A Guide to Outdoor Lights

With our range of innovative new outdoor lights, illuminating the exterior of your home has never been easier.

Most of us spend countless hours ruminating on ways to improve the decor of our homes. From extravagant bathroom renovations to on-trend lighting options, there are many, many ways to improve the overall style of interior spaces. But what about your home’s external look?

Though rarely given much thought, the outside of your property is crucial in creating an attractive and welcoming first impression. Unfortunately, most alterations to your building’s facade (in the form of cladding, for example) can be costly and time-consuming.

That’s where outdoor lights come in.

Cost-effective and easy enough to install yourself, outdoor lights can massively enhance your home’s look while also providing practical lighting. Some outdoor lights even can even act as a deterrent to burglars!

With this in mind, we’ve put together a guide to outdoor lights covering all the different types to consider, with our most popular options recommended along the way.

• Types of Outdoor Lights
• Outdoor Wall Lights: An Effective Security Solution?
• 3 Reasons to Opt for LED Outdoor Lights

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Types of Outdoor Lights

Outdoor Wall Lights

By far the most popular outdoor lighting option, outdoor wall lights are simply used to provide the exterior of your home with practical and attractive lighting. Commonly implemented near doorways, outdoor wall lights can quickly make your home appear more inviting while providing crucial light. They’ll even help you get your key in the door during those dark winter months too.

This stunning stainless steel option is best suited to modern homes. Our range of outdoor wall lights features designs for traditionally styled homes too, so you’ll be sure to find something that suits your taste. A number of our outdoor wall lights even feature PIR sensors that work to activate your light whenever motion is detected (more on this later!).

Up and Down Lights

On first glance, you’d be forgiven for mistaking these innovative outdoor lights for outdoor wall lights. However, up and down lights have another trick up their sleeve. As you may have guessed from the title, they provide all of the practicality of outdoor wall lights yet with an additional uplight to throw illumination upwards, highlighting your home’s exterior walls.

Particularly effective in adding a crucial bit of warmth to taller homes, just a handful of up and down lights can make a huge difference without breaking the bank.

Garden Spike Spotlights

Pride yourself on your precisely pruned and magnificently mowed garden? Garden spike spotlights are a must. These outdoor lights provide elegant, unobtrusive lighting and are designed to be easily fixed securely into your turf.

This particular Revive spike spotlight is adjustable too, allowing you to alter the focus of your light depending on the occasion - perfect for keeping those summer parties going after dark!

Decking Lights

The ideal accompaniment for all dimly lit decks and patios, decking lights serve to create a cosy atmosphere in those social outdoor spaces. Decking lights are usually installed flush to the surface of your desired space, providing bright uplighting.

Modest yet highly practical, decking lights will add some subtle sophistication to the exterior of almost any home at night without diminishing a garden’s look during the day.

Driveway Lights & Bollard Lights

Even for the most accomplished of drivers, tight driveways combined with poor lighting can be a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, there are a few outdoor lighting solutions for this too. Choose from driveway lights or tall bollard lights that work to safely guide you up your driveway.

This Revive bollard light is a great tool for can illuminating any problematic driveways and paths. It even boasts an IP65 water resistance rating - so you can rest assured it will withstand the elements.

Outdoor LED Strip Lights

Already massively on-trend for interiors, LED strip lights have now started appearing as outdoor lights. These LED rolls offer a lot of flexibility in that they come in a range of colours and lengths to suit almost any home. Use them to highlight favourite aspects of your home’s exterior or add them to decking and patios for a vivid alternate look.

The Endon Enluce is a stellar LED outdoor light, particularly effective when used to accentuate decking. Available in three different colour options and features an impressive IP67 weather resistance rating.

Outdoor Wall Lights: An Effective Security Solution?

Whether you’re extremely security-conscious or just want an extra little bit of assurance, outdoor wall lights could be key.

Yes, you read that correctly. Certain outdoor wall lights can work to deter potential burglars! As mentioned earlier, some of our lights feature intuitive PIR sensors that instantly switch on the light upon the detection of any motion.

Burglars often work under the cover of darkness and so a blast of light could be just enough to startle a prospective criminal, with the unwanted attention making them think twice before acting.

We suggest installing PIR sensor outdoor wall lights at every entry point of your home to act as the first line of defence against any unwanted guests. Already equipped your property with cameras after an incident? A PIR sensor light could greatly improve your chances of catching well-lit photos of thieves in the act.

3 Reasons to Opt for LED Outdoor Lights

Whether installing outdoor lights for the first time or just upgrading from halogen or incandescent lighting, LED outdoor lights should be your top choice for several reasons:

1. Energy Saving

When compared with older incandescent and halogen bulbs, LED outdoor lights can use up to 80% less energy. This makes them great for both the eco-conscious and those shrewd penny-pinchers looking to cut their electricity bills.

2. Longer Lasting Bulbs

Another important factor to consider when choosing outdoor lights is their longevity. While LED outdoor lights may cost a little more outright, they could save you big money in the long run due to their impressive life spans. With the average LED expected to work for around 50,000 hours, you could get upwards of 15 years use before having to replace them.

3. Instantly Bright

Not to be confused with those outdated energy-saving bulbs of the past (you know, the ones that took 10 mins to brighten up?), modern outdoor LED lights are instantly bright the second that they are turned on. This is extremely useful if you're installing your lights for security purposes, or if you require instant light at your doorway to help find your keys.

Found our beginners guide to outdoor lights helpful? You can explore our entire outdoor lighting range here.

P.S. check out our series of lighting blogs for even more inspiration:

How to Enhance Your Home with Stunning Ceiling Lights
On-trend Lighting Options for Every Room of Your Home