Hospitality & Restaurants

Hospitality lighting has to work at breakfast and at midnight, and the difference between those two is almost entirely dimming. A room that cannot go genuinely low — not 20% and flickering, but 1% and smooth — reads as a canteen after dark however good the fit-out is.

That makes the driver and dimmer the critical specification, not the strip. Flicker, drop-out and the sudden step at the bottom of the range are compatibility faults between dimmer, driver and load; they are found by testing the combination, not by reading three datasheets.

Color temperature should sit warm — 2700K is the usual answer for dining, 3000K where the interior is cooler — and it should be identical everywhere in one sightline. Guests do not notice good lighting; they notice one cove that is pinker than the next.