Does Permanent Lighting Bulb Type Matter?

Let’s face it.  You can hardly drive anywhere without seeing a new home with permanent led lights.  If that isn’t the case in your area, just wait, they are coming. But why do some setup ups look different?  Why are some brighter than others? Why are some on every night of the year? And others only on for holidays?  We are going to answer those questions.  

There are multiple bulb styles out there.  Believe it or not, not all bulbs are the same, and thats why you see differences between competitor homes.  There are 3 different types you will typically see.  

Tubular Led Strip Lighting –   This is the least popular lighting option.  This bulb style uses LED strip lighting that gets installed into a frosted tubing.  When installed into the tubing the lights illuminate the tube to make a tubing light look.  This lighting style was popular early on, but has lost its popularity due to the better products that have emerged onto the market.

Single Diode Led – Enter the individual bulb look.  These products typically use a ws28XX style bulb (you can look them up on amazon).  These bulbs give you the ability to control them by each individual bulb.  If the software controlling them allows it, you can make some really fun lighting patterns.  The single bulb is great for homes looking to have fun, unique patterns to apply to the home for whatever you are trying to celebrate. 

Where the single diode fails, is in its brightness.  Due to the small size of the bulb (typically 12mm) these bulbs do not achieve the brightness that other bulbs on the market can.  They often don’t provide much property lighting, and typically don’t illuminate more than a few feet down the home from the roof line.

Although these bulbs provide fun celebration lighting, due to the lack of brightness they are not a popular option for the “arhitectural” look many customers want to achieve.  Fun patterns are celebrated maybe 100 nights a year between Christmas, Halloween, Easter, other holidays, birthdays etc.  This leaves 200+ nights a year where the lights could be used for more. 

3 Diode Led – This is currently the largest bulb used in permanent track lighting. Other hardware benefits are the low profile design of these bulbs, which allow them to sit closer to the roofline and allow for a more seamless look.   Like the single diode, it shares the ability to be controlled as an individual bulb.  It can accomplish all of the same benefits of the single diode, but has 2 major advantages.  The first is brightness.  These bulbs offer 3x the led’s per bulb when compared to their single bulb competitor.  The brightness often does a great job illuminating your home, as well as illuminating some ground area and providing some added security.  Because of the brightness of each bulb, it also allow you to fill the other 200 nights a year with the classy architectural look.  These bulbs mimic pot lights almost perfectly adding character and lights to your home all other nights of the year. 

When choosing your permanent lighting set up, REMEMBER, bulb type matters!!