LED Lighting Guide

Posted 2024-03-23 13:59:34

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What Are LED Christmas Lights?

Simply put, LED Christmas lights are just like traditional incandescent Christmas lights except they use light emitting diodes for lamps instead of incandescent bulbs. For all intents and purposes, LED Christmas lights function and are installed and used just like traditional Christmas lights. With the exception of our line of commercial grade LED Christmas lights, our light sets do not require any special adapters and plug into to standard household outlets just like your old incandescent sets.

LED Christmas Lights vs. Incandescent Christmas Lights

Many people think that there is something different about how LED Christmas lights work that requires special knowledge, adapters or other accessories. In fact, LED Christmas lights operate and function exactly the same as incandescent Christmas lights. While LED Christmas lights are nearly the same as comparable incandescent sets when looking at their core functionality, there are some differences and many advantages to LEDs.

How Are LED Christmas Lights Like Incandescent Christmas Lights?

LED Christmas lights plug into standard household power and do not required a special adapter.
LED Christmas lights have a male plug on one end and a female plug on the other end so multiple sets can be connected together end-to-end.
LED holiday lights are constructed in the same manner as traditional Xmas lights with three strands of wire which is twisted together with bulbs affixed to the wire spaced apart equally.

How Are LED Christmas Lights Different Than Traditional Christmas Lights?

While LED Christmas lights are basically the same in how they are constructed and used, there are some differences that are important to understand.

LED light is highly directional unlike incandescent lights. As a result, the type of bulb style you choose will greatly effect how the lights appear. The 5MM wide angle bulb does the best job of equally diffusing the highly directional LED light in all directions. Other bulb styles may appear more or less bright depending on the angle from which they are viewed. Generally speaking, this issue becomes more apparent with the larger LED bulb styles.
With LEDs, bigger does not mean brighter. Incandescent lights need to be bigger to produce more light because the bulb has to house a larger filament. The brightness of an LED lamp has nothing to do with size. The brightness of an LED is largely determined by the quality of the LED and the lens used. With the exception of our C7 and C9 LED replacement bulbs, all of our LED Christmas light sets have one LED per bulb. The only difference between the various bulb styles is the shape and appearance of the bulb or lens which covers the LED. With the exception of the wide angle light sets, the only purpose of the bulb is decorative and to make LED holiday lights look more like traditional incandescent light sets.
The light produced by LEDs looks a bit different than the light produced by incandescent holiday lights. The quality of the color produced by an LED light set has a lot to do with the quality of the LED. This is most noticeable in low-quality sets of white LEDs. Many white LED Christmas lights produce a blueish light that is not attractive. We offer three colors of white: warm white, pure white and frosted warm white. Our warm white and warm white frosted are very close in color and appearance to incandescent clear or white. Our pure white is a crisp, clean white that is not blue. However, even high quality white LED Christmas lights will look slightly different if you compare them closely to comparable incandescent sets. This is because incandescent bulbs produce light by running electricity through a resistant filament. This heats up the filament until it glows and creates light. As a result, incandescent lights typically have a very bright glowing center. In contrast, LEDs produce light directly and there is no bright glowing center which creates a slightly different appearance. Most people who are not experts in holiday lighting cannot tell the difference between a high quality warm white LED light set and an incandescent clear set when viewed from a distance.
LED lights produce very little heat so they won't melt snow very quickly that incandescent bulbs. If you are going to install your LED lights in a location where snow is likely its best to choose a set with smaller bulbs what won't collect much snow.

What Are the Advantages of LED Christmas Lights?

LED holiday lights are quickly replacing incandescent Christmas lights entirely because they have many advantages over the old style holiday lights. Over the last 4 years I have seen the shelf space dedicated to LED Christmas lights in the big box stores grow from about 5% in 2007 to nearly 80% in 2010. I suspect that very soon incandescent Christmas lights will be very hard to find. Although there soon may not be a choice between LEDs and incandescent lights there will be for a few years to it is still important to understand the advantages of LEDs.

LEDs are 80-99% more efficient than incandescent Christmas lights
Our LED light bulbs are made of durable epoxy plastic, not glass so they are very tough.
LEDs don't have a fragile filament that can break or burn out.
Our high quality LED string lights will last 10 times as long as comparable incandescent light sets.
LED Christmas lights produce truer, crisper colors because the colored light is produced directly by the LED, not by passing white light through a colored bulb that will fade over time.
LED Christmas lights create very little heat so they are not a fire hazard like hot incandescent bulbs.
LED light sets are safer because they draw so little power there is less risk of overloading circuits.
You can connect at least 30 times more LED light sets end-to-end on one standard household circuit.

What Are the Disadvantages of LED Christmas Lights?

Most people who have some knowledge about Christmas lighting know that there are very few disadvantages of LED Christmas lights. However, there are a few disadvantages you should be aware of and consider.

LED Christmas lights are more expensive than incandescent light sets. While there are now several LED light sets on the market that are relatively inexpensive, this is largely because now that LEDs are more popular many low cost, low quality manufacturers have entered the LED Christmas lighting market. It is now possible to find LED light sets that are only 10-15% more than comparable incandescent sets. However, most of these low cost sets are of such poor quality that they won't last long enough for the consumer to realize the benefit of the cost savings one can obtain because of the LEDs superior efficiency. Competition and increased supply has driven retail prices for high quality LED holiday light sets down a bit. The cost of the LED chips has gone down significantly over the last 4 years but the cost of other raw materials such as copper and gas have gone up significantly which has resulted in an overall increase in production costs for Christmas lights of about 10% in the last year or so. As a result, high quality LED light sets still cost about twice as much as a comparable incandescent light set.
Depending on the type of lights, number of lights used and length of time the lights are used the amount of time it takes for the consumer to recoup the cost difference between LEDs and incandescents may take several years. For example, if you are replacing C7 or C9 incandescent with LEDs the payoff should be quick since traditional C7 or C9 bulbs used about 7 watts of power while comparable LEDs use less than 1 watt. In contrast, traditional mini lights use about .5 watts and comparable LEDs use approximately .075 watts per LED. The difference in efficiency is still substantial but it may take 3-5 years for the consumer to recoup the cost difference. At the end of the day you need to consider all of the benefits of LEDs vs. incandescents and decide if switching to LEDs makes sense for you.
Some LED versions of Christmas lights don't produce as much light are have the same appearance as comparable incandescent light sets. This is generally only an issue with the larger bulb styles such as the C7 or C9. The primary reason for this is that the C7 and C9 bulb style is a terrible lens for LED lights. This bulb style was designed for incandescent lights to house a large filament that was necessary to produce more light. With LED C7 or C9s, the only function of the bulb is to make the lights look like traditional incandescent C7 or C9s and actually hinders the performance of the LEDs. This is also a problem in low quality LED C7 and C9 sets because most low-cost manufacturers only use one LED in their C7 and C9 sets which is not sufficient to overcome the handicap the large bulb places on the LED. While our C7 and C9 replacement bulbs contain 3 and 5 LEDs, respectively, and are comparable in brightness, they are still not quite as bright as comparable incandescents and don't create the same appearance.

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