Introduction:
In a recent survey, 32% of home gym owners listed lighting as an issue they face with their gyms. Garage gyms and basement gyms (especially if they are unfinished) can feel like you’re lifting in a cave. It’s worse in the early morning and nights. This can affect your energy and mood. Most home gyms don’t have the best lighting. Not a major issue, but a bright room can really clean up space and even give you better training sessions. This LED option from Airand will make a big difference!
The option is always there to add additional lighting to your current circuits. With some basic electrical knowledge you can do this on your own, but then you have to worry about keeping things up to code, pulling permits, and the possibility of making an expensive or dangerous error. Below are some lighting improvements that have easy plug in options and will not require much work.
Plug in lighting:
So you’re looking for plug-in/’easy’ lighting options, but you don’t want to add lamps to your space, and different bulbs won’t do the trick either; what’s left to try? One plug-in option you could look into is shop lights. These are typically found hanging over workbenches, and they can give you a decent amount of light for a small area, but you may not want to go hanging shop lights throughout your entire home gym space. In our search to help answer the lighting question, we found an easy, affordable, do-it-yourself option with a ton of benefits and only a few drawbacks.
Here’s what we found:
This is a linkable tube light by Airand, and here is why it is a near-perfect option for a simple lighting fix:
- It’s linkable
- You can link up to 10 lighting units together. They give you 3 different plug-in options: linking (unit to unit), the plug-in (unit to outlet), and a hardwire option (unit directly to your circuit). By linking multiple units together, you can easily light a large space.
- The linking cord option is only about 6 inches long, so you have to link them side-by-side.
- Great light quality
- This light uses 5000k lighting, which is soft white and meant to emulate ‘daylight.’ It is also extremely bright at 3600 lumens. This is beneficial to garage lifters, basement lifters and can be a huge mood changer for all those dark winter lifters.
- Weatherproof
- If you workout in a basement, in a garage, or even outside, you can use these lights. They are waterproof and weatherproof.
- Easy to install
- This light uses snap-in brackets. After screwing the brackets in place, all you have to do is press the light into the bracket, and you’re done!
- Long-lasting
- The lights are LED and are labeled to have 30,000 hours of lighting. They are also energy efficient with low power consumption. One more ‘feel good’ quality is that they are 100% recyclable when they eventually die.
The biggest drawback with these lights is that they need to be recycled once they burn out, but at under $40 apiece, it is not a total deal-breaker. They do advertise having a 3-year warranty.
Specs:
- Each tube light is 4 feet long.
- There is a 2 ft option that is half the lumens as the 4 ft option.
- Tube width: 2.5.”
- Tube depth: 1.”
- They are extremely lightweight; each fixture weighs less than 2 pounds.
- Light (listed above) 5000k soft white lighting, 3600 lumens.
- 30,000 light hours
Check out the results:
This is definitely not the only light out there like this, but this is a good one used for this lighting review. If you come across other similar lighting options or bought this one and did not have a similar experience, please share!
Conclusion:
Whether you workout in the early morning, late at night, in the dark, dreary winters, or just dark areas of your home, good lighting can make your space look better, and it can make you feel better. It’s the same reason commercial gyms use bright colors and tons of light; the theory is that you feel more awake/energized and can get more out of your workouts. Some home gym owners may prefer lifting in dim areas, but if you are looking to brighten your space check out some of these options or share some new ones you find!