The Best Cable Lighting Kits in 2023

Looking for the best Cable Lighting Kit for your home? We’ve put together our favourites as a buying guide to simplify the process to help you choose the right solution for you.

Let’s get started.

Quick Best Buy

Need a quick solution, check out our best buy for a good quality, great value cable lighting starter kit that comes with a set of 5 heads.

Tiella 800CBL5PN Cable Lighting Kit

The Tiella 800 suspended cable lighting is the entry level kit from the quality Tech Lighting brand, an offshoot of the highly successful Visual Comfort & Co. Scroll down for the complete review.

What is a Cable Lighting Kit?

Cable lighting is a 2 wire linear suspension system, that spans fine steel cables potentially across wide interior spaces to suspend a wide variety of lighting choices from. Purpose made lighting fixtures clip to the cables and open up lighting opportunities to even the most tricky of spaces to light.

A Cable Lighting Kits provide pre-selected popular combinations of cable accessories to get you started. It can be the most cost effective and simplest place to begin with the option of being expanded at a later date.

Why We Like Cable Light Kits

Component built Cable Lighting Systems cover a comprehensive selection of hardware and accessories to install lighting into virtually any interior space. However, these bespoke solutions do require a greater degree of understanding that can be avoided by using a pre-chosen kit.

As lighting designers we primarily use cable lighting to position lighting over areas within a room that would otherwise be impossible if it were not for this simple linear suspension system. Concrete ceilings that cannot take recessed lighting, sloping pitched ceilings that are difficult to install lighting into, architectural or structural features that are awkwardly positioned – all are solved with the use of cable lights.

It’s also the versatility of interchanging the lights themselves that make this quickly adaptable lighting solution ideal for retail and spaces that have multiple uses.

Types of Cable Lighting Kits

Cable Lighting Suspension Kit

A basic introductory kit that can create a span of usually 20′. This length of run is about as far as you want to go without needing to use additional supports to the cable, as long runs and heavy lighting fixtures will cause the tensile cables to sag. The choice of lighting to connect to the system is left to you to source additionally.

Cable Lighting Kit with Light Fixtures

To get you going as a complete introductory kit, some kits include spotlight heads as well. These lighting sources are useful for ambient and accent lighting, to spread light generally across walls or surfaces. You can possibly add to this kit with more lighting fixtures.

Can Additional Lighting be Added to Cable Lighting Kits?

If you want to add lighting to a cable light kit after installation, be sure to check that the cables can take the extra weight, pendants can sometimes be a heavy choice. Also ensure there is capacity in the transformer to successfully power more load, this will depend on the type of light source you are using.

LED Cable Lights

Cable Lighting Kits may not automatically be LED straight out of the box, but they can use LED light sources. Be sure to check whether you need to buy LED lamps or the fixtures you choose come pre-fitted with a dedicated internal LED light source.

Some manufacturer’s do not recommend LED lamps on their systems because of dimming issues that can arise. The 12V transformer that powers the lighting traditionally requires the heavier load of halogen sources to make a smooth dim when adjusted from your dimmer switch. Using these 12V systems LED lamps can just be too light a loading, causing some flickering when full power is reduced during the dim.

Best Cable Lighting Kits

This is our best selection of 2 wire cable light kits that combine a variety of accessories.

1. Tiella 800CBL5PN Cable Lighting Kit

Specifications

• Dimensions – 20 feet long
• Capacity – 100W
• Difficulty – Easy as a preselected kit
• Lights – 5 qty Halogen Lamps (can be replaced with LED lamps)
• Price – $$ (Check current price)

The Tiella 800 suspended cable lighting is the entry level kit from the reliable Tech Lighting brand, an offshoot of the Visual Comfort Lighting Group of companies.

Pros

• Low cost and easy to install allowing you to suspend a pair of tensioned cables between 2 points up to 20′ apart from a good brand.

Cons

• This kit was originally designed for halogen lighting with the 100W capacity of transformer requiring at least a 50%-60% load to allow for a smooth dim. For this reason the manufacturer recommends halogen lamps still, but LED lamps will work but may need a combination of halogen lamps if you want to dim them.

2. Kable Lite 150W Surface Cable Light Kit

Specifications

• Dimensions – 45′ of cable for an installed 20′ pair of cables
• Capacity – 150W Surface Mount Transformer
• Difficulty – Easy/Medium. This is a cable & accessory kit only.
• Lights – none supplied with the kit.
• Price – $$ (Check current price)

This is an economical kit to build a basic straight run of cables and add your own choice of pendants and spotlight heads from the Tech Lighting range (see above for our recommendations). There is often no ideal place to hide a transformer, such as in a ceiling void above the plasterboard, so a surface mounted transformer is required.

Comes with 4 qty Slimline Turnbuckles, 45′ of cable and transformer.

Pros

• Visually acceptable surface mounted transformer opens opportunities for cable lighting to be installed

Cons

• LED dimming still needs care – see #1 above.

3. Kable Lite Remote Kit 300W

Specifications

• Dimensions – 20′ pair of cables
• Capacity – 300W Large Capacity
• Difficulty – Medium
• Lights – No heads or pendants included.
• Price – $$ (Check current price)

This is a great kit to build a basic good quality straight run with the power connected to the cables from a remote transformer fed via power feed canopy. You see from the image above that the ceiling rose hides the hole to allows the pair of cables to enter the room and connect to the system.

Comes with 4 qty Slimline Turnbuckles, 45′ of cable, remote transformer and power feed canopy.

This cable system only option allows you to add your own choice of pendants and spotlight heads from the Tech Lighting range (see above for our recommendations).

Pros

• Large capacity, neat connection of power from the remote transformer.
• An economical way to get started with a great quality system.

Cons:

• The larger the transformer the more load will be required for a smoother dim when using LED lamps.

FAQs

How Can Cable Lighting Kits be Extended?

The 45′ of cable from 2 qty kits can be combined but you would need to add cable supports when going over 20′.

For lots more on suspended lighting choices check out: The Best Track, Monorail, Freejack & Cable-Lighting

Andrew Orange, the owner of Orange Lighting qualified and worked as an interior designer in 1993 before specialising in lighting working on high profile projects based in London. Since starting Orange Lighting Ltd in 2003 he has been sharing his knowledge and unique teaching style mostly to his designer clients, offering practical real life advice born from running a busy consultancy and lighting supply business. Launching in 2020, his blog has evolved into Quick & Easy Lighting, curating some 25 years design experience into making the lighting choice and design process achievable and easy to understand for all.