LED Lights At Home

Product: 16-foot string of 50 LED Christmas lights (lights spaced at 4 inches)

Brand: Celebrations (an in-house brand of Ace Hardware)

Manufacturer: Unknown

Retailer: Ace Hardware

Price: $10.99 (on sale from $12.99)

Summary

I was excited to see LED lights at such a low cost. While they are more expensive than traditional light strings, the electricity savings in one holiday season will pay for most — if not all — of the difference. But the bluish quality of the light may put you off of these lights.

Detailed Review

I couldn’t wait for Christmas to see how these lights perform, so I decided to use them in our front hall. We have a two-story hall in our Colonial house, with closets flanking the front door. We have fake Ficus trees on top of the closets, and we put strings of mini Christmas lights on them to make them festive, but also as a kind of night light.

Since they are on 6 - 8 hours per night, every night, they seemed like a good place to try out the LEDs. Information on the box states that over a 45-day period, lit 6 hours per day, an incandescent set will burn 68.85 kilowatt hours (kwh) and (which in my area would cost $11.70); the LEDs will burn 13.61 kwh and cost $2.31– a $9.39 savings. In other words, if an incandescent string costs any more than $3, the higher purchase price will be offset by the electricity savings in a couple of months.

So I took one tree down, put the LEDs on them and put it back. Here you can see the LED and incandescent side by side:

You’ll notice the LEDs are substantially dimmer, and give off a bluish cast.

I finished the job, took more pictures, and assembled them into the before and after:

Bottom line: they are on the border of being too dim to serve as night lights, and you have to be much more careful where you walk when you go to the refrigerator in the middle of the night! But the blueish cast really bugs my wife and she wants me to take them down.

I have ordered a set of “warm white” LED Christmas lights from Brookstone, which I will try next. Look for that posting in  a couple of weeks.