LED Christmas Lights vs. Incandescent Lights

LED Christmas Lights vs. Incandescent Lights

The holiday season is here! Joy, peace, love, happiness, festive decorations, parties and of course, we cannot forget the brilliant lights that shine and glow throughout our neighborhoods.

Remember the big colorful bulbs of yesterday? The ones on the long lighting strings your parents set you out to put on your shrubbery in the front of your house. Such a fun time and a great memory.

Well, times have certainly changed with lighting technologies that have expanded by leaps and bounds.

This article discusses the newest LED Christmas lights vs. incandescent lights of yesterday.

LED Christmas Lights vs. Incandescent Lights

Within the last decade, 2007 to be exact, LED Christmas lights were introduced. They were soon to rival the traditional incandescent light bulbs. Early on, these LED lights had some inconsistencies, such as the brilliancy of the colors. It all depended on the manufacturer. However, these lights have come a long way with nearly a decade of LED lighting technology improvements that have far surpassed the traditional Christmas incandescents.

Are you planning to decorate yourself or looking to hire a professional Christmas lighting company? Suppose the choice is to do it yourself by purchasing LED Christmas lights. In that case, you will benefit from the LED light’s brilliancy and longevity, resulting in a cost-effective beautiful lighting display.

Below we list the top 4 reasons you should highly consider choosing LED Christmas lights vs. incandescent lights.

Energy Consumption

LED light bulbs have a significant impact on energy consumption vs. incandescent lights.

For incandescent bulbs to transmit light, a filament is zapped with electricity that burns, enabling light to emit. However, as the filament burns, it emits heat resulting in a significant amount of energy being used and wasted.

LED lights technology passes an electrical current through a semiconductor material. This process illuminates tiny light-emitting diodes (LEDs). As incandescent bulbs emit heat, so do LEDs; however, most heat is absorbed inside the light bulb resulting in a 90% decrease in energy use vs. incandescent lighting.

Cost-Effective

Consumer Reports compared incandescent Christmas light bulbs to LED lights.

By comparing 50 foot light strings that operated for 300 hours, they found that while the cost of LED lights per string was more, the operating cost was much lower. LED lights used 1 to 3 kilowatt-hours of energy, while incandescent lights used 12 to 105 kilowatt-hours. This resulted in an overall saving by using LED Christmas lights vs. incandescent lights of $1 to $11 for this usage period.

Brilliancy and Brightness

As we mentioned earlier, when LED Christmas lights were first introduced to the market in 2007, the brilliancy and brightness were much less than the traditional incandescent lights. With LED’s lighting ongoing technological improvements, they are now equal and more superior to incandescent bulbs.

With the new LED lighting comes a full spectrum of colored lights, unlike the incandescent limited painted bulbs. So when it comes to Christmas lighting, LED lights are the way to go. 

Lifespan

Consumer Reports also studied the durability and longevity of the LED Christmas lights vs. incandescent lights.

After lighting the bulbs and leaving them on for over 4,000 hours, all LED lights were still working while the incandescent bulbs started to burn out at around 2,000 hours of usage.

In conclusion, they determined that LED Christmas lights lasted much longer. However, it must be noted that not all manufacturers LED lights are of the same quality, while the outside weather conditions can also determine longevity. But overall, LED lights, again, should be your choice for Christmas Lighting.

Christmas Lighting with High-Quality, High Performance, Energy-Efficient Lights

Are you ready for the holiday festivities to begin? With so much to think about, the gifts, the holiday gathering, who to invite and more, let us help you and provide the outside decorating of your property with beautiful holiday lighting.

Browse our website and view some of our work, then get in touch to see how amazing we can make your home or commercial property look this holiday season.