Are you looking to bring a little sunshine indoors?

Maybe it’s time to start your flower and vegetable seedlings.

Perhaps your houseplants are drooping during the short days of winter, or sulking in a new home.

Or maybe you simply want to enjoy the taste of your own fresh herbs year round.

Whatever your need, grow lights can instantly provide hours of mock sunshine that your plants need for vigorous, healthy development.

They can provide any color spectrum required for every stage of growth and are easy to set up. The lamps run cool to the touch, are low wattage, energy efficient, and have long lives.

This also makes them economical. And by starting your own seedlings, you’ll quickly recover the cost with fewer trips to your local nursery!

But they do come in a huge array of shapes, sizes, and configurations.

To simplify matters, we looked for units from reliable brands that are well-designed, easy to set up and use, and provide effective coverage — and collected a few recommendations from our own writers, of course!

What Makes LED Grow Lights Good?

LEDs, short for light-emitting diodes, have been the industry’s standard when it comes to indoor growing. Many growers strayed and disregarded the use of traditional Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), High-Intensity Discharge (HIDs), and High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights to pave the way for LED.

But what makes an LED grow light good? The Best LED grow light, whether a single light or a multi-light fixture, will be able to capture everything you’re looking for with minimal power consumption.

NOTE: A cheap LED grow light is not the answer. Make sure that the LED grow light you are purchasing addresses everything you need for the best and maximized plant growth.

Materials Used
Of course, quality components last longer and operate more efficiently than those that are not. Examining and checking the materials used for the components of the grow light is one of the things you need to factor in and consider.

Most of the time, the fixtures of these grow lights will be made of aluminum. Be cautious, though, because there are brands that claim their products to be aluminum, but upon closer and more thorough inspection, it is far from aluminum.

Brand Reputation
A lot of people miss out on the brand when actually, it is one of the most relevant factors involving your option of choosing high-quality grow lights.

The market is filled with a ton of different options to choose from, and make sure that the manufacturer/supplier you’re going to choose is reputable, dependable, and known in the industry as a brand that’s capable of giving you everything you need.

Below, I’ll be giving you a glimpse of some brands that have built up reputations even though their products are cheap and inexpensive. Of course, I will also give you some type of idea on the best and prime brands in this industry.

Electricity and Energy Consumption
In order to achieve maximum quality for your plants, your LED lights will have to be turned on for about 10 to 12 hours per day — in some cases, even more. Over time, the light cycles will be juggling, and for that, the thing you need to worry about would be your electric bills.

Try finding a grow light where it displays the actual power draw for you to calculate the electricity bill moving forward easily.

Mammoth Lighting Fold Series MF08 LED Grow Light

Features:

The Mammoth LED grow lights are built with high-quality Samsung diodes. The lights encompass a continuous range of wavelength from blue and green to red, creating a light blend matching the natural sunlight. 469 Samsung LM301B diodes per bar delivers the industry’s Highest PPFD and Yield. Mammoth customized their light spectrum to optimize plant growth and increase yields while consuming less energy and reducing operating costs compared with traditional horticulture technologies. With a proprietary blend of 3000k+5000k+660nm+730nm, for full cycle growth. 730nm speeds up flower (~5 days) and adds up to 5% more yield.

RayonLED GLMF-720W FOLDABLE LED Grow Light

Features:

With its impressive expertise in LED technology, this medical-grade device has everything to appeal to hobby and commercial growers. The RayonLed grow light is designed to replace and surpass the results of 1000W HID fixtures. What’s more, the fixture has a dedicated UV-IR strip that can be controlled independently. From spectrum to certification, it’s engineered to compete with the top grow lights on the market. Passively cooled light bars provide full spectrum, broad coverage light for long-term growth. High output 1944 µmols PAR! and an impressive efficacy of 2.7 µmol/s per watt. The unit features UV and far-red light strips to provide the most complete spectrum on the market today! IP65 certification allows lights to function and last in even the wettest grow rooms

Things to consider

The main things to look for when buying your own led grow system are:

Lumens: lumens is a measure of brightness of the light. the higher the lumens the brighter the light, the better result you might get.

Kelvin: Kelvin refers to the type of light produced or the color temperature (you want to mimic daylight) the higher the kelvin the better.

Watts: Watts is a measurement of the electricity used

LED grow light should be operating for at least 10–12 hours a day.

Starting seeds or growing vegetables you will need a grow light which is powerful enough to cover the grow area where your plants or seedlings are going to be. The area may differ depending upon the size of your grow station.

Conclusion

Grow lights are not all created equal. Everyone can find strengths and weaknesses. What buyers want and expect from grow lights is entirely up to them.

It is possible to spend a lot of money on a high-end grow light with all these great properties. Or, if you’re just starting out with indoor plants, a low-cost grow light will do the trick.

So, which grow light do you choose for your indoor plants? Let us know in the comments if we missed one! Let us know what you think in the space provided here.