How much brightness will your streetlights retain after a year? The truth about light decay that no one tells you.

How much brightness will your streetlights retain after a year? The truth about light decay that no one tells you.


How much brightness will your streetlights retain after a year? The truth about light decay that no one tells you.

Changsha Kototerk Tech Co, Ltd  Rainer Chen


Your streetlights are very bright on the first day they're installed. But a year later, many project owners start complaining that the lights are still on, but the road surface is too dark to see people. This isn't a malfunction; it's light decay.

In fact, all LED chips will gradually dim over time; this process is called light decay. The problem is that the rate of light decay varies greatly depending on the quality of the chips. The industry standard uses L70 to measure this, which is the time required for the brightness to decay to 70% of its initial value. High-quality chips can maintain L70 after 50,000 hours; inferior chips may fall below this threshold after 10,000 hours. In practical terms, this difference could mean the difference between being scrapped in one year and operating stably for five years.

We can request an LM-80 report from the supplier, which is an international standard testing document specifically for testing LED light decay. The report contains specific decay curve data, making it easy to see the quality of the chips. Suppliers without this report should be carefully evaluated.

A good streetlight isn't just bright when installed; it's still bright five years later.




Post time:Mar - 10 - 2026

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