The 8 Best LED Shop Lights for Your Garage, Workshop, or Toolshed
It’s time to replace those old-school fluorescent lights.
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If you use your garage, basement, or toolshed to tackle DIY projects, you know that lighting your workspace can be a major headache. Dedicated workshop lights, which typically hang from the ceiling and use bright, wide-casting bulbs, ensure that you can work accurately and safely.
Shop lights are especially important when performing intricate or unwieldy tasks, like woodworking or tuning up your car. Plus, with the right lights, you’ll have a much easier time finding that dropped screw or fastener.
If you’re currently using incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, it’s probably time for an upgrade to LED shop lights. These high-powered bulbs provide brighter light and a less energy-intensive way to light your shop compared to traditional bulbs, plus their lifespans are significantly longer—typically over 50,000 hours. They also make less heat than incandescent bulbs, and typically don’t make a noticeable humming sound—ideal for focusing on your project.
We used our shop experience to find the best LED shop lights on the market, so you can use your workspace without worrying about pesky shadows or hard-to-replace overhead bulbs.
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The Best LED Shop Lights
What to Consider
The most important thing to consider when choosing your LED shop lights is how they’re going to be installed. Most shop lights are designed to hang from the ceiling, above head height and directly over the workspace to reduce shadows. Some sit flush with the wall or ceiling.
If you’re lighting an entire garage or larger room, as opposed to a targeted space like a workbench, buy enough lights to situate them several feet apart, but close enough to reduce shadows between lamps. When it comes to brightness, aim for around 3,000 lumens per light for maximum visibility in your workspace.
Install your lights within reach of an outlet or, if you want a cleaner look, you can wire them yourself. (This can be a much bigger task, though, and might require an electrician’s help.) While the majority of these lights include wall anchors for securing them to the ceiling, they usually aren’t the highest quality, so we recommend buying some quality self-drilling drywall anchors to make sure your lights stay put even if they get knocked around on occasion. That said, most LED shop lights are lightweight.
Some LED shop lights come with adjustable arms for shedding light on various work areas. Other features you might want to look for include dimming, portability, and diffusing lenses.
How We Selected
We selected the best LED shop lights based on the quality of the hardware, ease of installation, usability, and extra features like dimmers and adjustable arms. We did our best to include a variety of shop light styles, including the typical long, flat lights, as well as thin LED “stick” lights that take up minimal room but still produce an impressive amount of light. We prioritized kits with multiple units, so you can customize the layout and number of lights to fit your work area.
Alex Rennie is a freelance writer who specializes in the Home Improvement, DIY, and Tool space. As a former residential and commercial carpenter, Alex uses his hands-on experience to write practical buying guides, how-to articles, and product reviews. His work has also appeared in Business Insider's Insider Picks, and before his writing career, he was a full-time carpenter living in New York City. There, he worked as part of a team designing, building, and installing large furniture pieces, as well as performing a variety of home repair and maintenance projects. Alex currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, and spends his free time exploring the beaches and mountains with his fiancé and their dog Louie.
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