"Long Lasting LED" Christmas Lights, retail $9.99 (www.bartelldrugs.com)
Manufactured by J. Hofert Co. Holly Decorations (www.hofertholly.com)
Last updated 11-03-03
If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times.
Are you tired of getting the Christmas light strands out every year, only to find some of the bulbs broken so you have to throw the defective strings in the garbage can?
Fed up with trying to find the burnt out bulb that makes the whole string go dark?
Struggling and straining only to burn, destroy, and leave wrinkles everyw -- oops, wrong infomercial. :-)
This Christmas light set features 60 LEDs, in red, orange, yellow, and yellowish-green; they're on a dark green cord to help it blend in with your Christmas tree or other Christmas decorations you might put it on.
These lights are ready to use as soon as you take them out of the box. No funny stuff here. ;-)
The light set is mounted to a plastic frame, with all the LEDs pointed upward and the cord between them looped onto the frame underneath.
Remove the light set from this frame as you see fit - usually you do this by pulling on the plug-end gently, and each LED lamp and its attaching wire should come right out of the plastic frame.
Decorate with these as you might normally do with ordinary miniature light sets.
Because this is a 120VAC powered product, this section can and will be skipped.
The LEDs in this light set appear to run brighter than the LEDs in other sets. They have "tombstone" lenses, which project light out their ends, and give a "twinkly" effect to whatever decoration you have them on.
This set is UL listed for both indoor and outdoor use, so you can hang them on your house's eaves or on bushes in the yard if you wish. It has a female socket at the other end, so you can connect several strings end-to-end.
The set comes with two extra LED bulbs and two extra fuses, just in case.
Because I just got this light set today (11-01-03), I don't yet have any more information for this page.
Picture of the set still in its plastic frame. You should never leave incandescent
sets in their frame while lighted up, but you can do this with LED-based light sets.
TEST NOTES:
Set was purchased at Bartell Drugs on 11-01-03, while going through a couple of stores to see if they took the Halloween stuff down and set the Christmas stuff out yet. Wallgreens didn't, but Bartell Drugs has a running start. They also have several boxes of Forever Bright LED Christmas lights out, but only all-yellow (antique candlelight) with the "flame tip" lenses so far.
UPDATE: 11-03-03
I picked up three more sets of these lights today and sent them to another LED Christmas light manufacturer because these lights may be copying the others. Something smells rotten in {insert country of choise here}, and I think these LED strings are emitting that odour, along with their solid-state light. (Nod, nod, wink, wink!)
PROS:
Very low power usage
Transformerless operation
Sets can be connected end-to-end
Compatible with your existing miniature light sets
They can be used both indoors and out
CONS:
Not as bright as traditional incandescent
They will tangle up just as easily in the closet as ordinary strings
*Might* be a copy of another manufacturer's LED Christmas lights
MANUFACTURER: J. Hofert Co. Holly Decorations
PRODUCT TYPE: Miniature style LED Christmas light set
LAMP TYPE: LEDs, custom lenses
No. OF LAMPS: 60
BEAM TYPE: N/A
SWITCH TYPE: N/A
BEZEL: N/A
BATTERY: N/A
CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Advertised as 20mA (3 watts) 120VAC
WATER RESISTANT: Yes
SUBMERSIBLE: No
ACCESSORIES: 2 spare bulbs, 2 spare fuses
WARRANTY: Unknown/TBA
Do you manufacture or sell an LED flashlight, task light, utility light, seasonal lighting, or module of some kind?
Want to see it tested by a real person, under real working conditions? Do you then want to see how your light did? If you have a sample available for this type of
real-world, real-time testing, please contact me at ledmuseum@worldnet.att.net.
Unsolicited flashlights appearing in the mail are welcome, and it will automatically be assumed that you sent it in order to have it tested and evaluated for this site.
Be sure to include contact info or your company website's URL so visitors here will know where to purchase your product.