The instant strike capability of LEDs is also a major advantage. Conventional discharge lamps take time to warm up to full brightness, and if switched off need a period of time to cool down before they re-strike. External lighting has typically been controlled with a simple photocell – it switches on at dusk and off at dawn. Whilst this is easy to install, it wastes huge amounts of energy.

LEDs can be switched frequently and give instant full output, which means they can be used with control systems such as SmartScan to achieve significant energy savings through flexible time-based switching and automatic presence detection.