Several factors to consider, not just number of lights. Lumens are just as important, if not more so.
You'll get a better, more evenly lit pool with more smaller lights than with fewer larger ones. Plus you can have a whole lot more options (see below).
From where you'll most often be sitting near your pool at night, you should not be able to see the light fixtures. You don't want any light shining directly into your eyes. That goes from inside your house through windows, too. You want to see the effects of the lights, not the lights themselves.
Color LEDs bring another set of considerations. They'll be less bright than white-only LEDs. The white-ish they do produce will be the brightest. Blue will be considerably less bright. Then green. Then red a very distant fourth. So if you want your pool to look very red, or very blue, you'll need more light (lumens), and more fixtures, than you would if you were just lighting it up white.
For those reasons, I think the number and placement you've got now seems about right.
And I'd go one step further. I'd ask the electrician to run a separate wire for every one of those lights back to the pad. Depending on how he's planning to layout the conduit and junction boxes, that may not be as bad as it sounds. Some of the wires needed can be common. Wire is cheap(ish). With that wiring scheme, you could do all sorts of cool things:
- You could wire them altogether, on one switch, so that option remains. But...
- You could organize the lights in banks: one end vs the other, or side vs side.
- Because the lights face in every direction, if wired together, there will be virtually nowhere to sit without at least one or two light bulbs shining in your eyes. With individual control, you could turn on just one side of the pool, the side your sitting on, and just enjoy the color without the glare.
- Or you could darken the spa and light the pool. Or vice versa.
- You could have just one end lit, for a private late night swim.
- Or just a few lights for some nice ambiance while just sitting out there.
- Or the ends purple and the middle blue, etc.
- Or light it up real bright for a kids party (to be able to count every head).
You name it, complete control and a huge array of lighting choices: rich and varied colors, the amount of light, the direction it shines.
Or maybe you'll be bored with that, of find it too complicated, and just go back to one switch to rule them all.
Point being, now is the time to ask your electrician for this option. Use it or not, you'll never get another chance to wire this way.
Edit: I just opened Robtown's lighting plan. Just what I was talking about, except I'd go all the way... Leave yourself all the options of running them individually, or grouping them any way you want. I'd be very curious to know if Robtown is happy with the banks as they are, or if he now wishes it was done a different way. If you home-run every fixture, you'll always be able to change your mind later.
