If all your doing is prepping for them to go outside, you may not need a timer. Full spectrum is best but be careful, it took me a week of research before I replaced my blurples. A good week! Some times it gets a little boring but you can def look up old treads here as the LED topic has been discussed many of times. There is soooooo much ** out there about my light is better than yours when it comes to LED advertising and propaganda. But, Yea, If all your doing is prep to go outside and that's it, you shouldn't have to put a ton of time, work and money into your decision. IDK If you consider yourself a newbie or if you even have the space or means, but if you think there is half a chance that you may evolve into an indoor person than you will want to do the leg work/research and be ready to drop some coin. Hopefully someone else chimes in.