Folks, a bit of a leftfield question and perhaps not linked to Hubitat.
I'm currently sat in my UK garden and the midgey flies are feasting on me. I have spotlights in my eaves behind me and I can see 100-1000's of them buzzing around.
So it's no secret that flies are attracted to light but my question is:- if I add another light further up the garden, Is there a specific type of bulb or light which the flies have a preference too. I.e. They will fly away from my house to their preferred light.
Please don't offer a solution of turning my eaves lights off
That's useful l, so presumably the other end of the white spectrum means the bugs are highly attracted. I was also curious if there's a specific colour of preference for bugs such as purple for example. Sorry for the mental questions, I appreciate you're/we're smart home enthusiasts and not Charles Darwin👍
My company once sold pallet-loads of the old yellow 60w incandescent bug light every summer. I never found them to be effective. Here's an LED version with decent reviews. 1900-2000k seems to be the standard.
FWIW, midges & mosquitos aren't strong fliers, so fans do help.
How about those bug zappers-did they use ultraviolet, or was that just to make it less obnoxious to humans?
Probably unrelated, but my cursory literature search into mosquitoes the other day (I was getting eaten alive, (comparatively, this is not Florida, the Amazon, Wisconsin, New Jersey, or wherever), while walking in the woods, and supposedly they like the darker colors, so white is a good color to wear. Different mechanisms at play though, I'm sure. (Unrelated, but I found a 'new' kind of bug repellent ingredient , Picaridin, that's effective as DEET, but won't dissolve your synthetic stuff).
Other that doing an inter web search, lol, you could do your experiments with a color changing bulb for your own particular bugs. Of course your eaves lights might wind up being fuchsia.
I live about 18 miles inland in the coastal Carolinas --big bodies of water & marshes everywhere. Deet works for me ...when I remember to apply it. But only picaridin works for my wife.
Ticks are a growing health risk in the US and very numerous here. I treat the cuffs of my pants with permethrin about once a month (it'll withstand a few washings).
