Summer is officially over, along with its allotment of free sunlight. You might be sad about this, but your indoor plants might be even sadder. A good LED grow light can replicate sunlight with full-spectrum light and day/night cycles, keeping plants lush and thriving even in a dark, windowless corner or basement.

I have no fewer than 40 houseplants in my home at any given time, as well as a fair number of grow lights, and what I've found to be important for a general consumer (i.e., someone not doing that kind of indoor grow) isn't necessarily certain colored light wavelengths but whether a grow light is easy to live with in your house.

Many grow lights are more or less going to serve the same purpose, so what you really need to know is this: Is the light so bright that it's disruptive? Does it require complicated installation? Is it easy for kids or pets to knock over? The grow lights recommended below are ones that WIRED staffers have lived with for months, if not years, and have found them both effective and easy to integrate into our lives.

Also be sure to check out our guides to the Best Indoor Gardening Systems, Best Gifts for Plant Lovers, and Best Kitchen Composters.

Photosynthetic photon flux Ddensity, or PPFD, expressed in micromoles per square meter per second (μmol/m²/s), is a measurement of how much light reaches your plant that's usable for photosynthesis. In general, the higher the plant's energy needs, such as producing a flower or a fruit, the higher the PPFD number you want.

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