I wonder what is the best lighting for outdoors, a middle between lamp or fixture cost, light output efficienty and lamp or fixture life.

LED: Good efficienty and last long, but a bit expensive

Cheap LED: good efficienty for cheap, but bad quality, they last nothing, glare bombs and annoying blue light, warm ones are very yellowish.

HID: Middle efficienty, very long life and more comfortable for eyes than LED or some CFL, but are very rare here, and quite expensive costing about 60 bucks per fixture.

SBMV: Here those are very cheap, I dont need to buy extra stuff and they have a decent life for its price, but they are quite unneficient.

Halogen: Still a good idea, due to its light quality, and the fixtures are very cheap.

It depends how much light you need and how it will be operated.
The two most expensive theng is to install higher light output than you really need there and when you keep it running for longer than you need it (full dusk-to-dawn when a motion sensor would suffice,...).

Then:
HID are efficient, if you suffice with HPS even very cheap to operate (you suffice with just a single fixture for larger area), but come only in a rather high lumen packages (one area may be overilluminated, while still not reaching other, so need high mounting position)  and not usable for intermittent operation (what may make them very expensive when intermittent use would be enough).

Halogen floods were good for larger output intermittent use (with a sensor). Too expensive (nefficient) and rather short living for dusk-to-dawn.

SBMV may seem cheap to install, but very expensive to operate. They do not allow intermittent operation, at tge same time rather inefficient.

Fluorescents (PL-S style) more suitable for dusk-to-dawn when multiple fixtures distributed e.g. along a corridor like space.

LEDs suitable for lower output, both intrmittent as well as dusk-to-dawn, become expensive for higher output packages.

Intrmittent operation may ease the requirement for the color quality of the obtrusive light spill - because most of the time off, it wont disturb anyone. So may allow even the cheap LEDs.

MH is good for parks and residental areas. HPS is good for big roads.
MH could be the best choise to outdoor lighting, if it would be cheaper, I think.

HID is good for long time continuous operation

SON is good for flooding an area with light for the lowest cost possible (both in electricity and in lamp cost). The Orange light with minimum (but still usable) color rendering is ok for where a relaxed but still well lit ambience is required, or where the color rendering is not required whatsoever

MH is good for where better color rendering is requierd, with the expense of higher lamp cost and somewhat lower efficacy

Mercury is good for being the cheapest solution in lamp and gear cost, but is relatively inefficient and nowadays you are running into risk of lamp unavailability when it will be time to change the lamp. So it makes sense for lighting that is not switched on very often

In 230V-countries, MH and SON up to 250W are interchangeable in the same luminaires (except for self starting SON lamps). There is limited compatibility of MH lamps to SON gear also at 400W

The good light quality and unobtrusive light of both SON and MH, allows for good vision even without the light spread uniformity, to the extent where light spread uniformity becomes largely unimportant in many applications

Drawbacks of HID include high cost, and long restarting time in which the light cannot be switched back on when hot (for approx. 1 minute with SON, and much longer with MH)



Fluorescent (linear, PL and 2D) is good choice for ligthing that comes on instantly and can be switched a few times per day without big negative effects on lamp life

It provides good light quality, although lower than HID, but still very unobtrusive and allows good vision regardless of uniformity

Drawbacks of Fluorescent include inability to provide instant bright light in the cold, so it might only work well in the summer depending on your climate



Incandescent and Halogen provide good light and dont mind being switched many times, but are fairly inefficient

Incandescent is possibly the best choice for lighting controlled by a motion sensor, which comes on many times for short periods

Halogen provides better light, but to realise good lamp life, the lamp must stay on for some minimum time. So it makes sense over Incandescent in cases where the light stays on for a while if it is switched on

Like Mercury, Incandescent and Halogen may be good choices for lighting which is not switched on often (so does not accumulate to high energy use over a time period)



LED provides the widest choice of colored light, but for plain White light it provides the worst light quality of all light sources : The light is full of narrow band Blue light which is harmful for health at long exposure, inhibits night vision shortly after exposure (which is a problem if you are walking from the illuminated area into a dark area or trying to look into the dark area to see something), and provides quite poor color representation regardless of any CRI numbers

LED lighting could be used for :

1. To light up a place you walk through and away

2. As an accent light

This is true for both cheap and expensive LED lights. However, in other things like lamp life, correctness of claimed light output, the expensive LEDs are ok while the cheap LEDs tend to fall short on virtually all criteria

Additional Drawbacks that affect some LED luminaires are high glare and irrepairability (entire luminaire must go to trash if it EOLs)



For virtually all light sources, there are some options with electronic and some options with magnetic gear. Magnetic gear is generally more reliable. "No gear" is only applicable for Incandescent and Halogen, all other lamps do have gear, even if it is inside the lamp. However, if it is inside the lamp, then it does not complicate maintenance

Also, some light sources have common failure modes in which they short out the supply : Incandescent lamp EOL, some electronic gear failures, and so on. Consider that if this happens, your entire installation (that's on the same breaker) will go dark, not just the lamp that got a problem



For some applications, it makes a safety problem to pull line voltage (120V or 230V) supply to the light (e.g. deep garden landscape lighting, if not properly buried underground). In such cases it makes sense to drop the voltage to extra low voltage (12V or 24V) and use suitable lamps, which brings the choice down to Incandescent, Halogen, LED, or using a step up transformer at the luminaire for anything else

Thanks all for your explanations!

I think I will go HPS. That post was published here since in a year, less or more me and my family will move from our existing house, but that's irrelevant. Until it happens I will still use the existing led bulbs and fluorescent fixtures. But I wonder If my whole existing exterior lighting must go to LED, I have a few bulbs in my box that will do a good job outsides.