Technology Connections: LED Christmas lights which don't hurt the eyes: it finally happened!
Technology Connections: LED Christmas lights which don't hurt the eyes: it finally happened!
This isn't what Christmas looks like. It's what a vape shop looks like. Or, worse, a gaming PC.
😆
My only gripe with the LED ones is that they always seem to have a high-frequency flicker which gives me a headache. Other people have told me they don't notice it, but I do. I wanted to replace the clear incandescent ones with LED but couldn't deal with the flicker.
It is either a
3060 or60120 Hz flicker, depending on how they built the electronics. It is3060 Hz if they didn't include an inverter and60120 Hz if they did.Without an inverter, it will be off for 50% of the time. With an inverter, it will always be on, but sometimes dim.
With better electronics, it will be steady on, but that's not common in christmas lights.
Not strictly always true, if the lights have any kind of dimming capability (like many of the ones with automated patterns) you'll likely be dealing with PWM which means the time spent lit can vary significantly
But capacitors are so expensive, it's like a whole 10¢ extra to filter it out so it doesn't flicker!
I have 1,000% light perception, I notice the flicker on almost every LED I've ever seen.
I worked with a guy who had the opposite. He couldn't tell how flickery his screen was.
My parents’ new house has all 60hz LED lights and I can’t stand being in there
Hopefully this gets some other manufacturers on board. 25 a set adds up quick, but I'm willing to slowly buy some over the next few years cause these look amazing.
Hopefully this doesn't mean the end of the yearly Christmas light adventures. They were my favorite videos!
I guess it’s back to heat pumps.
Here I am still using the old as fuck Christmas lights from the 80s or something my parents always used when I was a kid. Incandescent. White. The color is from the tinted glass surrounding the actual bulb. If one light dies, so does the entire string after it. You don't wanna use them on the tree because they get hot as fuck and could light that shit on fire.
I only buy incandescents because I can't stand cold, flickery LEDs. Christmas for me is about that feeling of warmth and nostalgia for childhood. There is no reason why LEDs should be like this, so I can't wait to watch the video to see how well they fixed them.
Edit: God damnit; even the lights featured in the video still flicker. So I will still be sticking with incandescent. Why can they make flicker-free LED and OLED TVs, but nobody can do the same for Christmas lights? For the first time ever, Alec has let me down.
Same. I've tried LEDs and they really don't cut it for christmas lights, so I stick with incandescent, at least in the house. LEDs outside might be fine, but I rarely get around to putting up outside decorations.
Completely agree about how horrible flicker is. There are occasional leds that don't flicker. I believe (but I'm not sure) that they have to have am ac/dc converter. AC causes the flicker, but Direct Current delivers steady constant power. I have a random string light set that has (what i believe is) an ac/dc converter wall wart, and it doesn't flicker at all. It's just a random set I bought from a store.
And here I am with this as my tree in my garage. It's 720 LEDs, 12v ws2812 strips on a tinsel tree.
i got giant ceramic multicolored C9 LED lights from amazon and absolutely love them. never liked the tiny lights.
It is either a 30 or 60 Hz flicker, depending on how they built the electronics. It is 30 Hz if they did include an inverter and 60 Hz if they did.
Without an inverter, it will be off for 50% of the time. With an inverter, it will always be on, but sometimes dim.
With better electronics, it will be steady on, but that's not common in christmas lights.