What light color is 2700K?

2700K is extra warm white: the yellowish, soft light of the old incandescent bulb. It is the warmest setting you meet in an ordinary living space and the most chosen color for bedrooms, seating areas and evening lighting.

Where it comes from

An incandescent bulb gave light by heating a filament until it glowed. That filament came out at around 2700 Kelvin, and that is the light everyone in the Netherlands grew up with. When LED arrived, 2700K was therefore the first color manufacturers imitated: it had to feel familiar.

Our catalog holds 22 products at 2700K — more than at any other fixed color temperature. That is no accident; it is still what most people fall back on.

When 2700K is the right choice

• Bedroom. Warm light dampens your alertness less than cool light does. The lower the Kelvin value, the calmer it feels towards the evening.
• Seating area and living room at night. Here it is about atmosphere, not about seeing what you are doing.
• Hallway and entrance. Spaces you walk through, where warm light immediately makes a home look less bare.
• With warm materials. Wood, terracotta, beige and copper come into their own at 2700K. At 4000K they go flat.

When you are better off a little higher

In a kitchen or bathroom, 2700K quickly turns too yellow. White looks cream, you see less sharply what you are cutting, and the mirror gives a distorted picture. There, 3000K is more pleasant, and above a worktop even 4000K.

If you are unsure, choose a spot with a CCT switch. The Lesto, Quaro, Marlo and Lyvo can all four do 2700K, 3000K and 4000K; you set the position during installation. More about that middle setting in What light color is 3000K?

Warmer still than 2700K

The scale continues downwards. Below 2700K you enter the territory of candlelight and mood lighting:

• 2200K — genuine candlelight, usable only as an accent.
• 2000K — the lowest setting of Dim2Warm spots.

That 2000K rarely appears as a fixed setting in practice. It does appear as the end point of Dim2Warm: the Vigo drops from 3000K at full power to 2000K when you turn it all the way down, just as an incandescent bulb turned yellower when dimmed. The Warmo combines Dim2Warm with a CCT switch.

Warm light looks less bright

Two 400-lumen spots, one at 2700K and one at 4000K, give the same amount of light. Yet the warm one comes across as softer. That sits in your perception, not in the fixture.

The consequence for your lighting plan: if you choose 2700K throughout the house, be generous with the number of lumens. Otherwise it turns cozy but too dark to do anything by. The Ferro gives 600 lumens and is a comfortable spot to plan with in that case.

There is another reason to choose per room rather than per lamp. Color temperature determines how the colors in your interior look: a warm wall paint appears richer at 2700K and paler at 4000K, while cool grays work the other way round. So walk through your room before you order, and look not only at the ceiling but at the floor and the walls too.

Keep it the same per room

The biggest mistake is not picking the wrong color, but using two of them in the same room. 2700K and 4000K side by side stands out immediately: one half of your ceiling looks yellow, the other blue. Choose one value per room and carry it through to your wall lights and free-standing lamps.

Which spots can do which settings is listed per product in the recessed spotlights collection.