Soffit lighting is a hot new trend in exterior home design and architecture which provides for the same sleek recessed look you’ve been seeing for years indoors, but in a completely different setting.
Traditional recessed fixtures haven’t been suited for this type of application due to their height, weight, and bulk, and retrofits are even more difficult. Our LED recessed light fixtures work incredibly well in soffit and exterior applications, and we have had thousands of customers do just that. Let’s talk about how it works. aspectLED recessed lights work in a completely different way than traditional recessed cans. Our LED lights do not use any housing or can to install like with most recessed lights. Instead, our lights are held in place by a simple spring mechanism. Just cut your hole out of your ceiling or soffit material, connect your wiring in a junction box as per code requirements, then push your recessed fixture up into the hole. That’s it - it’ll hold itself up against the surface.
Water resistance
Many of our recessed fixtures are UL Listed and some are rated for use in damp or wet environments including outdoors. As long as the fixture is covered by a ceiling or roof above, you are good to go. The driver and back side of the fixture must remain dry, but as long as your roof doesn't leak, that shouldn’t be a problem. For old work, you should verify there are no water leaks before doing your install.
Switching and dimming
Most customers prefer to have soffit lighting surrounding the majority of their home, but want to run them off a single switch or dimmer. While running that many incandescent lights off a single dimmer tends to be too much load, LEDs have much lower power consumption and perform best when dimming multiple fixtures. This is just one more reason why LED is the way to go for your soffit lighting application.
We also give you the ability to remotely locate your drivers, and we cover this more in depth in our recessed light install guide documents. Because each light requires an individual driver and you cannot run multiple lights off a single driver, many of our customers choose to put all of their drivers in a single large junction box and run extension cables (available on our website) to the remote light locations. Most electrical codes require your junction box to be accessible. If using this method with more than one aspectLED fixture size, be sure to match the correct fixture wires to the correct driver. Each driver is specifically designed for its light fixture and they cannot be swapped for other fixtures. For example, the drivers for 6 inch ultra-thin recessed fixtures, if used with a different light fixture size, will damage the incompatible fixture.
Angled/Sloped soffits
For vaulted soffits, you may want to consider our gimbal recessed fixtures that feature an easily adjustable face. That allows them to be pointed straight downward for installations up to a 6/12 pitch. This is completely up to personal preference, but most people prefer this option for angled soffits. Many of our standard depth recessed line products are adjustable including our 2.25", 3.5" Standard Bright or Ultra Bright, 4.2", 5.2", 5.4", 5.5", and 6.3" models, and all of our Modern Series (square/rectangular) fixtures. The other option is to go with our Ultra Thin Recessed fixtures which offer a very wide 120 degree light beam angle spread enabling them to be used in sloped or vaulted environments.
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Color changing
Our ultra-thin recessed fixtures only come in single color configurations (based on your choice of white). However, we do have 3.5" recessed color changing fixtures available. These require a bit more preparation. First you’ll need an RGB or RGBW controller to set the light colors. You will also need a power supply to connect to your 110VAC source. That's because our low voltage RGB and RGBW lights are not compatible with 110VAC power sources. More information on RGB and RGBW light installation is available here.
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IC Rating
Many of our recessed fixtures are IC rated for direct contact with insulation. LEDs generate less heat than incandescent bulbs, and the external driver means we don’t need a traditional can as a barrier between the light and insulation.
Retrofit kits
Already got the old style incandescent recessed can fixtures installed? We can help you make the LED conversion as well. Most of our customers choose to start fresh with our standard LED recessed fixtures. However we also have a selection of products designed to plug into a standard E27 bulb socket. These mount into your traditional can with no additional wiring required. These are typically more expensive than and not quite as versatile as the rest of our recessed lighting options. However, they offer the same great LED power savings and lifespan, with a super easy installation.
UL Listing
Many of our recessed fixtures are UL Listed and held to the highest standard of quality and safety. Most of our customers are electricians and builders who demand the highest quality and reliability in their products. That's because they can’t afford to go back to previous job sites to fix failed products they installed. That means even if you’re not a contractor, you can rest assured you’re getting a product that will last for decades to come from aspectLED.
