Emergency lighting plays a critical role in safely guiding building occupants during power outages or emergencies. This guide explains the different types of emergency lights—thermoplastic, steel, wet location, hazardous, and more—so you can select the right fixture for your commercial or industrial needs.
Last updated: August 2025
What Is Emergency Lighting Used For?
Emergency lighting ensures safe egress during an emergency by illuminating exit routes in the event of a power failure. Whether it's a fire, blackout, or hazardous incident, these fixtures provide critical visibility to help occupants evacuate safely. Emergency lights are required by NEC and OSHA in most commercial, industrial, and public buildings and are designed to activate automatically and run long enough (typically 90 minutes) to support a full evacuation and response.
What’s New: 2025 Trends
LiFePO4 Batteries
Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) packs are rapidly replacing NiCd/NiMH in many emergency fixtures. Benefits include longer calendar life, stable performance across wider temperatures, lower self-discharge, and reduced environmental concerns.
Smarter Self-Testing
Self-diagnostic units now perform automated weekly/monthly checks and annual 90-minute tests, with on-device indicators and optional cloud dashboards for log retention and alerts—streamlining inspection readiness.
Harsh-Environment Options
Cold-storage kits (battery heaters) and IP65/IP66/NEMA 4X housings are more common, ensuring runtime in freezers, wash-down, coastal, or dusty areas. Explosion-proof (haz-loc) models continue to expand LED output choices.
Solar-Assisted Egress
For exterior egress and exit discharge, battery-backed wall packs with solar assist are increasingly used to maintain code illumination during outages while reducing grid dependence.
Types of Emergency Lights
Wall-Mounted & Ceiling-Mounted Units
The most common fixtures feature dual adjustable lamp heads with internal battery backup. These “bug-eye” units automatically illuminate corridors, stairwells, and exit pathways when normal power fails, guiding occupants safely to exits.
Modern LED heads provide high efficacy and long life. Backup batteries are typically NiMH, NiCd, or increasingly lithium (see trends above) for reduced maintenance.
Recessed Emergency Lights
Recessed models install flush with ceilings or walls for a clean, architectural look. They provide the same code runtime while minimizing visual impact—popular in offices, hospitality, retail, and healthcare corridors where aesthetics matter.
Use recessed fixtures when you need discreet coverage in lobbies, conference centers, theaters, galleries, and boutique retail—places where surface-mounted “bug-eyes” would distract from the design. They’re also ideal in narrow corridors where projecting heads could be bumped by carts. Many recessed trims accept adjustable optics so you can aim light onto the egress path without glare. Shop low-profile options in our Recessed Emergency Lights collection.
Remote-Head Emergency Lights
Remote-capable units centralize the battery/charger in one housing and power separate lamp heads located where coverage is needed—perfect for high-bay and long-throw applications.
Deploy remote heads in warehouses, distribution centers, mezzanines, back-of-house corridors, tunnels, and atriums where a single central pack can feed multiple heads at height. This approach reduces ladder time and concentrates maintenance to one service point while extending egress coverage down long aisles or around corners. It’s also effective for temperature-controlled spaces where you want the battery in conditioned areas but heads in cold zones. Explore matched heads and power packs in Remote Heads Emergency Lights.
High-Output & Area Lights
High-output models use higher-watt LED engines and larger batteries to push light farther—covering wide floor plates, tall mounting heights, and open volumes.
Choose these for gymnasiums, big-box retail, production floors, airplane hangars, and parking garages where standard units can’t meet spacing or minimum foot-candles. Higher lumen packages simplify photometrics, often reducing the total fixture count while helping achieve the 1 fc average along the path of egress. Pair with remote heads to fill dead spots under mezzanines or over racking. Browse suitable lumen tiers in our High Lumen Emergency Lights.
Wet-Location & Hazardous-Location Lights
Wet-location units feature gasketed, corrosion-resistant housings and cold-weather battery options for rain, hose-down, or freezing environments; hazardous-location models add explosion-proof construction for classified areas.
Use wet-location lights at loading docks, exterior egress doors, food-processing wash-down lines, wastewater facilities, and coastal sites. For classified spaces like chemical storage, refineries, paint spray areas, or grain handling, specify haz-loc fixtures with the correct Class/Division rating to prevent ignition. Cold-storage packages maintain runtime in freezers with battery heaters. Start with Wet Location Emergency Lights and, for classified areas, see Hazardous Location Emergency Lights.
Self-Testing & Smart Emergency Lights
Self-diagnostic models automate the monthly function and annual 90-minute tests, showing pass/fail via indicators—some add networked reporting.
They’re a force multiplier in hospitals, universities, hotels, and multi-site portfolios where manual logs are labor-intensive. Fleet dashboards surface failed batteries or lamps, help prove compliance during inspections, and cut truck rolls. In secure or 24/7 operations, automated testing can be scheduled to minimize disturbance. For large campuses, consider standardizing on self-testing units to unify maintenance. See our curated Self Testing Emergency Lights.
Exit Lights & Egress Path Lighting
Exit signs mark direction and doors, while low-level egress lighting and photoluminescent strips reinforce the route under smoke or power loss.
Use bright, code-listed exit signs at intersections, stair doors, and long corridors so occupants always see the next decision point. Add floor-adjacent markers on stair treads, handrails, and baseboards to guide movement when visibility drops. In historic or design-sensitive spaces, pair edge-lit exit signs with discreet path lighting for a clean look that still passes inspection. Start planning with our full Exit Signs collection.
Temporary or Standby Emergency Lights
Maintained (normally-on) fixtures support critical tasks (healthcare, security, data centers) during outages; non-maintained fixtures remain off until power loss. Both types must meet runtime and illumination rules.
- Thermoplastic: Affordable, lightweight, indoor-rated.
- Steel: Durable, often remote-capable for industrial use.
- Wet Location: Waterproof, cold-weather options for outdoors.
- Architectural: Low-profile designs for upscale interiors.
- Hazardous Location: Explosion-proof for flammable/corrosive zones.
Illuminated vs. Non-Illuminated Exit Signs
Exit signs fall into two families: illuminated (electrical) and non-illuminated (no wiring). Both may be required depending on code and environment.
Illuminated Exit Signs
LED exit signs are hard-wired and incorporate a battery for outages so the “EXIT” stays visible 24/7. They’re UL 924 listed and standard in most occupancies.
Non-Illuminated Exit Signs
Power-free exit signs reduce energy and maintenance. Two common types are:
- Tritium Exit Signs: Self-luminous signs that glow for up to 20 years with no wiring or charging; UL 924 compliant. Dispose via licensed recyclers at end-of-life.
- Photoluminescent Exit Signs: Glow-in-the-dark signs that charge from ambient light and emit during outages; best where lighting exposure is consistent.
Where Are Emergency Lights Required?
Install emergency lights anywhere people may need to evacuate in darkness, including:
- Office buildings
- Theaters and churches
- Retail stores and shopping malls
- Warehouses and factories
- Government and institutional facilities
- Schools and healthcare facilities
- Hotels and multi-unit lodging (corridors, stairs, exit discharge)
Emergency Lighting Requirements
- Automatic activation: Lights switch on when normal power fails.
- Runtime: Minimum 90 minutes on battery power (check local amendments if higher).
- Illumination: At least 1 foot-candle average (with minimum values) along the egress path, measured near floor level. Some AHJs require higher levels on stair treads—verify locally.
- Testing: Monthly function checks and annual full-duration tests; maintain records for inspections. Self-testing units can automate this.
Design tip: Use photometrics and spacing tables to avoid dark spots, coordinate with exit signs, and confirm coverage for exterior exit discharge areas.
Construction of Emergency Lights
Typical components include a housing, charger/control board, transformer, battery, and LED lamp heads. During normal power, the battery charges; during an outage, the transfer circuit powers LEDs for the required duration.
Battery choices: Legacy units use sealed lead-acid or NiCd; newer designs favor NiMH and LiFePO4 for longer life, lower self-discharge, and better low-temperature performance. Replace batteries per manufacturer intervals to preserve runtime.
Wall Pack Lights vs. Emergency Lights
While emergency lights are life-safety fixtures for outages, wall pack lights provide general outdoor/perimeter lighting (often with dusk-to-dawn or motion sensors). To support egress at exterior doors, many wall packs add battery backup to maintain illumination during blackouts.
Want a full breakdown of wall pack features and types? Read our Wall Pack Lights Buyer’s Guide.