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What is the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) of Black Dog LED Grow Lights?

Black Dog LED lights don't have a color temperature, because the definition of color temperature doesn't apply to light appearing purple or green to the human eye.

By definition, the "correlated color temperature" of a light source is the average hue or color of light as it appears to the human eye, expressed as the temperature in degrees Kelvin that you would need to heat a "black body" up to glow approximately the same color as perceived by the human eye. A "black body" is any inert matter, such as a lump of rock. If you heat anything up enough, it will glow with "black body radiation", which is why electrical stove heating coils get "red hot". The glow as perceived by the human eye starts out red at lower temperatures, but becomes orange, yellow, white and finally blue-ish as the temperature increases.


If a light as perceived by the human eye has a green or purple hue, "color temperature" doesn't apply, as there is no temperature you can heat a "black body" up to for it to glow green or purple. From the spectrum, you can calculate a number based on the official definition of color temperature measurements, but even the official definition says it doesn't make sense if the color isn't close to one that can be achieved by heating something up.

Color temperature is very useful in some fields. Astronomers use it to determine how hot stars are by measuring their color. When comparing hues of "white" light for use in homes or offices for human use, color temperature is very helpful. But much like lumens, correlated color temperature is explicitly defined by parameters of the human eye, and doesn't apply to plants. When evaluating grow lights that appear white to the human eye, the color temperature can indicate whether there is more blue or red in the spectrum, but on its own this is not an indicator of how well a grow light will perform.

While full-spectrum and appearing white to our eyes, our PhytoMAX-2 LED grow lights have more red and blue light than other colors, giving them a slight purple hue as perceived by human eyes. No matter how much you heat something up, it won't glow with a purple hue, so our lights don't have a defined color temperature. If you aim a meter at our lights to measure the color temperature, the results don't make sense by definition- different meters can give wildly different answers.