Several weeks after mentioning them, here's a look. If you're looking to order some, while it looks like they still don't have any sort of pre-order capacity, they do offer a newsletter signup on the website: tru-tone.com/
Hi Alec! Thanks for finding and sharing Tru-Tone lights in 2021. That was a great big surprise for our incredibly small business! We’ve gained insight and theories into why we haven’t previously seen these types of LED Christmas lights, along with other behind-the-scenes stories, and in-development challenges we think you might find interesting! We’d love to chat if you’re interested! -David
@@AdhamOhm We'd just like to introduce ourselves. There's pretty much just two of of us here at Tru-tone and we have stories we think Alec would find interesting.
@@SeriouSXXFireworks Our limited resources haven't been able to keep up with increasing demand. All of our bulbs work in standard light strings or other lit decorations. Alec looks like he's swapped our bulbs into a standard retail light string. Our Classic mix is still available in our most popular C7 size at the moment, along with the C9 Jeweltone classic mix, but it looks like most items will be sold out for the rest of this year before much longer. We're still very new and incredibly tiny. Thanks for your patience as we grow.
@@TruToneBulbs I would like to buy from you but buying the C9 bulbs in the five pack mixed and that expensive light string is just too expensive. Unless you can do a discount?
@@SeriouSXXFireworks as a small business, profit margins are small, as they don’t have the same resources available as the bigger competitors, thus prices are bound to be a bit higher. but you do get what you pay for.
I purchased a set of the "Jeweltone" lights after your video because the classic lights were sold out and I like the "Jeweltone" lights better. I purchased a sample pack of the classic lights so I had a proper comparison. Also, while I was checking out, they ask how you heard about them and I specifically mentioned the Technology Connections youtube channel!! Cheers!
Why do people like the look of incandescent or true tone lights for Christmas decorations? Isn't the benefit of LEDs that you can get white light and not yellow light. Genuine question, im just wondering.
@@Danokh I'd say the warmth and nostalgic reasons. Some people prefer using cool white indoor as a common lighting and others (like me) prefer warm white indoor. So I'd say it pretty much translates to Christmas decorations as well.
@@Danokh there an unexplainable nuance to the incandescent lights that can’t necessarily be captured in the regular led ones. The regular LEDs tend to be a little to bright and are what is called monochromatic, which means they only produce one color per bulb, and they tend to be harsh. The True Tone ones replicate the white filament of the incandescent instead of producing the monochromatic colors of the regular ones. This is what makes them seem so realistic.
It's a small thing, but I think I just fell in love with that company. They usually add a pine scent to their boxes, but offer a well thought out fragrance free option. That's the sort of attention to detail that sets companies apart.
How the hell did we not all burn our homes down at Christmas time when I was a kid back in the '70s? We'd plug like 10 strands of these things into each other, and apparently were sucking down nearly 2 kW?! LOL! Insanity!!
And then there's the heat that they put off. We burned a hole in our couch one year when the tree was too close to it and a bulb was against the armrest. Fortunately, it didn't catch fire, but we did have a permanent bulb-sized hole in that couch.
When I was a kid (a long time ago) our indoor lights were cloth-wound wire from probably the 1940's that didn't get retired until the late '70's, those were SO dangerous 😬
I mean, people did cause fires and many homes did burn down; you just likely didn't hear about it. Even now, nearly 800 fires reported occur in the US due to holiday decorations. Risk campaigns of the 80s were the result of those risks.
I remember having to wrap the fuses in aluminum foil to keep the strands running. I'm also surprised nothing burned down as circumventing fuses is not a good idea.
What a wonderful invention, I know this is a pretty niche product but it's still really nice to see someone committing so heavily to creating visually indistinguishable LED strings. The day someone does this for mini bulbs is going to be the day someone makes a lot of money from me
I love c7 size bulbuls and made it my year long mission to find the perfect led replacement to incandescent Everyone makes the dumb faceted bulb I want smooth
I really do find amusing that all of us who like this channel, even coincide in how lightbulbs should cast their colors! (Things that muggles won’t even notice)
@@spacefolder there is a fallacy in your reasoning. We who don't care about Christmas lights just are keeping our mouth shut. So there is a group of people who love this channel but couldn't care less about Christmas lights.
Just seeing the wattage difference between the LED and incandescent is absolutely insane. The LED has got to be one of the most important inventions of our time.
Incandescent lamps are very efficient heaters, but not particularly efficient lights. (Their entire principle of operation is to heat the filament up enough that it starts glowing. Once you realize that every incandescent bulb has at it's core a white-hot piece of metal, it starts to make sense.)
@@Jaymac720 Apologies if I came across as condescending. I didn't mean to. The parenthetical was almost not included, then I realized that a significant portion of the world doesn't actually know how light bulbs of any sort work. In hindsight, considering the channel in question, I should've probably just assumed everyone knew already. But yeah, a lot of small incandescent bulbs add up fast. I much better understand why my parents didn't want to hang the "fat" christmas lights when I was little.
We ordered two sets of all blue - one of the few options still available at the time. We like blue. They arrived in 3 business days. (We're in Ohio) And when I plugged them in my wife got an instant wave of nostalgia. They are authentic right now to the slight imperfections in the paint coating. I would imagine these are more shock resistant than the old bulbs because LED's aren't as delicate as a filament. Tru-Tone is very responsive to emails - at least right now they can be - and love to hear from customers. Thanks for the tip, TC!
@@matkomenso5644 Perhaps your email got filtered by their spam defenses, not even making it to their spam folder. If you happen to be on a provider who is lax with spammers or if your email server happens to have been implicated in spam delivery, it's not unusual for ALL people emailing from that system to be blocked by some defense systems (Barracuda, etc.). Just giving them the benefit of the doubt. We have actually had this happen to us after blasting out relatively small email campaigns to people not 100% opted in. We would usually get a complaint from our provider because they started showing up in some email blacklists. There are web sites you can check to show blocked providers and server IP ranges that have been blacklisted. There is a procedure to get removed from these, but they usually timeout after some period of hours or days. Since not everyone uses these defense mechanisms, this may only become an issue with a single company you try to email. This is just ONE possibility of why they may not simply be ignoring your email... they never got it. Why would they pick on you specifically when others are reporting excellent service via email? Makes ya think, right? 😉
@@ropersonline I don't even know who they are. I'm just a geek who has dealt with this issue before. Rather than assuming someone is arbitrarily ignoring you, why not look at other possibilities?
@@markclowe Do you have any suggestions for work around? What could a person try? Would switching to a gmail or yahoo email account get one around the problem? Or, would one's ISP still be blocked even though they used a different email service? I ask because I belong to group where periodically one or another of our members will suddenly find his emails are not going through the email list and we found the list service is blocking his ISP. Roadrunner is one ISP that we've encountered this with, but there are others. In fact, I recently heard that a large provider was blocking all emails from AT&T.
Dude, so stoked that these are available commercially now. You've had us convinced for years that the vintage colors are the way to go. Any flicker from (electroboom voice) HALF-WAVE-RECTIFICATION??
@@capturedflame IMO each half triggering on the opposite half-wave is better than them all triggering on the same half-wave. If they are the main illumination for an area the two halves will somewhat add together and reduce the flicker. As an added bonus the power factor will be better, letting you use sqrt(2) as many lights on the same cord.
Alec's little "shimmer" when he says "I am so pleased" is positively infectious. Edit: OK these comments about people thinking that name didn't fit had me a little scared that I'd somehow gotten his name wrong. But... nah, it's on his Patreon. *whew*
Funny how comments about Alec trump those for the video itself. I was thinking of leaving a comment about how much I love watching him talk about anything. Glad to see I could leave it on top! 😍
Your Christmas light condom idea is interesting. Maybe a different company would be more equipped to handle it though. Companies like Lee and Rosco make lighting filters for entertainment lighting. I know Rosco makes color tubes for fluorescent lamps. They might be interested in your idea.
Wow, these things are incredible! They really must have worked hard to get them to look virtually identical. They also do sell the strings on their website for those that need them. I hope they continue to have success, because these things are awesome. :)
What's funny is that they did exactly what people have been saying from the start of LED C7 and C9 bulbs.... Make them look real. Maybe it took this long for LED technology to catch up and be a decent enough price, but either way they deserve to explode with sales for listening. Seriously. And I love their marketing too, which is something I never care about at all.
This isn't on topic, strictly speaking, but I recently fell down this rabbit hole, and I figured I'd post this under the comment with the most likes so people see it. I'm pretty sure that anyone who is into this channel would find this interesting, and no one I know irl wants to hear me blather on about it, so here it is: Effects of sweeping, color and luminance distribution on response to automotive stop lamps John D Bullough, Hua Yan, John Van Derlofske SAE Transactions, 1294-1298, 2002 Immediate response to stop lamps when driving is crucial to roadway safety. Previous research has demonstrated that neon and light emitting diode (LED) stop lamps that have a dynamic sweeping luminance distribution can be just as or more effective than standard stop lamps. Sweeping neon and LED lamps with sweep-up times equal to or less than 100 ms resulted in reaction times equal to or shorter than those obtained with a conventional, non-sweeping incandescent stop lamp. At the same time, an LED stop lamp having the same farfield luminous intensity characteristics as the neon lamp, resulted in shorter reaction times than the neon lamp. The LED stop lamp differed from the neon lamp in two important ways. First, its color was different; the LED lamp had a dominant wavelength of about 630 nm, in comparison to the neon lamp with a dominant wavelength of about 615 nm. Second, the luminance distribution of the LED lamp consisted of a series of high-luminance point sources, compared with the neon lamp, which was a diffuse luminous tube having a lower overall luminance. A series of experimental investigations is described with the objective of quantifying the relative impact of color and luminance distribution on vi suai response of stop lamps. The implications of the color and luminance distribution results of this study will be discussed with respect to stop lamp design and regulations. View at jstor.org [PDF] academia.edu Cited by 11 Related articles All 9 versions Fast-rise brake lamp as a collision-prevention device Michael Sivak, Michael Flannagan Ergonomics 36 (4), 391-395, 1993 Conventional tungsten-filament brake lamps have a relatively slow rise time. It takes approximately 250 ms for them to reach 90% of their asymptotic luminous intensity. This slowness of response can cause important delays of warning information to following drivers. We have designed a simple and relatively inexpensive circuit that produces a faster warning signal using a conventional lamp. As we have reported previously, this device reduces reaction times to the onset of brake lamps by about 115 ms. The present study evaluated the benefits of a 115 ms reduction in driver brake reaction time. Two approaches were used. In the first approach we calculated the reductions in effective stopping distance assuming a range of initial speeds. The results indicate, for example, that if the initial speed is 100 km/h. the reduction in the effective stopping distance is 3-2 m. In the second approach we calculated the reductions in the proportions of very long reaction times, assuming a normal distribution of reaction times that is shifted by 115 ms. For the distribution without the device we assumed a mean of 1·25 s and a standard deviation of 0·46 s. The results indicate, for example, that decreasing the mean by 115 ms yields a 55% reduction in the frequency of reaction times that are longer than 2·5 s. Is there anything that LED bulbs can't do?!? Hahaha
Honestly they probably just went to someone making incandescent versions and said “hey give us that bulb, but put a white phosphor LED in it” and of course they will look very similar.
Yes, when I was much younger our Christmas tree caught fire and seriously damaged our house, I'm sure from the heat of the C7 style bulbs. I've always liked the C7 bulbs so much better than the mini bulbs, but I've always been concerned about the fire risk; while I love the look and smell of a real tree, I wouldn't consider one (besides the artificial trees look so good now), this looks like a great option.
I found incandescent C9 lights at home depot. I plugged them in at the store just to test them. I was absolutely shocked at how quickly I could feel a significant amount of heat *through the box*
That's perfectly normal and what one would expect. Your posting just gave me a thought: Just like there are kids out there who never heard a dialtone, there'll soon be kids who will never have felt the heat from an incandescent lamp. Not that that is necessarliy a bad thing though...
@@andreasu.3546 There will always be incandescent lamps. Chicken heaters, lava lamps, salt lamps and oven bulbs will mostly persist. Any alternatives to them are overcomlicated or inefficient compared to simply using an incandescent bulb. Also I'm sure incandescent christmas lights will still stick around for quite a bit longer. I prefer them because of the heat. It is nice in the winter...
@@mattsnyder4754 I used to put up a lot of lights - including C9 lights on a few evergreen trees a few decades ago. Within a year or two I noticed that half the branches on one short needled evergreen died and half the branches on a long needed evergreen became stunted. Both had to be cut down. I don't miss incandescent C9 lights. I was curious and connected a spare set of 50 C9 LEDs that I bought at a big box store to my KillAWatt meter and it measured 3 Watts, power factor of 0.15, and about 23 VA. I've never noticed anything visually upsetting with my lights - and certainly not anything that would justify a wattage 12x larger for these other LED bulbs. And I like that my LED blue bulbs are as bright as the other colors, while they were always rather dim as incandescents. As residences are are still primarily billed by the kWh I'd think that would imply that utilities haven't found residential power distortions to have a significant impact yet.
I saw a complete vintage set at an antiques store, and they wanted MORE per bulb than it would cost to just buy the new LED ones AND the new fancy socket strings.
40 bucks is like "omg, are the crazy" , but it's actually only 2 dollar a bulb. And 2 to 3 bulbs went out every year, that it actually was cheaper to buy a new string just to strip for the bulbs, they buying replacement bulbs
I've been instantly transported back in time to my youth. With all that heat the incandescents produce, I'm amazed we never burned anything down. These are amazing.
Tru-Tone would do well to hire you as a consultant, maybe you could even focus an entire channel on LED lights, the Tru-Tone channel! Also: your energy savings didn't take into account whether electricity prices will rise, or possibly fall, in the next five years. If you're not installing solar between then and now, the savings could be even more significant than you're calculating now.
And the energy savings vs initial cost also didn't take into account the fact that some of us don't have many lights yet, and we would be buying new anyway, so the energy savings only has to cover the difference between these lights and incandescent stands.
If you've ever been to Magic Kingdom during the holidays, they drape Cindy's castle in sheets of LED's. There's something like a couple of dozen "sheets" that drape the entire structure. (They're known as the "Ice lights", because it's supposed to represent... ice on the castle...) They have the LED's lit the entire night. It's supposed to draw around the same power as three household dryer cycles. The power consumption between incandescent and LED is amazing, considering they're outputting the same amount of light...
@Green Mamba Games BS. Things don't just pop out of the ground fully developed. I've been around since before there were LEDs of any kind. The first few generations of LEDs were absolutely miserable. It took 20 years of constant process development and inventions to get LEDs in more than red/green/amber and around 30 years to get a reasonably bright LED. 20 years ago it looked like the Feds were going to ban incandescent lights and force everyone to use the absolutely horrible CFL lights. That was the period when 100W lights turned into 95W lights "that make the same amount of light" (BS), and then into 90W lights the next year. Why? Because the Feds mandated that lights had to be 5% more efficient every year, and physics doesn't work that way. That went along for about two years until Philips and a few other companies finally managed to make a usable 120V LED replacement, and overnight CFL lights disappeared from the stores. About a year later the last incandescents followed.
I bought some last year. Great set. I did get one “dud”. Spoke to customer service…they were VERY apologetic about the situation and sent a replacement bulb. Would definitely use them more but they are a tad expensive.
My father forbade us from ever putting the C9 strings on the old hairy broomstick tree we had, there were noticeable melted spots on the tree, guess he learned the hard way before I was born😉
Mini balloons such as the ones used for water balloons might work well as a little condominium, don't know if that has been mentioned but i figure its worth a shot.
What's amazing, price-wise, is that each bulb has its own power supply to convert AC to the low voltage DC. That's the problematic part of so many LED bulbs, is the cheapness of the power supply. That is why they flicker and that is what tends to fail long before the LED itself. If they could make a LED-purpose-built strand that had a single, high-quality power supply that fed DC to the individual bulbs, I think it would be overall cheaper, last orders of magnitude longer, and could be made with a perfectly smooth DC output. The only drawback is the lower voltage would need much thicker wires for the same power carrying capacity. In order to easily string sets together, it could be built with a pass-through of regular lamp cord like they are now, which just acts as an extension cord to the other end; and a second pair of wires carries low voltage DC to this strand only.
LEDs don't work that way. They are not negative feedback devices, they draw more power as they heat up and therefore need current regulation, not voltage. Try and run them off a constant voltage instead of constant current and they will eventually fry themselves. They also deviate between themselves, so running constant current + series supply means at best they don't all brighten to the same level, at worse one will burn and kill the whole strip. Also, the voltage drop at LED forward voltage ranges would be insane. You've never seen what you want because it's pretty damn dumb. Adding a built in extension cord is just icing on the cake. Switching to running them series means a switching power supply to power the entire strip will be ~1/4 the size of a PC power supply at the least, you gonna hang that off your siding? Oh yeah, good luck finding the dead one when they burn out because it'll take out the entire strip that probably cost $150.
@@pontiacg445 most normal indoor and outdoor led strings are low voltage strings. It’s only these specific ones that have power supplies per bulb. The better quality led strings have 36V current limited power supplies, with series/parallel configuration where sections of ten leds in series are driven in parallel. There are also strings (notably the “copper wire with smd leds soldered to it covered in epoxy” type) that just have all the leds in parallel. And no, they look just fine, they’re not notably unmatched. And of course there’s the stuff you really don”t want where the mains is just rectified and fed inTo the string straight up, but those are generally not for sale in the western world.
Hi Alec, thank you for this. I've been procrastinating on this for some time now as I was very concerned about the true colour or the bulb that I would get if I ordered a C7 LED replacement bulb online. I'm on Cape Breton Island, up in Nova Scotia, Canada, so can't find anything like this locally. I was afraid of ordering 100 of these online in Yellow and ending up with something greenish yellow, instead of the nice warm yellow I see in your video. Thanks for posting this, it is a great help, I just ordered 75 yellow and 25 orange for next year's display.
If they do release full strings I wonder if there’d be a benefit to going full DC with a single converter at the wall that can be swapped out. Seems like it’d be safer that way, and then they could go all out on the converter to make the power delivery as smooth and consistent as possible
There's no reason they couldn't aside from suddenly having two similar-yet-incompatible product lines. I suspect the nostalgic design is going to preclude a native-DC string, because if they use the traditional base, there's always a risk of someone installing the native-DC bulbs in an AC string and burning them out. And if they don't use the traditional base, it "looks weird".
This is what I think they should do if they take up Alec's idea about the color-configurable mini light strings. Run them off a quality smoothed DC power supply - and that way, if they choose a common voltage (say, 12V) they could easily also be run off batteries, vehicle power, etc.
There will be a benefit but not for the producer (except maybe it will be a little bit cheaper). Most of the LED's lamps are dying because of the electronics inside the bulb used for rectifying the current and reduce the voltage. Because of the small space for electronics they will also heat and reduce the life of LEDs. If you really want to prolong the life of the bulbs you will also dim them a little bit to reduce the heat further (by default they will run at the maximum power which is decreasing their brightness and lifespan). Yes, much better for consumer but less bulbs will burn and will have less revenue (unless they innovate and sell different colours, timer and effects incorporated in the power supply etc.). @CptJistuce just use a different socket inside which could look the same on the outside.
@@Dave01Rhodes They not but the Chinese will. The bulbs are almost surely built in China and "maybe" coloured in USA. I do not know if they purchase in big enough volume to order a custom light bulb electronics. I had a lot of problems with LED lights dying in one year max two and those were from brand names. Better luck I had with noname ones or with cheap supermarket brands.
I see to be the only person in my entire family that despises flickering LED Christmas lights. Other than the flicker these Tru Tone lights are amazing.
I really hope Tru-Tone will take orders after they return on Jan 10. I really don’t care how long they take to ship but I want to put C9 lamps up next year!
They are taking orders now on their website, I just placed one. They just don't ship until after January 10th as they are taking a break for the Holidays.
I LOVE these videos. I have complained about the led Christmas lights and have never had anyone empathize so this series you've done has been such a validating surprise! One suggestion though, if used outdoors I wouldn't leave them on till dawn because of the effects of light pollution on local wildlife.
Hi Alec: Vince from NJ here. Interesting video. Loved the comparisons and was shocked to learn of the tremendous difference in power consumption between the incandescents and led bulbs. Knew they were power saving but not to THAT degree. Wowee. Thanks again. Hope you and yours have a very Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year. God Bless. VGC
The rabbit hole goes deep, my friend: Effects of sweeping, color and luminance distribution on response to automotive stop lamps John D Bullough, Hua Yan, John Van Derlofske SAE Transactions, 1294-1298, 2002 Immediate response to stop lamps when driving is crucial to roadway safety. Previous research has demonstrated that neon and light emitting diode (LED) stop lamps that have a dynamic sweeping luminance distribution can be just as or more effective than standard stop lamps. Sweeping neon and LED lamps with sweep-up times equal to or less than 100 ms resulted in reaction times equal to or shorter than those obtained with a conventional, non-sweeping incandescent stop lamp. At the same time, an LED stop lamp having the same farfield luminous intensity characteristics as the neon lamp, resulted in shorter reaction times than the neon lamp. The LED stop lamp differed from the neon lamp in two important ways. First, its color was different; the LED lamp had a dominant wavelength of about 630 nm, in comparison to the neon lamp with a dominant wavelength of about 615 nm. Second, the luminance distribution of the LED lamp consisted of a series of high-luminance point sources, compared with the neon lamp, which was a diffuse luminous tube having a lower overall luminance. A series of experimental investigations is described with the objective of quantifying the relative impact of color and luminance distribution on vi suai response of stop lamps. The implications of the color and luminance distribution results of this study will be discussed with respect to stop lamp design and regulations. View at jstor.org [PDF] academia.edu Cited by 11 Related articles All 9 versions Fast-rise brake lamp as a collision-prevention device Michael Sivak, Michael Flannagan Ergonomics 36 (4), 391-395, 1993 Conventional tungsten-filament brake lamps have a relatively slow rise time. It takes approximately 250 ms for them to reach 90% of their asymptotic luminous intensity. This slowness of response can cause important delays of warning information to following drivers. We have designed a simple and relatively inexpensive circuit that produces a faster warning signal using a conventional lamp. As we have reported previously, this device reduces reaction times to the onset of brake lamps by about 115 ms. The present study evaluated the benefits of a 115 ms reduction in driver brake reaction time. Two approaches were used. In the first approach we calculated the reductions in effective stopping distance assuming a range of initial speeds. The results indicate, for example, that if the initial speed is 100 km/h. the reduction in the effective stopping distance is 3-2 m. In the second approach we calculated the reductions in the proportions of very long reaction times, assuming a normal distribution of reaction times that is shifted by 115 ms. For the distribution without the device we assumed a mean of 1·25 s and a standard deviation of 0·46 s. The results indicate, for example, that decreasing the mean by 115 ms yields a 55% reduction in the frequency of reaction times that are longer than 2·5 s.
You need to do a video(s) about blow mold Christmas yard orniments and why they are so collectible vs the blow up ones (with air) now available. Although there is not much technology evolved. I still think they are cool and vintage :-)
Thank you for your videos! I guess it's close enough to say Happy New Year. The power factor is good for the LEDS! Big Clive would be interested to see these.
Thank you for showing off the True Tone light and specifically for showing the power draws. I’m working toward being nomadic and have limited battery power essentially. So a 14-18 watt light string that looks like that is far more palatable than the over 100 watts the traditional incandescent ones to me. I have the regular Christmas light string but prefers mixing bigger bulbs in my setup and this’ll work for me!
@corey Babcock I don’t know of any Christmas lighting that lights up the same way in the video and runs off 12v? I do intend to install 12v lights once I pick up a van to convert in the next year (moving to Colorado and taking care of some stuff before going back on the road).
200w for a set of christmas lights is perfect if the christmas tree is made of asbestos, which I guess were a thing too back in the day because why not.
Looking at them side by side, I recognized the shadow in the left set of bulbs and thought surely those were the incandescents because we had that look with many of our bulbs when I was a kid. I'm glad they make them for the people with more positive memories of them, but I love the newer styles of LED ones so much more.
I would suspect that the glass bulbs for the LED lights will last longer than for the incandescent, because they will experience much less thermal stress.
I have been watching your xmas light journey for years and I’m so happy to see you’ve finally found someone making the exact lights you want. You and LGR Clint should do a synth collaboration and the cover of your album should be a photo taken with your cardboard box camera. Cheers.
I'm very happy to see LED technology is slowly catching up to incandescent bulbs in quality of light. Hope the 10:00 thingy gets fixed by next holiday season :D
The LEDs caught up a few years ago, and the power supply technology is very, very mature. The problem is that manufacturers cheap out and use cheap power supplies that allow flicker and/or fail long before the LEDs themselves do. But it’s not a technological problem, but one of cost-cutting. :/
I was far more excited than I probably should have been to see this video in my feed, haha. I was looking forward to seeing you check these out and I thought I was going to have to wait another year. What a lovely surprise!
I bought some Kmart miniature light sets here in Australia in both warm white (warm white LED's with clear caps) and coloured (red, pink, orange, green, blue monochrome LED's with coloured caps). I mixed and matched the caps from the coloured string onto the warm white string (I left pink out because the incandescent that my family bought back in the 2000's didn't have pink) and was able to get some pretty decent looking results. They're still quite dull and the blue is a bit too light, but they're good enough for the incandescent miniature light look for a low price
I don't think enough people would buy those sleeves you're suggesting, to justify the manufacture. I for one just don't want to put in that work before even starting to hang the lights. But if they sold actual strands of mini-lights using the same techniques they're using for those C9s, I'd be all over them, and I bet tons of other people would too. Ever since you pointed out the annoying blue in contemporary LED mini-lights, I've been almost as bothered as you. But I don't own many Christmas lights yet. When I get a larger place, buying strands of "tru tone" mini lights would be my dream.
My parents early on standardized on the mini incandescent lights because when I was a toddler they figured that while they might get warm enough to be uncomfortable to touch, they wouldn't be likely to BURN me if I grabbed one as they feared might happen with the larger bulbs. (Those were used on the eaves of the house where they were safely out of reach.) I also had a Lite-Brite with all the different color pegs as a kid so the idea of having color-reconfigurable strings based on (ideally, high CRI) warm white LEDs makes perfect sense to me. Oh, and SMOOTHED full-wave rectified power is an absolute requirement! We can and should demand much higher quality in the power supply for a light string than we get now with all the half-wave horrors out there! Designing the strings with appropriate connectors and to a common DC voltage like 12V would make it possible to power them from a vehicle or battery much more easily not to mention replacing a failed power supply, or one that's too flickery for one's taste. I would just say I'd prefer something like bayonet-lock hard plastic caps over the idea of a soft silicone type cover because the lights I remember were intensely colored and CLEAR, and silicone is rarely clear as glass (or various plastics). Also, either rubbery caps are likely to be a PAIN to get on and off, or they're going to fall off and get lost. The former perhaps not a huge problem if one only sets up a string ONCE - but if one wants to reconfigure the colors for different events, it becomes an issue. Finally - going by my silicone kitchen trivet and some similar items - silicone rubber picks up dust like freaking mad, which would also look awful on lights.
My perfect string is that of a mini incandescent - you just plugged them in and they warmed my heart instantly. Wholeheartedly agree on the orange/yellow debocle - why such a close hues when you can do better? Sadly they're being phased out being the evil, "outdated" hungry technology and all I can see are LED replicas and replacements that brought me to these vids in the first place. A colored condom could save some clear LED lights for sure!
I ordered some C9 bulbs (pink, blue, orange, green) based on your recommendation. Hung them up on the house and they look fantastic. Looking forward to watching the video to see what you think!
I ALSO remember those vibrant, scorchingly hot bulbs of yore! On an ICY COLD MN night I watched them twinkle on the front yard snow!! BTW they can give off stone HEAT!!! Christmas light burn... anybody...hmmm...?
Yeah, they used to sell a product to either correct the color or even change the color a bit and they were like clear type color and made specifically for mini bulbs. I used them back in the '80's LOL. The LEDs don't need a vacuum as that would actually hurt their longevity.
I noticed right away at 4:00 when you waved you hand over them that they flicker and unfortunately you even confirmed that. I notice flickering lights a lot, I even return several LED fixtured because I saw right away that they flickered and it bothers me a lot
Have you noticed the difference between a full-wave (120hz flicker) and half-wave (60hz flicker) rectified LED? You might only notice the 60hz flickers. It may not be far-off to say that a 120hz flicker is physically impossible to detect. But 60Hz LEDs are cheaper to make. These being 120hz, ought to not be noticeable.
@@korg47237 It's not possible to notice the flickering lights on camera, because the shutter speed is much slower, but you can have some clues that they are flickering: try to pause the video at about 4:00 and go back some frames with comma (,) You'll see a blurred hand, because it was moving too fast for the camera to capture it still, but it's not just blurred: it's repeated about four times, and this is because during that frame the lights went on and then off for four times, alternating instants in which the camera could see the hand with instants in which it couldn't You can do it in real life too: wave your hand in front of a light and if you see it 'lag' then it means the lights are flickering. The same happens with some projectors that display R, G, B images in sequence and also with the good old CRT monitors
@@FalconFour I don't know at which frequency common flickering LED bulbs flicker honestly. I've always assumed it's the grid's frequency and if LEDs don't even turn on at all if a certain voltage is not provided, that means the half sine wave would also turn on the diode about half the time... So out of a full cycle the light would be on for, let's say 1/4th of the time?
how would you blow the fuse? a 15A breaker at 120V (typically used for lighting), handles 1400W. Wouldn't the cordage catch on fire first before blowing a fuse?
At a friends house a few weeks ago, I noticed his family had an interesting string of lights. They work kinda like what you've always described, a screw on colored lens which fits over the LED bulb. In his set, the bulbs were colored the same as the glass and looked like the cheap LED C7 sets you still see, but you could easily mix and match the bulb color with lens color. It would probably be possible to switch all the bulbs to white and achieve your desired effect. His mother thinks she bought the set 10-20 years ago, possibly from a Walmart. The only identifying thing I could find was a model number on the bulb replacement instructions. I couldn't find anything about it on the internet but maybe someone else would have better luck? It read "MODEL NO.:YMA-25L (0.02)C7P"
My grandma has little plastic pumpkin/ghost caps that go over Christmas lights for Halloween. I wish they were more popular, I love the idea of having a bunch of caps for each holiday
So occasional viewer here... Retro LED lights cool and all but I only had eyes for the T-shirt... Ektachrome! Man does that bring back fond memories of many rolls shot and carousels of slides viewed... I should scan them one day before they are lost to time. A bit of a tease, but have you actually ever shot any Ektachrome? ;-)
I do like the new mic position. The dry signal sounds very nice. But you’re getting a pretty heavy first reflection in your room reverb, which (to me) means settings up *more* sound treatment (rather than less).
You're assuming these will last the 5 years needed to pay for themselves. Has anybody had any LED replacement bulbs of any type last as long as they're advertised to? (And no, to me, the driver circuit failing is the same as the LED itself failing, as almost all are non-servicable, so tou can't use that excuse)
My parents had a string of maybe 40 C9 lights in the 1960s into the 1970s and we used them strictly outdoors. Big nostalgia thing for me. Big Clive here on RU-vid uses his 3D printer to make friction-fit caps for small lights on strings. Mostly they’re fairly big caps.
Have you looked into Neopixel C9s yet? They do not have that nice filament imitation of the Tru-Tone bulbs, but they also are not monochromatic and can change color to approximate a color filter over white light.
I was able to tell the difference pretty quick. It's that uniform look of the old ones, the way the light spreads out just slightly different. LED is more intense at it's source. Really close though.
I'm glad these exist for the sake of backward compatibility, but I'd love it if they also made a type where the bulbs are DC-only, connect to specially-made strands with some kind of proprietary socket (kind of like the internal breakaway plugs CFLs used to have to make them forward-compatible with a socket type that never took off), and have a power brick on the strand itself with even better rectification. They could sell them even cheaper because I imagine building a whole AC converter into every single bulb is like half the production cost right there. EDIT: And so long as they're making their own strands, they could have them be wired in parallel too so if a bulb does go out, you immediately know which one it is and can replace it quickly.
I think for most simple circuit designs like they probably have in these things, these bulbs will probably run just fine on DC. If they are designed to be strung together in series and powered by standard 120V AC for a string of 20 bulbs, they would each be getting around 6V AC, so supplying two or three of them in series with 12V DC would likely work just fine - and no flicker! Cost wise, the circuitry for rectifying the AC is probably very inexpensive and economies of scale likely make it cheaper to make just AC bulbs and sell some of them as DC bulbs compared to making fractions of each type.
A huge advantage of this form factor is that they are customizable. If I need a string of 15 to cover a short run on a roof bump-out, I just cut a string to length, seal the end (or add a plug), and put the bulbs in.
2 things: 1. I love your videos and this one is no exception. 2. Were you a bit drunk or high when you made this one? Not knocking it, mind you, just an observation.
We finished switching my parents over to the new Color accurate LED lights. They look great and are under 150 watts for 12 straps compared to 1400+ Watts. They are in their 70s and really don't care about the environmental impact but the $$$ saved.
I notice LED flicker easily, and most retrofit bulbs (as well as cheaper full voltage light arrays) are pretty much intolerable for me since they pulsate along with the grid's frequency. For like a third or fourth of people, flicker below 200 Hz is very noticeable - but since that's not "most" people, cities and shady car and display manufacturers just go with the cheap option of driving LEDs directly off the grid, as well as dimming their stuff with PWM. So for those who see this, driving through cities at night becomes a nightmare: car lights leave distracting stepped light trails, and so do huge LED ads - and it's sad to see that such otherwise good products as these retrofit LED christmas bulbs will make life a bit more terrible for all those of the drivers who are also photo-sensitive and notice that flicker along their road.
I bought some warm white LED christmas lights three years ago that have little clear plastic bulb caps over the LEDs. they made me extremely happy, nostalgia or not they just look pretty.
Love how fluffy your hair looks in this vid. Also the sound quality on this vid is pretty great, where did you move the mic to? I assume you did some post work on the sound but you can hear everything (like the beeping of your kilowatt reader/tool) without any background fuzz or distracting reverb and its quite crisp.
I’m guessing this has already been suggested before, but just in case: I’m curious if dye-infused modge podge would work as a stable tint for mini light bulbs.
The bulbs by themselves are better. E.g. so you don’t have 15 lights that you have to try to figure out where to hide at the end of a run etc. they’re way more customizable and larger commercial operations use them exclusively
PF: current is out of phase with the VOLTAGE. The power is the momentary multiple of current and voltage. Every PF other than 1 has some energy flowing from the device to the power station.
I wish they sold them the exact same but with plastic shells. Having plastic instead of glass makes dealing with (physically)broken bulbs much easier, in addition to not having to baby them. If you're putting them inside than whatever, but trying to be delicate in 20° weather while you're up on a ladder with a bunch of lights is quite annoying.
I could immediately tell left set was LED in the comparison shot thanks to the brighter blue. Incandescent bulbs don't emit that much blue, relative to other spectrums. Also for the confused like me, their C-7 is E12 (Candelabra), and their C-9 is E17 (Intermediate). Note your typical standard bulb in the US is Medium (E26). I've seen E12 sockets on small fixtures, but never saw E17 sockets in any regular appliance. Of course, E26 is everywhere.
That's interesting, bc the Tru-Tones aren't blue LEDs, but a clear filament LED with a blue envelope. I wonder if some of what you're seeing is an oddity of how way digital video renders colors, because the blue Tru-Tones I have are more akin to the soft blue of vintage lights (believe me, I wouldn't have bought them if they weren't close). Every C7 I've ever seen (dating back to 1950s lights) has been an E12 base, and all the C9s have been E17s. Intermediate-base bulbs are a bit of a niche application outside of Christmas lights.
I'd rather use incandescent to heat the room tbh. The sensation of feeling warm tends to come from infrared radiance and space heaters don't do a very good job at it. If you run the lights 24/7, yeah, led. If you run the lights for a few hours in the evening, it really doesn't make a difference.
To the untrained ear, you would hear no difference. I am an audio engineer, and yes, I heard a difference in quality. I love your videos, keep up all the hard work.
I didn't realize there were other people who cared about this stuff. I keep buying old Christmas lights, can't bear led coloured lights. I have noticed this year that some of the led lights are less offensive. I do enjoy magenta in my tree lights, it adds subtly
Hi Alec. LEDs do lose intensity over time. These may well be better than the usual LED lighting. While the glass envelope isn't under a vacuum like an incandescent, it is still glass, so it is fragile. LED are more clearly more robust, they can take shocks whilst hot and not blow like an incandescent. And yes, much less power consumption and runs a lot cooler. Excellent review. Cheers. 👍
It is true, LEDs that use phosphor e.g. all white ones, and the softer coloured ones do lose intensity over time, but the extent to which they do this seems very much down to the quality of the phosphor, and presumably how hard they are run. I fitted new warm white LEDs to a novelty light string when the original ones faded almost to nothing. The new ones are far brighter at lower current, and have significantly outlasted the originals. Maybe newer ones are better now anyway.
@@rossthompson1635 Running them at lower current definitely increases their life, see the teardown "Dubai" lamps made by Philips by Big Clive for details.
@@oohshiny8713 I enjoyed BC's Dubai lamp video, excellent. That is also about efficiency as well as longevity, running more LED filaments at lower current gives you the same light for less power than running a few more harshly. The whole subject is fascinating really, so much science in making LED light sources as good as they have now become.
You bought them for a review? That's Tru-Dedication! You sir, are a madman in the best possible way. The Tru-Tone lights have much more even brightness, probably has nothing to do with them being LEDs, though. These are perfect for public holiday lighting. I want to see them do LED twinkling lights and coloured led mini lights. BTW, it'll be really nice if you could start selling merch ("Automatic Beyond Belief!"; "Too Many Kitchen Appliances inc."; "Through the magic of buying 2 of them" socks; "These are not pixels"; etc) and work out a deal with Tru Tone to sell these bulbs on your store.
I had forgotten about these until I watched this video. My parents would plug all the christmas lights and decorations for the yard and the house and I recently tested and found that 750W was being pulled through all the extension cords running through the yard. I saw these kinds of lights strung up on the fence and went over to see if they were incandescent or not. They were. And that strand running along the fence was consuming about half of that 750W; a bit over 300W was from the single strand of lights. Seeing this video very much makes me want to replace them, because they're nice lights, just hate how hot they get and wasteful they are in terms of energy.
