AeroGardens are an amazing way to enjoy fresh herbs indoors year round. They are also a fun addition to any home decor. However, there are times when you may find yourself wondering if the lights are too bright.
Too bright lights can hurt the eyes if you look directly at them. It’s similar to parents telling their kids not to look directly at the sun. So if you do have children at home, bright lights are something you want to be careful of.
There are a number of ways to adjust your AeroGarden lights if they’re too bright. Most common options are to dim the lights on the garden unit itself. If you notice that the lights are too bright, then you should try adjusting the brightness level until you get the desired effect. Or you can use boards and fabrics to block the light from your view.
This article will cover these and other ways to adjust the light levels on your AeroGarden.
What Does An AeroGarden Grow Light Do?
Let’s first understand what the lights do on the AeroGarden and its purpose, so we better understand what happens when the lights are adjusted.
The lights on the AeroGarden help plants grow by providing them with energy from their red, white, and blue LED grow lights. The lights are essential for photosynthesis, which is necessary for plant growth.
Light stimulates the chemical processes for healthy plant growth. The AeroGarden lights can provide the 12-16 hours of sunlight for your plants with their LED panels.
The AeroGarden lights can be too bright and damage your eyes a little, but they’re still low enough power from 10 to 60 Watt LED lights depending on which AeroGarden model you have.
How to Dim the Lights on Your AeroGarden?
There are 3 main ways to dim the AeroGarden lights:
- Voice Control with Alexa
- Mobile App
- Touchscreen
1. Using Alexa to Dim the Lights
The first step you need to take to get started using Alexa with your AeroGarden is to connect it to the AeroGarden app.
When you do that, Alexa will respond to your voice commands whenever you say “Alexa” followed by the garden’s assigned name.
With an Amazon Echo device, you can tell Alexa to turn lights on or off whenever you want by simply saying “Alexa, turn my [AeroGarden] on” or “Alexa, turn on my [AeroGarden] light.” You can also tell it to dim the lights.
2. Using the AeroGarden App for Remote Control
The AeroGarden App can be found in your smartphone’s app store. The app will give you control over the turning on/off and dimming the lights.
Different AeroGarden models feature varying levels of smart technology integration.
Not all AeroGarden models can connect to Wi-Fi though. Only the AeroGarden Bounty and AeroGarden Farm Family models will allow you to take advantage of controlling the lights through the app.
But the AeroGarden Sprout and AeroGarden Harvest do not have Wi-Fi capabilities.
3. Using the AeroGarden Touchscreen
The Bounty and Farm models have color touchscreens that will give you control over adjusting the lights.
These high-definition, color touch screens give you infinite dimming of the lights, as well as setting up sunrise and sunset lighting levels.
There’s also one-touch control to make operating it even easier.
What Are Other Ways to Make the Lights Less Bright?
Even though some of the gardens give you the ability to dim the lights, the plants may still need the bright lights for healthier and faster growth.
In cases like these, you’ll want to find other ways of blocking and dimming the lights, so they don’t affect your eyes.
1. Use Form Boards
One of the simplest ways to solve this problem is by using foam poster boards around the unit to block the garden’s light from your view.
There are the tri-fold power boards that are often used in elementary school science fair competitions (at last I used them). They’re great because they stand up themselves.
These boards come in different colors and are usually in white and black. I like to get the black ones because they are better at absorbing and blocking light. White boards will bounce and reflect the light in other directions to brighten other areas.
If you already have white boards, you can attach a black fabric over the boards and have the same absorbing effect, so the light will bounce all around the room.
2. Manually Adjust Light Hood
Sometimes, a little adjustment of the light hood itself will help to reduce bright glares.
The light hood can be raised and lowered manually:
- Hold the lower part of the light post steady.
- Grab the upper part of the light post and raise or lower it, one notch at a time.
- Stop adjusting when your glare is one.
Be sure that the lights don’t touch any of the plant leaves though, as that will scorch and burn your plants.
3. Cover the AeroGarden with a Silk Fabric
Use a dark silk fabric to cover the AeroGarden unit and its plants to reduce the glare from the bright lights.
You can use other fabrics, but silk is best because it’s not heavy and won’t damage the AeroGarden unit and the light hood. Silk is also breathable, so it’ll ensure that the plants still get airflow circulation.
This is a very simple solution and you can take the fabric off at any time as well. Take the cover off when you’re going to bed or when the lights are off.
Will Dimming my AeroGarden Lights Hurt My Plants?
No, dimming AeroGarden lights won’t hurt your plants. Your plants will still use the light that is given to it to grow. Bright lights will help plants grow faster though.
Bright lights help produce more nutrients and vitamins in the soil, which helps the plants grow stronger and healthier.
Plants need bright and dark light cycles, so be sure that the lights aren’t on 24 hours a day. Make sure there’s a balance of light. There should be 12-16 hours of daylight and 8-12 hours of nighttime.
AeroGarden Light Too Bright Final Thoughts
If you’ve got an AeroGarden, you’ll probably need to adjust the lights every now and then.
You can always try turning down the brightness, but sometimes it’s just easier to block the light from your own view.
You can find replacement AeroGarden lights on AeroGarden’s website.
Check out these other AeroGarden articles:
