also protrude a few millimeters. However, the surface-mounted versions are only max. 20mm thick with almost the same look, but overall significantly cheaper. Or am I missing another advantage of the recessed version?