Lighting Basics

Lighting can be a key element in enjoying your poolside paradise. Illuminating the pool at night provides ambiance and safety for your pool area. It can set the mood and extend your swim time.

Pool lighting used to be simple: Your only choice was white, and how many did you want? Now, many lighting options exist in and around the pool. Today's pools have tanning ledges, water features, and vanishing edges.

Jandy has an excellent Lighting Design Guide using nicheless LED lights.

Lighting Technologies

Pool light technologies have evolved with incandescent lights, halogen lights, fiber optic lights from a central light hub, and LED lights, all used in pools.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy released its Energy Conservation Standards for General Service Lamps. These standards aim to limit energy use for lighting in various applications and industries. This new regulation, like the DOE rule for variable-speed pool and spa pumps, is performance-oriented. It applies to all lamps that emit between 310 and 3,300 lumens. If a light falls under that category, it must emit at least 45 lumens per watt. Beginning March 1, 2023, the DOE prohibited distributors and retailers from selling non-compliant lights.

This ruling affects many incandescent and halogen lights. They don't usually fall within the mandated range. This impacts the replacement of lights on existing pools. You may need to replace fixtures with ones that fit the niche unless a compatible, compliant bulb is available. Sometimes, you can find bulbs that can retrofit into the incandescent fixture. But, depending on the situation, you may need to pull the light as well.

This is why major pool equipment manufacturers offer mostly expensive, often unreliable, LED lights.

Pentair still sells their white incandescent Amerilite in 400-watt and 500-watt, 120-volt models. The Pentair website says, "Due to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) regulations regarding incandescent lights, the 100W and 300W Amerlite Incandescent Lights are now obsolete and have been removed from this specifications grid."

Niched or Nicheless Pool Lights

“Niche” refers to the pool light housing. Niched pool lights are larger and require careful placement during the pool design and rebar installation.

"Nicheless" lights are smaller. They don’t require a niche or special accommodation with the rebar. Nicheless lights usually fit in a 1.5" PVC pipe. Nicheless lights are smaller, have fewer LEDs, and put out fewer lumens than niche lights. Light niches are usually proprietary to a manufacturer, which makes changing lights difficult.

With nicheless lights, you are not locked into one manufacturer's lights, as others should fit the 1.5" opening. A different light may need more depth in the pipe, so check specifications carefully when changing light models.

You can light most swimming pool designs with one or two niched pool lights or multiple nicheless lights with little to no difference in energy consumption. Also, more lights in the pool will spread the light better, giving you a more even and pleasing look.

Considerations For Pool Light Selection

Light Controls and Automation Compatibility
LED Pool Light Cost and Reliability - No LED pool lights have been installed long enough to know they will work for many years. We know the first generation of LED lights was unreliable and costly to replace after the warranty expired. In 2024, we see 2nd or 3rd generation models being brought to market. That resets the clock on evaluating the reliability of these new models. Independent manufacturers now offer, they claim, more reliable replacements for the major brands' lights. Only time will tell if the lights and companies will last.
Warranty
12 Volts or 120 Volts
Niche or Nicheless
Color Compatibility - If you mix lights from different product lines, even from the same manufacturer, the colors may not match. For example, Pentair warns that the SpaBrite blue LED is 470-475 nm. Their other lights use a Royal Blue LED with a 455-460 nm wavelength. Pentair says, "Appearance of color and white LED light may vary between various models of lights. Appearance and perception of pool lighting may vary depending on several factors including, but not limited to, the particular model of light, the location/depth/angle of the light’s installation, pool finish/material, pool depth/shape/geometry, ambient light sources, subjective factors and more. For best results when using multiple lights, use all the same model and do not mix multiple models of lights within a single installation." If you are picky about color matching, this may bother you.
Daylight White or Warm White—Many white LED pool lights now offer a choice of Daylight White (5000K) or Warm White (2700K) models.
If you are building a new pool and want lights with the lowest long-term cost of ownership, install Pentair Amerilites in niches and replace the bulb with a white or color-changing LED bulb. The J&J ColorSplash bulb is compatible with many automation systems. Bulb replacements with various controls are also available from Amazon.

Why Do LED Lights Fail

Manufacturers design LEDs to last many years, so why do pool lights have reliability issues? It is because of heat and leaks.

The LEDs that create the light need electronic boards, called light drivers, to control them. The electronics usually fail, not the LEDs. Each colored LED needs some components on the board to control it. Often, a single color on the light fails because a few components in the electronics failed.

The LEDs are controlled by electronics crammed into a small, uncooled space in the light. The only cooling is from the heat shed to the pool water. Cramming heat-producing electronics into a small, underground space is inhospitable. Light manufacturers have learned this. When 12V LED lights are offered as 120 volts to simplify retrofits, the 120V to 12V transformer is in the light and generating heat.

If the heat generated in the light does not kill the electronics, it can cause cracks in the light shell and leak water. Manufacturers learned that some materials cannot withstand all the thermal cycles a pool light can experience. They sometimes used dissimilar materials that expanded at different rates and cracked.

Heat in nicheless LED pool lights is becoming a serious problem, with lights melting. Reports we have seen include:

LED pool lights are still in their infancy, and manufacturers are learning how to improve reliability in future products. Unfortunately, it will take years of experience to see good reliability; in the meantime, consumers will pay the price.

Lighting Manufactures

Below is a survey of pool light manufacturers in no specific order.

Pentair

Pentair has three product lines of LED pool lights - IntelliBrite, GloBrite, and MicroBrite. As mentioned above, Pentair still has incandescent Amerlite lights in 400-watt and 500-watt models. The IntelliBrite uses the same niche as the Amerilite. The GloBrite uses a proprietary niche, while the MicroBrite is nicheless and has an adapter that fits the GloBrite niche.

Pentair recently launched their next generation IntelliBrite lights, the Architectural Series, and the IntelliVibe Lighting System. Pentair also came out with next-generation GloBrite lights. Both are supposed to address reliability issues in first-generation lights.

Pentair LED Pool Lights has more detail on Pentair LED lights.

Jandy

Fluidra Residential Catalog 2024

Jandy has niched and nichless LED lights in color-changing and white models. The Watercolors light was their first generation LED light. The Infinite Watercolors models are next generation. Jandy Infinite WaterColors LED Light Controller requires Aqualink Revision Y or later.

The Watercolors Nicheless LED Lights with Hydrocool Technology seem to be from Fluidra's acquisition of CMP.^[1] Like CMP's Brilliant Wonders nicheless LED lights, they come in P-Series, H-Series, or S-Series models to work with Pentair or Hayward automation. Make sure you get the series that is compatible with your automation.

Fluidra offers pool and spa lights with various color temperatures, including a "Daylight" option with a 5000K color temperature. This color temperature is meant to provide refreshing illumination that mimics daytime sunlight. They also offer options like "Warm White" at 2700K. A PDF from Fluidra specifically mentions the 2700K and 5000K options for Jandy nicheless LED white lights.

With a color temperature of 5,000K, the Daylight option provides refreshing illumination of the pool, much like daytime sunlight, and will appear brighter than Warm White lights, and to some, slightly bluish. Alternatively, the Warm White lights, with a color temperature of 2,700K, provide a comfortable and soothing light similar to incandescent lights.

CMP

CMP, recently acquired by Jandy's parent company Fluidra, has Brilliant Wonders nicheless LED lights with Smart Synch Technology. You need to order the lights to be compatible with your automation—J Style for Jandy Aqualink, P Style for Pentair automation systems, or H Style for Hayward automation systems.

The Brilliant Wonders lights also have an IP68 waterproof quick disconnect, which allows them to be replaced without pulling the wire from the light conduit or removed for winterization.

Brilliant Wonders has some of the best reliability, and we have heard of few failures.

Hayward

Hayward has many niche and nicheless LED light product lines and models. Hayward's Universal ColorLogic lights are different from the ColorLogic lights, and some Universal ColorLogic Lights have networking controls, while some do not. Hayward also has ColorLogic 2.0 and OmniDirect light controls. It is best to check carefully the capabilities and features of the Hayward lights you select.

Hayward Light Replacement Cross-Reference helps you find the closest suggested Hayward replacement for your pool equipment.

J&J Electronics

Hayward has acquired J&J, and the ColorSplash Series is now on the Hayward website.

The J&J ColorSplash LXG Replacement 120V Color-Changing LED Pool Light Bulb replaces the ColorSplash 3G bulb. LXG bulbs cannot be used in a pool where other 3G bulbs are also installed.

The J&J ColorSplash 3G Replacement 120V Color-Changing LED Pool Light bulb is an Edison base replacement for incandescent bulbs. The ColorSplash has seven colors, multi-color blends, and five light shows, including Parisian Blue, Brazilian Red, Tahitian Blue, Miami Pink, Tuscan Orange, Arctic White, and New Zealand Green colors. Each light has a lifespan of up to 50,000 hours.

When replacing an incandescent bulb with an LED bulb, be sure to match the voltage of the light fixture for the replacement light bulb (12V or 120V) and replace the light gasket (LPL-G-P) for Pentair/American Amerlite and (SPX0580Z2) for Hayward AstroLite for proper installation.

J&J also offers the ColorSplash XG Series Color LED Pool Light. These fixtures are compatible with most existing Pentair, Hayward, and Jandy incandescent light niches and are ETL-listed for safety and electrical code compliance. They operate with a standard pool light switch or can be integrated into most Pentair and Jandy automation systems.

Florida Sunseeker

Florida Sunseeker has a wide range of replacement niche and nicheless pool lights. There have been questions if the Florida Sunseeker products have gone through the UL676 testing as people have not found them listed? PoolTone Problems!!!!!!!! describes where a PoolTone light melted and damaged the pipe. Given these issues, you should be cautious with Florida Sunseekers products.

Spa Electrics

Spa Electrics has innovative niche and nicheless LED lights and a series of retrofit lights for 10", 8" and 6" niches. The Retro lights fit many Hayward, Pentair, and Jandy niches and can upgrade incandescent lights to LED.

Some of their lights feature a quick-disconnect power cord on the back, as well as a forward-facing Heat Sink that harnesses the full cooling potential of the pool for maximum LED brightness and longevity.

Blue Square

Blue Square has niche and nicheless LED lights and 12-volt and 120-volt LED bulbs that can replace incandescent bulbs.

LedecSun

LedecSun sells solar-powered LED pool lights made in Spain, which are installed using adhesive or magnetic attachment.

Pureline

Pureline has a 10 inch 12V RGB LED Pool Light Fixture that fits select Hayward, Pentair & Jandy niches.^[2]

Replacement Light Bulbs

This bulb comes with a wireless remote and has 17 colors.

Landscape Lighting

Landscape lighting around the pool can enhance the pool lights, creating a nicer atmosphere for enjoying the pool at night.

Volt Landscape Lights is a good choice if you want to DIY the light installation with LED lights. Volt has white and colored bulbs but not color-changing lights. Many members have been happy installing Volt Landscape lights.

Pentair's IntelliBrite color-changing LED landscape lights work with Pentair automation. They have the same color shows and fixed colors as the IntelliBrite 5g color-changing pool and spa lights.

Hayward acquired Sollos Landscape Lights. It offers various landscape lights, including path, bullet, accent, flood, hardscape, in-ground, hanging, and underwater lights.

Jandy's Pro Series Wet Area LED color-changing lights are NRTL-listed. They are suitable for submerged or unsubmerged installation within 10 ft (3 m) of the pool or spa. Intertek evaluated and tested them.

Low Voltage Light Transformers

Low-voltage lights must be connected to a Class 2 transformer that converts 120-volt AC to 12 to 14-volt AC.

A Nationally Recognized Testing Lab (NRTL) must list the power supply as complying with UL 379, “POWER UNITS FOR FOUNTAIN, SWIMMING POOL, AND SPA LUMINAIRES.”

The transformer has outputs of 12, 13, or 14 volts. The higher voltage outputs are used with longer light cord runs so that the light has 12 volts at the light.

Intermatic has a PJBX52100 5 light pool light junction box that includes a 100-watt transformer. It complies with NEC Code 680.24 requirements for junction boxes and NEC 411 for low-voltage landscape lighting.

False GFCI Trips

False GFCI trips can be caused by a low-voltage transformer turning the light(s) OFF or ON/OFF either via light switch or relay, even on an unrelated circuit.

The inductive kick of an isolation transformer causes a brief arc across the switch contacts, injecting arc noise into the supply wiring. This brief noise feeds back to the panel and all the installed breakers. The circuitry inside the GFCI breaker may react to the arc noise and trip, even though no ground fault current is present.

A snubber capacitor (arc suppressor) across the transformer's primary leads (line to neutral) on the load side of the light switch or relay can prevent the arc noise and GFCI trip.

A snubber is a plastic-film high voltage capacitor that will suppress (“snub”) the voltage spikes in electrical systems such as the inductive kick from a transformer attached to a switch. Although inductive spikes are not harmful to users, they increase the likelihood that a GFCI will be more susceptible to nuisance trips if no arc suppression is used.

Hayward has the GLX-HAL-XSNUB^[3] arc suppressor for Universal ColorLogic transformers. It is included in the LTBUY11H70, LTBUY11H14, and LTBUY11300 Hayward Low Voltage transformers.^[4]

Intermatic PX50, PX100 and PX300 models include a built-in noise filter.^[5]^[6]

Pool Light Placement

Pool lights should be placed to shine away from your house.

Depth Considerations:

Deep ends (greater than 12 feet): Place lights between 18–24 inches below the waterline.
Shallow ends: Lights should be 9–12 inches below the surface.
Tanning shelves: Lights should sit 4 inches below the waterline to create a soft shimmer.
Spas: Lights should be placed below the bench or in the footwell to prevent guests from blocking the light when seated

A light Installation Manual may specify a light's minimum depth. NEC 680.23 specifies luminaires in walls shall be installed with the top of the luminaire lens not less than 450 mm (18 in.) below the normal water level of the pool unless the luminaire is listed and identified for use at lesser depths. No luminaire shall be installed less than 100 mm (4 in.) below the normal water level of the pool.

The NEC does not specify a Maximum depth, but it specifies that the light should be accessible. The NEC states, "Luminaires shall be installed in such a manner that personnel can reach the luminaire for relamping, maintenance, or inspection while on the deck or equivalently dry location."

Lights should be installed with sufficient wire coiled behind them so that they can be removed from their niche and put on the pool deck. Some installers leave the light wire too short, which does not follow the NEC.

Lighting design guides include:

Light Controls

A basic wall switch can control white incandescent and halogen lights to turn the lights on and off. With the advent of color-changing LED lights, more complex controls are used:

Many color-changing LED lights use power cycling on/off pulses to change colors. This allows color control through a simple switch. The number of pulses in a short time selects a color. Once you get the light operating in the color/color cycle you want, the light will start in that color every time you turn it on unless you rapidly power it on and off.
Manufacturers sell dedicated Color Light Controllers for their color-changing LED lights that let you select a color on a dial, and the controller sends out the required on/off pulses
Many automation system panels include Colored LED light control, and the panel can send on/off pulses. Check that the automation panel is compatible with the model color LED lights you plan.
There are no set standards for on/off pulses and colors across manufacturers, so a color light controller needs to support the specific lights you get.
Hayward uses power line networking to control their Omnidirect networked ColorLogic lights with their Omni systems.
No pool lights directly communicate through WiFi for control without going through an automation system or WiFi smart switch.

LED Light Wattage

You can choose LED lights with wattage between 6 and 24 watts. The higher the watts, the brighter the lights. But it is not that simple.

Pentair guideline is to aim for 4 lumens per square foot of pool surface. For example, if the pool is 500 sqft, you need 500x4=2000 lumens. This would be 4 MicroBrites or 2 IntelliBrite RGB.

Inyo Pools also has a good blog on How Many Lights Do I Need For My Pool? with a table summarizing the coverage of different lights.

Jandy provides the chart below:

Jandy LED Pool Light Wattage Selector Guide
Pool Finish	Color Lights	White Lights	Recommended Wattage
Light	Up to 12 ft	Up to 16 ft	6
Light	12-20 ft	16-24 ft	12
Light	20 ft+	24 ft+	24
Medium	Up to 10 ft	Up to 14 ft	6
Medium	10-26 ft	14-22 ft	12
Medium	16 ft+	22 ft+	24
Dark	Up to 8 ft	Up to 12 ft	6
Dark	8-12 ft	12-20 ft	12
Dark	12 ft+	20 ft+	24

Is It Safe?

Many people assume that any low voltage is safe around pools and people. The NEC (National Electric Code) authors have a different view. They require that submerged equipment, with people present, be evaluated under "UL-676 Underwater Luminaries and Submersible Junction Boxes". Products approved for use by the NEC must be listed to the UL 676 and UL 1081 performance standards, which can be found on the UL Product Specification website.^[7]

UL-676 testing is done by a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL). Pool lighting products must be tested and certified by an NRTL, comply with UL676, and be listed with an NRTL.

To comply with NEC 680.23, use a listed underwater luminaire. Also, a listed ground-fault circuit interrupter or a listed transformer for 15 volts or lower luminaires should be installed in the branch circuit.

After certifying a product under the NRTL program, the NRTL authorizes the manufacturer to apply a registered certification mark.

This mark signifies that an NRTL tested and certified the product. It complies with the requirements of one or more safety test standards. Users can rely on the mark. It shows that the product is safe and meets OSHA approval for workplace use.

The problem is that not all pool lighting products have a proper certification mark and are "listed."

It depends on the AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction). They decide if a listed product is required and if they accept the Testing Laboratory certification. Jurisdictions can adopt the NEC as part of their code, but the NEC is not the law in and of itself.

A listed product is required if they adopt the NEC unless the AHJ deletes that requirement.

The AHJ also decides which testing laboratories are acceptable.

Generally, any underwater luminaire for pools or spas should conform to UL676 and be certified and listed by a qualified testing laboratory.

Any manufacturer selling underwater luminaires for pools or spas should specify which testing laboratory has certified the product.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has a list of approved testing laboratories. Each lab has an “Approved Testing Scope, " which defines which standards it is approved to certify.

In jurisdictions that adopted the NEC, your pool lights may be inspected. If you have a sharp inspector, they may check if the lights are listed. Otherwise, it is up to you, as the pool owner, to decide what products you deem safe for your pool and your family.

@@ Line 125: / Line 125: @@
 [https://ledecsun.com/en/?cmplz-force-reload=1728829318986 LedecSun] sells solar-powered LED pool lights made in Spain, which are installed using adhesive or magnetic attachment.
+===Pureline===
+Pureline has a 10 inch 12V RGB LED Pool Light Fixture that fits select Hayward, Pentair & Jandy niches.<ref>https://www.inyopools.com/Products/44400015090802.htm</ref>
 ==Replacement Light Bulbs==

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