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There’s no worse feeling then when it’s a hot summers night and a buzzing fly is interrupting your sleep. This may have something to do with your night lights. Thankfully, a few lighting choices can help to prevent this.

What conditions do bugs actually like?

Light Colour

The main factor that attracts bugs is the colour of light. Bugs use the sun and moon light to navigate throughout the day. So, when they see artificial forms of lighting they presume that it does the same job. Thus, they get drawn to our lighting.

Studies show that warmer light temperatures are far better at reducing bug attraction than cooler. This is because bugs can only see short wavelengths of ultraviolet light. Since warm white barely emits light from this spectrum, it is not seen and so doesn’t appeal to bugs.

Temperature

Bugs find comfort in warmer areas much like we do as humans. LEDs only waste 5% of their energy as heat. This means that they don't provide a hot enough environment to entice insects.

Bugs would much rather gravitate towards a hotter bulb like a halogen as 95% of their energy converts into heat, which makes for more comfortable conditions.

Sound

The buzzing sound made by CFLs mimics the sound of flies. This means that both flies and their predators will head towards the bulb out of curiosity. This is a prime reason as to why so many bugs get spotted near typical bulbs.

LEDs however, are completely silent since they do not contain a filament. Therefore, they won’t generate any attention, making them undetectable to flies.

Indoor and Outdoor Recommendations

Indoor

As mentioned before, it is imperative that warm white gets used in places where you would like to avoid bugs at all costs (like the home). Our RetroLED Dimmable E27 4W LED Filament Pear Shaped Bulb Amber (Warm White 2700K) is perfect for these environments as it creates a cosy ambience whilst simultaneously keeping away insects.

Outdoor

For the outdoors the main goal is to be as invisible as possible to bugs. LEDs, as touched on previously, make no noise and produce low wavelengths of light. This is the best possible mix to repel bugs and so an outdoor LED like our Infinity 3.0 20W LED Floodlight is the most suitable in a garden area.

Contact Info

If you have any further questions feel free to give us a ring on 0116 321 4120 or send an email to cs@wled.co.uk. You can also follow us on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.