Thirteen years ago, in Season of Lights, I mentioned that the then-new light emitting diode (LED) Christmas lights were not to my taste – “the newer LED lights seem to be too heavy on the blues. Their blue lamps are quite bright, and their oranges and reds less bright in comparison” Alec Watson of the Technology Connections YouTube channel felt the same way; for the better part of the last decade he has published videos complaining about spectral colored Christmas lights and how he has tried to reproduce the look of older lights.
Personally, I don’t object to the brilliant blues the way Watson does; I think the problem with first generation LED lights (which unfortunately are still around) is that the red and orange lights are deficient. They’re nowhere near as bright as the blue or green lights, and so the string as a whole feels unbalanced. Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen lights, which, while they still have the tell-tale brilliant LED blues, have orange and red (and white and sometimes purple) lights which are bright enough to balance the blues. I just got back from a drive around Boston Common, and am happy to say that the official Boston Christmas tree is lit this way, and there are several houses nearby that also use these better-balanced light strings.
Even better, there are now LED light bulbs expressly designed to emulate the warm look of incandescent lights. A couple of years ago, Technology Connections did a video about the new Tru-Tone bulbs. He was positively giddy about them. I was interested, but they were sold out last year.
I was still interested this year, so this October I decided to buy them before they sold out. I bit the bullet and ordered five 25 C-7 bulb strings and enough lights to fill them. I chose not to order the complete sets, as I don’t care for white bulbs mixed with colors. I was really hesitant because they’re really pricey, but dammit, they do look just like the Christmas lights I grew up with, but without the heat or electrical demand. So here I sit, next to my tree, basking in the warm glow of its lights.
