Choosing Between LED Mini Lights or Incandescent Mini Christmas Lights

Selecting Christmas lights used to be a fairly easy task. There was no such thing as LED Christmas lights and the incandescent mini lights that were available were only offered in a few colors and string sizes. Today shoppers can choose from LED or incandescent in a wide variety of styles, colors, and grades. If you are trying to decide between traditional incandescent mini Christmas lights or LED mini lights here are a few things to consider:

Recognize What is the Same

The best place to start before we dig into the differences, pros, and cons of incandescent vs. LED is to examine what is the same with these two types of Christmas mini lights. In terms of basic design and construction, LED and incandescent mini lights are essentially the same. Each consists of a number of mini style light bulbs which are connected together (usually in series) and can be plugged into a standard household power outlet. One common misconception about LED Christmas lights is that they require some sort of special power supply or plug. This is generally not the case. While some manufactures and retailers (including us) offer a commercial grade LED Christmas light that utilizes a special power adapter, standard grade LED Christmas lights plug in and operated just like their incandescent counterpart. When comparing standard grade LED Christmas lights with standard grade incandescent mini lights, the only difference is that the LED set uses LED lamps to produce light while incandescent Christmas lights use incandescent lamps to produce light. Most standard grade LED and incandescent Christmas lights can be used both indoors and outdoors and are generally available in standard green wire, white wire, and in some cases black or brown wire. Both incandescent and LED Christmas lights are also available in a wide variety of colors and styles. While the basic functionality of incandescent and LED mini lights are essentially the same there are also many differences you should consider when choosing between LED or incandescent.

Energy Efficiency & Longevity

For most consumers, the biggest difference between LED and incandescent Christmas lights is their relative power consumption and life expectancy. An average incandescent mini light bulb uses between .5 and .75 watts per bulb while the average LED mini light only uses about .05 watts per bulb. While this is a substantial difference and the collective energy savings by the population at large can have a huge impact on our energy consumption and environment, the actual energy cost savings between incandescent and LED Christmas lights for the average home owner who decorates a small Christmas tree during the holiday season may only add up to a small amount. However, if you have a large holiday lighting display that uses thousands of lights, the energy cost savings can really add up.

LED Christmas lights are also superior to incandescent Christmas lights in terms of longevity or life-expectancy. The average incandescent mini light will last for between 2500 and 5000 hours before the filament burns out and the bulb (or the entire string in the case of sets with non-replaceable bulbs) has to be replaced. In contrast, LED Christmas lights can last up to 50,000 hours.

Thus, when choosing between LED and incandescent you should consider the actual energy cost savings for your particular application. (A good rule of thumb is the LEDs mini lights will save you about 80%.) In addition to the actual energy costs savings you should consider the estimated replacement cost of the lights over a period of years assuming that the LED lights will last at least 5 times as long as incandescent mini lights.

Durability & Maintenance

Another important consideration when choosing between LED and incandescent is the durability and maintenance costs of each. Unlike incandescent lights, LED lights utilize a solid-state diode which is much more durable than an incandescent lamp. This is because and LED does not have a fragile filament like an incandescent lamp. Most everyone knows that incandescent filaments are very fragile and can easily break rendering the lamp useless even is the glass bulb itself does not break. Incandescent mini lights can easily be ruined if they are dropped, blown in the wind, or stepped on. LED lights, on the other hand, are virtually indestructible. Because there is no fragile filament to break or burn out, LED Christmas lights are much more durable than incandescent mini lights.

The significant durability of LED Christmas lights also make them more cost effective to maintain. Time is valuable. If you have spare time over the holidays it is unlikely that you want to use that time trouble-shooting and repairing broke incandescent Christmas lights. Whether you would spend this time with your family or working to make some extra holiday cash, there is a cost associated with maintaining your Christmas lights. Because LED lights are almost unbreakable and last so long the maintenance costs of owing LED Christmas lights are significantly less than owning incandescent Christmas lights.

Initial Cost of Ownership

No matter where you decide to purchase your Christmas lights, LED Christmas lights are more expensive than incandescent Christmas lights of comparable quality. On average you can expect to pay up to three times as much for an LED light set. For some people the higher price point of LED Christmas lights may be cost prohibitive. For others (especially those with small holiday displays), it simply may not make economic sense to buy LEDs if it may take 10-15 years to recover the cost difference through the energy and maintenance savings. Some simple math can help you determine if it makes economic sense for you.

Aesthetic Considerations

While LED Christmas lights have been greatly improved since they were first introduced in 2003 or 2004, there are still some noticeable differences in appearance between LED and incandescent Christmas lights. When LED mini lights were first introduced the biggest consumer complaints were that the white LED lights appeared "blueish" and flickered or had a strobing affect. Newer high quality LED Christmas lights are now widely available that do not produce this undesirable flicker effect and which produce a white light that is similar in color (color temperature) and appearance to incandescent white. Although these improvements greatly closed the gap in the appearance difference between LED and incandescent, LED lights still cannot perfectly match the color and appearance of incandescent. This is largely because LED lights and incandescent lights produce light in completely different manners. LED lights produce light directly through an electronic process that takes place in the LED chip. Incandescent lights produce light by running an electrical current through a metal filament which creates resistance. This resistance produces heat which, in turn, produces lights. (The fact that incandescent lamps produce light as a by-product of heat is the principle reason that LEDs are so much more efficient.) The manner in which incandescent lamps produce light creates a super bright, glowing, light source that is diffused relatively evenly in all directions. In contrast, LEDs produce an bright light that is consistently bright over the surface of the LED and does not create the same glowing effect as incandescent. This difference is greatly diminished in LED Christmas lights that utilize a lens (or LED cover) that is specifically designed for LED light. (The wide angle LED light set is the best example of this. The wide angle lens is specifically designed to evenly distribute the LED light which is highly directional.) While a high quality warm white wide angle LED Christmas light set comes very close in color and appearance to a clear incandescent mini light, the difference is still noticeable to the discerning eye.

In addition to the general differences between LED and incandescent Christmas lights (and the differences between the white colors), the appearance of colored incandescent lights and LED lights can also be significant. This difference is also a result of the manner in which the two light sources create colored light. Incandescent holiday lights created colored light by applying a colored coating to the glass bulb that surrounds the filament. The color or color temperature of the light produced by a clear or white incandescent light filament is exactly the same as it is in a colored incandescent lamp. The difference is that the incandescent light is filter through a colored glass bulb which alters the appearance of the light that is emitted. In contrast, LED lights produce colored light by physically emitting light at different wave lengths. (The actual physics of how LEDs produce light and colored light are much more complicated than this but are beyond my expertise and the scope of this article.) The visible result is that colored LED lights often produce a light that is crisper and truer in color and is not polluted by the yellowish color which is the underlying source of colored incandescent light. An important effect of this difference is that colored LED Christmas lights will not fade over time. Colored incandescent mini lights will lose their color over time as the colored coating wears off the bulb. The rate at which colored incandescent lights deteriorate is greatly increased if the lights are used in outdoor applications.

While high quality warm white LED Christmas lights come very close to matching the attractive and soft warm color of clear incandescent bulbs, the appearance of most of the incandescent colored bulbs simply do not compare to the crisp and pure colors produced by colored LED Christmas lights. As a result, the only time that the choice between LED and incandescent is a close call is when considering warm white Christmas lights.

Safety Considerations

Most Christmas light sets which are sold in the United States are subject to various safety regulations to ensure that they are safe for their intended use. Furthermore, most reputable manufacturers have their products independently certified by a third party testing agency such as United Laboratories or UL. No matter what type of mini Christmas lights you decide to purchase you should make sure that the product is approved by UL or comparable third party testing and certification organization. While most Christmas lights are generally safe when used as intended, there is always some inherent danger when using electrical devices. However, LED Christmas lights offer some significant safety advantages over incandescent.

First, because incandescent lamps produce light as a by-product of heat, incandescent lights must produce heat in order to operate. Although, miniature incandescent Christmas lights produce much less heat than they larger C7 or C9 style siblings, a typical incandescent mini light that has been operating for an hour or more can, under certain conditions, produce enough heat to ignite combustible materials. LED Christmas lights create little or no risk of starting a fire in this manner because the LED lights produce very little heat. LED lights generally operate at about 1 degree above ambient temperature and remain cool to the touch even after hours of operation.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, incandescent lights require a significantly greater amount of power to operate. The great power consumption of incandescent lights means that it is much easier to overload an electrical circuit and create a risk of electrical fire. Overloaded circuits are the most common cause of Christmas light related home fires. Because LED Christmas lights use 80% less power it is much more difficult to overload a household circuit. The revised UL standard for the connectability of Christmas lights is 220 watts per standard 15 amp household circuit. For example, this means that a use can safely connect no more than 5 sets (most manufacturers place the limit at 3) of 50 light incandescent mini lights on one circuit. In contrast, one could safely connect up to 88 sets of 50 light LED mini lights. As a practical matter, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would have 88 sets of LED lights connected end-to-end on one circuit for an interior application. On the other hand, it is likely (and probably common) for consumers to connect more than 5 sets of incandescent mini lights to one circuit.

There is no dispute that LED Christmas lights are inherently and significantly safer than incandescent mini lights.

Installation Advantages of LED

The same reasons that make LEDs safer than incandescent also make them easier to install, especially for large displays. Because LEDs consume less power and more sets can safely be connected end-to-end, it makes them much easier to use for displays that use a lot of lights. Many large holiday lighting displays (typically municipal or commercial displays) use so many lights that special electrical wiring and installation of dedicated electrical circuits is required. The option to use LEDs has greatly reduced or eliminated this costly upgrade to electrical infrastructure. Even if you simply have a large residential display, using LEDs can make installation much less complicated and greatly reduce the number of extension cords draped across your lawn.

Environmental Considerations

If you are the average home owner that only decorates a small Christmas tree for a few hours each day during late November and December, the energy cost savings that you would gain by using LEDs instead of incandescent Christmas lights simply may not make economic sense for you as an individual. However, we think it is important for consumers of Christmas lights and decorative lighting to consider the larger impact and cost that their choice in light has on the environment and society as a whole.

A study conducted by the EPA determined that if only 20 percent of U.S. households converted their incandescent Christmas lights to LED, energy consumption during the holiday season in the United States would be reduced by 400 GWH. To put this in perspective, in 2003 the EPA estimated that the U.S. consumed 2220 GWH of energy to power Christmas lights during the holiday season.

In addition to the collective energy savings our society could achieve by converting to LED Christmas lights, converting to LED lights would also mean that we would be sending a significantly less number of Christmas lights to the landfill each year because LED lights last so much longer. Presumably, the environmental impact caused by the manufacture and production of Christmas lights would also be reduced because fewer sets of Christmas lights would have to be produced each year as we convert to LED because on the increased longevity of LED lights. This is especially true because the very low cost of incandescent holiday lights has made them essentially disposable in the mind of the consumer.

While we greatly encourage you to take the environment into consideration when making your decision regarding your holiday lighting purchases, we promise that we will not send Al Gore after you if you buy incandescent lights from us.

Closing Thoughts

While it is certainly true that shorter articles have been written about far more important and complicated subjects, I hope that these considerations will help you make an educated decision in deciding between LED and incandescent Christmas lights. Some of these factors will not apply to you while others may be very important considerations for your particular application. I don't beleive that any one of these points is any more important than the others and each Christmas light consumer should weight all of these pros and cons against each other and decide which carry more weight. Not matter what you decide I can assure you that if you purchase your Christmas lights from ChristmasMiniLights.com you will receive the highest quality Christmas lights available.