1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,132 As we swiftly approach the end of November... 2 00:00:04,612 --> 00:00:07,611 oh, as December draws so near, it's here, 3 00:00:07,611 --> 00:00:09,668 the holiday season is upon us. 4 00:00:09,668 --> 00:00:16,026 And, as is tradition, many people will be stringing colorful electric lights all every which way. 5 00:00:16,026 --> 00:00:17,537 Because why not? 6 00:00:17,537 --> 00:00:23,264 And, as is tradition, this person makes a video about the awful state of Christmas lights 7 00:00:23,264 --> 00:00:27,752 brought about by scientists who were so preoccupied with whether they could, 8 00:00:27,752 --> 00:00:30,915 they never stopped to think if they should. 9 00:00:30,915 --> 00:00:35,615 But before I launch into the tirade  I've launched into half a dozen times now, 10 00:00:35,615 --> 00:00:41,020 here's an actual Christmas light storage tip I learned from a teacher in high school. 11 00:00:41,020 --> 00:00:44,236 When it comes time to put the Christmas lights away for the season, 12 00:00:44,236 --> 00:00:46,562 don't use the tried and true 13 00:00:46,562 --> 00:00:51,261 "wrap them around your arm like an extension cord and then shove it all into a Jewel bag" method my dad taught me 14 00:00:51,261 --> 00:00:53,246 because that's bad. 15 00:00:53,246 --> 00:00:57,565 Sorry, Dad, they just get way too tangled up and tend to break. 16 00:00:57,565 --> 00:01:05,203 Instead, take a rectangular piece of cardboard  and cut a slit into its side near the end of its long edge. 17 00:01:05,203 --> 00:01:08,461 Cut at least two slits with one on each  end. 18 00:01:08,461 --> 00:01:10,944 Then, and this is very important, 19 00:01:10,944 --> 00:01:17,662 start with the female end of a strand of Christmas lights and shove the wire down that slit. 20 00:01:17,662 --> 00:01:24,290 Now, simply wrap the lights repeatedly around the cardboard until you're back to the male end, like so. 21 00:01:26,264 --> 00:01:33,094 [a very high-pitched rendition of Entry of the Gladiators] 22 00:01:37,389 --> 00:01:38,098 Okay, 23 00:01:38,098 --> 00:01:43,069 now you can either stick the male end  into the female end if there's enough room or 24 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:48,822 simply slide it into the other slot and you'll  have a nice and compact flat thing 25 00:01:48,822 --> 00:01:51,548 with all your Christmas lights on them. 26 00:01:51,548 --> 00:01:59,392 If you do it this way, you will discover that they stack nicely into boxes while remaining completely tangle-free. 27 00:01:59,392 --> 00:02:03,763 And so long as you remember to start wrapping with the female end, 28 00:02:03,763 --> 00:02:10,267 they function as a decent spool when it comes time to decorate next year. 29 00:02:10,267 --> 00:02:15,046 I am a full-on convert to this method  of storing Christmas lights and wish to spread the knowledge. 30 00:02:15,046 --> 00:02:15,961 So there you go! 31 00:02:15,961 --> 00:02:19,710 And now back to my regularly scheduled tirade. 32 00:02:19,710 --> 00:02:26,147 You see, I am old enough to predate the commercialization of LED lighting technology. 33 00:02:26,147 --> 00:02:31,367 When I was a youngin', we were still mostly shoving electricity through tiny tungsten filaments 34 00:02:31,367 --> 00:02:38,169 which caused those filaments to get incredibly hot such that they glow with a bright white light. 35 00:02:38,169 --> 00:02:40,425 That's just how light bulbs worked. 36 00:02:40,425 --> 00:02:45,257 And since the underlying technology produced a full spectrum white light output, 37 00:02:45,257 --> 00:02:50,477 if we wanted to produce colored light, we'd need to use filters 38 00:02:50,477 --> 00:02:55,669 which removed certain frequencies of light and only let some through. 39 00:02:55,669 --> 00:02:57,981 This had two inevitable side effects: 40 00:02:57,981 --> 00:03:00,618 One, the filtering wasn't perfect, 41 00:03:00,618 --> 00:03:07,116 so the colors produced, while often quite intense and beautiful, weren't unnaturally pure. 42 00:03:07,116 --> 00:03:11,856 It does not look, for lack of a better word, electronic. 43 00:03:11,856 --> 00:03:17,885 Secondly, this filtering from a wide spectrum of light to a small sliver of that spectrum 44 00:03:17,885 --> 00:03:20,863 reduces how much light escapes the bulb, 45 00:03:20,863 --> 00:03:25,348 causing those colored lights  to be much darker than their clear counterparts, 46 00:03:25,348 --> 00:03:31,373 particularly the cooler colors on the shorter end of the spectrum, such as blue and green. 47 00:03:31,373 --> 00:03:35,450 Now, I am fully familiar with that Douglas Adams quotation which says, 48 00:03:35,450 --> 00:03:41,415 "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works." 49 00:03:41,415 --> 00:03:46,173 And while I'm sure there's some wisdom there relevant to my whole deal, 50 00:03:46,173 --> 00:03:53,821 the part that follows about stuff which hit the scene in your teenage to early adult years being new and exciting 51 00:03:53,821 --> 00:03:56,365 only sort of applies to me. 52 00:03:56,365 --> 00:04:02,422 Because you see, while I absolutely love what the light emitting diode has done to make the world better, 53 00:04:02,422 --> 00:04:06,831 it has made Christmas much, much worse. 54 00:04:06,831 --> 00:04:10,794 Now, instead of decorating with warm and pleasant festive lighting, 55 00:04:10,794 --> 00:04:20,040 we are decorating with horrid points of flickering saturated colors that belong in a gaming PC. 56 00:04:20,040 --> 00:04:22,643 And not even, like, a good one. 57 00:04:22,643 --> 00:04:24,243 Why is this? 58 00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:30,099 Well, because LEDs are actually only capable  of emitting light of a single wavelength. 59 00:04:30,099 --> 00:04:34,132 This means they produce a single and very pure color. 60 00:04:35,225 --> 00:04:39,785 Now, when it comes to white LEDs, there's some trickery involved. 61 00:04:39,785 --> 00:04:46,817 Every modern white LED you'll ever see is actually a hybrid between an LED and, believe it or not, 62 00:04:46,817 --> 00:04:49,633 good old fluorescent lighting technology. 63 00:04:49,633 --> 00:04:56,997 The actual diodes produce blue (or as is increasingly common these days) a purplish near-UV light. 64 00:04:56,997 --> 00:05:03,311 So to fill in the rest of the spectrum, a yellow dab of various phosphors sits in front of the diode 65 00:05:03,311 --> 00:05:08,875 and converts the high frequency light it produces down to various lower frequencies 66 00:05:08,875 --> 00:05:15,333 which cluster together well enough to trick our eyes and brains into thinking it's actually white. 67 00:05:15,333 --> 00:05:18,000 We've gotten incredibly good at this. 68 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:22,611 While cheap and nasty LEDs are still on the market in the bargain bin, 69 00:05:22,611 --> 00:05:29,256 any decent LED fab these days is capable of producing incredibly good white LEDs 70 00:05:29,256 --> 00:05:34,153 that produce light which is nearly indistinguishable from an incandescent filament. 71 00:05:34,153 --> 00:05:40,502 And of course, we're now able to embed the actual blue or purple diodes onto a substrate in such a way 72 00:05:40,502 --> 00:05:45,042 that we can make very convincing mimics of incandescent light bulbs. 73 00:05:45,042 --> 00:05:49,151 This is all innovation I'm 100% on board with! 74 00:05:49,151 --> 00:05:55,773 And when people care, we can even do stuff like combine diodes of different color temperatures into a single product 75 00:05:55,773 --> 00:05:59,704 for producing a fixture or bulb with a selectable color temperature. 76 00:05:59,704 --> 00:06:02,152 Or, as is my favorite application, 77 00:06:02,152 --> 00:06:07,351 automatically shifting the color temperature down as light intensity decreases 78 00:06:07,351 --> 00:06:11,900 to mimic the warming effect of an incandescent bulb on a dimmer switch. 79 00:06:11,900 --> 00:06:14,843 You can build that directly into a light bulb 80 00:06:14,843 --> 00:06:19,701 which means you can use old-fashioned dimmer switches to control new fangled light bulbs, 81 00:06:19,701 --> 00:06:21,761 and you don't even need an app! 82 00:06:21,761 --> 00:06:25,655 Philips used to shove that tech into pretty much every kind of light bulb they sold, 83 00:06:25,655 --> 00:06:30,965 but not enough people seem to notice how good of an idea that was, and now it's annoyingly hard to find. 84 00:06:30,965 --> 00:06:33,743 Even their own website filter doesn't work. 85 00:06:33,743 --> 00:06:37,332 You people need to start caring about lighting more than you do! 86 00:06:37,332 --> 00:06:41,190 I'll rant more about that later, but back to Christmas lights. 87 00:06:41,190 --> 00:06:46,897 While we have had the capability to produce extremely good white LEDs for a long time 88 00:06:46,897 --> 00:06:54,911 and while the market clearly understands that there are lots of people who want the energy efficiency and long life benefits of LEDs 89 00:06:54,911 --> 00:06:59,535 but who also want to have the aesthetics of old hot-glowing-wire light bulbs... 90 00:06:59,535 --> 00:07:03,297 that memo just never gets received by Christmas light manufacturers! 91 00:07:03,297 --> 00:07:09,850 Because year after year they end up putting Christmas lights on the market which look like these old ones. 92 00:07:09,850 --> 00:07:14,096 Now, instead of taking a white light and filtering it down to various colors, 93 00:07:14,096 --> 00:07:19,253 each light produces its own wavelength, which leads not only to oversaturated colors 94 00:07:19,253 --> 00:07:24,158 but especially in the case of multicolored light sets like this, which have blues and greens, 95 00:07:24,158 --> 00:07:31,154 overly bright colors which overwhelm the rest  and result in a garish blue-green color palette, which, 96 00:07:31,647 --> 00:07:37,783 while admittedly a matter of taste, I find to be the exact opposite of warm and inviting. 97 00:07:37,783 --> 00:07:43,060 It's Christmastime, not the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. 98 00:07:43,060 --> 00:07:48,943 Now, the really frustrating thing here is that the solution to this problem is obvious! 99 00:07:48,943 --> 00:07:58,218 Do what everyone already does with regular old light bulbs and make old-fashioned looking things using modern technology. 100 00:07:58,218 --> 00:08:03,674 Produce Christmas lights with warm white diodes that then have a color filter over them 101 00:08:03,674 --> 00:08:07,597 like we used to have to do with incandescent lights. 102 00:08:07,597 --> 00:08:13,759 For years, I was making YouTube videos where I would buy cheap warm white LED sets of Christmas lights 103 00:08:13,759 --> 00:08:17,934 and color them by hand with various materials to demonstrate that 104 00:08:17,934 --> 00:08:22,597 A) this could be done and 2) it works reasonably well. 105 00:08:22,597 --> 00:08:26,303 I was never completely happy with any of my various experiments, 106 00:08:26,303 --> 00:08:34,012 but this was just a silly thing I did every year to hopefully prove a point and inspire someone with an R&D budget to take action. 107 00:08:34,012 --> 00:08:37,797 And as many of you know, this is finally starting to happen. 108 00:08:37,797 --> 00:08:45,262 A few years ago, I learned about Tru-Tone bulbs, the passion project of a designer who had the exact same bugbear as me, 109 00:08:45,262 --> 00:08:48,715 but who actually bothered to do something about it. 110 00:08:48,715 --> 00:08:53,079 True Tone started out making LED C7 and C9 light bulbs 111 00:08:53,079 --> 00:08:57,416 which actually looked exactly like the incandescent bulbs they replaced. 112 00:08:57,416 --> 00:09:01,457 And they are truly great products which I can personally vouch for. 113 00:09:01,457 --> 00:09:03,185 I love them. 114 00:09:03,185 --> 00:09:07,060 But they weren't making mini lights... yet, 115 00:09:07,060 --> 00:09:11,157 so I just kept making the same video year after year. 116 00:09:11,157 --> 00:09:15,390 Then last year, my friend Dan  let me know about Vintaglow lights, 117 00:09:15,390 --> 00:09:19,769 and these were almost perfectly argeted at me specifically. 118 00:09:19,769 --> 00:09:23,585 This is my preferred color combo of red, yellow, green, and blue, 119 00:09:23,585 --> 00:09:28,386 and they executed the idea much better than any of my experiments could. 120 00:09:28,386 --> 00:09:34,164 I did have a few nitpicks, but well... 121 00:09:34,164 --> 00:09:35,918 those have all been taken care of. 122 00:09:35,918 --> 00:09:39,544 This is a set of generation 2 Vintaglows, 123 00:09:39,544 --> 00:09:46,132 and they are a near spot-on perfect match to the incandescent light sets of my youth. 124 00:09:46,132 --> 00:09:52,624 Also of note, for those of you who would prefer the more  traditional five color combo, that's now an option. 125 00:09:52,624 --> 00:10:00,868 Now, I do want to point out that in a dozen sets of my Gen 1 Vintaglows, I did find one where a strand lost a section. 126 00:10:00,868 --> 00:10:06,190 I'm sure it's fixable, and each set included some spare bulbs, but it's probably going to be annoying to fix, 127 00:10:06,190 --> 00:10:08,381 and I haven't gotten around to it right yet. 128 00:10:08,381 --> 00:10:11,691 I might do that for Connextras but it'll be a couple of weeks. 129 00:10:11,691 --> 00:10:15,631 But since so many of you know about my Christmas light opinions, 130 00:10:15,631 --> 00:10:19,503 I tend to be alerted to the existence of new options on the market. 131 00:10:19,503 --> 00:10:23,445 And this year there were a couple of developments worth sharing. 132 00:10:23,445 --> 00:10:32,182 This puts me in a bit of an odd spot because I very much want Tru-Tone and the Vintaglow line from Merry Co to succeed as businesses. 133 00:10:32,182 --> 00:10:36,186 But both of them are carving out a very specific niche 134 00:10:36,186 --> 00:10:44,650 and that makes their products relatively unattainable both from a cost perspective and simply where to get your hands on them. 135 00:10:44,650 --> 00:10:52,934 I've had correspondence with both founders now and have learned some very interesting things about the Christmas light industry. 136 00:10:52,934 --> 00:11:00,616 It's clear that the actual creative direction which is producing these better lights is coming from them. 137 00:11:00,616 --> 00:11:08,223 The biggest problem with Christmas lights today is that nobody at the big box stores who is in charge of ordering them for the year 138 00:11:08,223 --> 00:11:17,076 really cares that much and simply takes whatever options the overseas factories that barf them out present to them that year. 139 00:11:17,076 --> 00:11:21,298 But Tru-Tone and Merry Co are quite a lot more persnickety, 140 00:11:21,298 --> 00:11:28,813 so I want to make sure they get the credit for sparking much of what has happened and I'm sure will happen in the future. 141 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:32,672 But I also get the sense that both of them will  feel a sense of accomplishment 142 00:11:32,672 --> 00:11:39,334 if the broader Christmas light market gets a little less... intense and a little more warm and festive. \So with that,   143 00:11:39,334 --> 00:11:43,127 So with that, let's look at this copycat. 144 00:11:43,127 --> 00:11:48,376 I was a little too late, as you might have been able to tell, getting this video started so I had to drive to a 145 00:11:48,376 --> 00:11:55,007 pretty far away Target to get these and the only option were these net lights rather than simple strings. 146 00:11:55,007 --> 00:12:01,768 But there now exists a Sylvania-branded "Traditional Glow" set of Christmas lights which are... 147 00:12:01,768 --> 00:12:03,308 pretty good! 148 00:12:03,308 --> 00:12:05,802 These appear to actually be made of glass, 149 00:12:05,802 --> 00:12:13,779 so this is pretty much the best way to create traditional looking mini-lights with LEDs rather than filaments. 150 00:12:13,779 --> 00:12:16,408 But the green... 151 00:12:16,408 --> 00:12:18,010 the green's not great. 152 00:12:18,010 --> 00:12:24,568 It's more like a jade or forest green than the emerald green I'm used to in Christmas lights. 153 00:12:24,568 --> 00:12:28,893 Honestly though, that's really the only problematic color. 154 00:12:28,893 --> 00:12:33,310 This is not my favorite color combo, in fact, it's my least favorite, 155 00:12:33,310 --> 00:12:38,192 but it's a very standard one and I think most people buying these will be happy. 156 00:12:38,192 --> 00:12:45,409 And it's a good sign that these are sold out already while there are plenty of other options still available in the store. 157 00:12:45,409 --> 00:12:51,954 So perhaps signals will get to the appropriate people  in charge of ordering Christmas lights for next year. 158 00:12:51,954 --> 00:12:58,813 And speaking of sold out copycats, I was also alerted to this vintage option for sale at the Home Depot this year, 159 00:12:58,813 --> 00:13:05,376 which is, as far as I know, the first copycat of Tru-Tone's Jewel Tone lights. 160 00:13:05,376 --> 00:13:07,622 Now, this is as good a look as you're going to get. 161 00:13:07,622 --> 00:13:13,352 I would have absolutely bought a set to compare them, but again, they were sold out throughout my area. 162 00:13:13,352 --> 00:13:16,189 Which I will take as a very good sign. 163 00:13:16,189 --> 00:13:22,249 People know this looks better,  but haven't been able to get them until quite recently. 164 00:13:22,249 --> 00:13:30,735 But while these are at least getting the concept correct, the quality of the color coating doesn't look that great. 165 00:13:30,735 --> 00:13:33,014 The blue is extremely faded. 166 00:13:33,014 --> 00:13:36,000 That might as well be a cool white. 167 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:41,276 Now, it's possible that it was a darker blue when this display was first switched on, 168 00:13:41,276 --> 00:13:48,278 but if the color was able to fade that much in an indoor display, that doesn't bode well. 169 00:13:48,278 --> 00:13:55,356 For comparison, this set of Tru-Tone Jewel Tone lights was outdoors for two seasons, and they still look great. 170 00:13:55,356 --> 00:13:59,112 And now, a small diversion on nomenclature. 171 00:13:59,112 --> 00:14:05,777 Of course I checked out my mostly Midwestern mega merchandise mecca, Menards, to see what they might have in store. 172 00:14:05,777 --> 00:14:11,419 And I have one positive thing to say, along with several very negative things to say. 173 00:14:11,419 --> 00:14:13,043 I got excited by the packaging, 174 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:18,928 which had been revised for 2025 and which was  touting "classic incandescent glow," 175 00:14:18,928 --> 00:14:21,624 but that was just pure lies. 176 00:14:21,624 --> 00:14:27,874 This is the same product I got my hands on last year, though I can't remember if there was a twinkling option or not. 177 00:14:27,874 --> 00:14:34,874 I checked the steady version and it had identical colors and their clear colored C7s and C9s are just as horrendous as before. 178 00:14:34,874 --> 00:14:41,615 So, whoever your supplier is isn't getting the memo. 179 00:14:41,615 --> 00:14:44,575 Or else you haven't figured out how to write that memo yet. 180 00:14:44,575 --> 00:14:47,567 So, what's my positive thing to say? 181 00:14:47,567 --> 00:14:53,211 Well, Menards is rolling out the term "vivid" for some of their other multicolor options. 182 00:14:53,211 --> 00:14:59,343 And I think they might have stumbled upon a great way to distinguish between monochromatic LED Christmas lights 183 00:14:59,343 --> 00:15:01,654 for you freaks which like that for some reason 184 00:15:01,654 --> 00:15:06,729 and the more pleasant vintage versions I'm yearning for. 185 00:15:06,729 --> 00:15:12,121 They need to actually get their vintage line to look decent before I can really give them credit. 186 00:15:12,121 --> 00:15:16,206 But I think vivid versus vintage is a good distinction. 187 00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:21,590 Though I also think the "traditional glow" works well. 188 00:15:21,590 --> 00:15:24,896 I'm starting to think a big issue with modern lighting 189 00:15:24,896 --> 00:15:31,491 is that many people simply don't have very broad vocabularies to describe the qualities of light. 190 00:15:31,491 --> 00:15:36,043 So, while they can describe something as looking off or harsh or unpleasant, 191 00:15:36,043 --> 00:15:39,602 it can be difficult to communicate the specific reasons. 192 00:15:39,602 --> 00:15:44,325 A simple distinction like "vivid" and "vintage" might be just the trick! 193 00:15:44,325 --> 00:15:48,834 And now, a second diversion on color combinations. 194 00:15:48,834 --> 00:15:53,645 For this video, I checked out a different mostly Midwestern mega merchandise mecca, 195 00:15:53,645 --> 00:15:54,931 Meijer. 196 00:15:54,931 --> 00:15:58,790 For those who aren't familiar with Meijer, which is probably most of you, 197 00:15:58,790 --> 00:16:02,931 it's essentially Walmart but run out of Michigan by a different family. 198 00:16:02,931 --> 00:16:09,301 Now, they didn't have anything really notable except they are still selling incandescent twinkling light sets - 199 00:16:09,301 --> 00:16:12,070 branded as Phillips, oddly enough. 200 00:16:12,070 --> 00:16:18,637 my first Christmas light video was about these things and I love them a lot, so I was happy to see them for sale. 201 00:16:18,637 --> 00:16:22,223 And bought some, many more than two of them. 202 00:16:22,223 --> 00:16:27,903 But then I discovered that the Philips-branded multicolored sets for sale at Meijer 203 00:16:27,903 --> 00:16:32,444 were a color combo I haven't seen in the wild since I was a little kid. 204 00:16:32,444 --> 00:16:36,856 Red, yellow, green, blue, and purple - 205 00:16:36,856 --> 00:16:39,469 though you might call it magenta. 206 00:16:39,469 --> 00:16:46,205 This is the color combination of my grandparents' Christmas tree, and it hit me right in the nostalgia. 207 00:16:46,205 --> 00:16:48,673 And it also made me realize something. 208 00:16:48,673 --> 00:16:53,554 In the past, I have said I want none of those purples or pinks. 209 00:16:53,554 --> 00:16:56,090 But that's not strictly true. 210 00:16:56,090 --> 00:17:03,537 I am actually completely cool with there being a fifth color so long as it's distinct from the rest. 211 00:17:03,537 --> 00:17:08,655 That's why I don't like these sets with red, orange, and pink. 212 00:17:08,655 --> 00:17:15,104 Those three colors are simply too similar, and it means you end up with what blurs into an orangey red mess 213 00:17:15,104 --> 00:17:18,004 with scant pops of blue and green. 214 00:17:18,004 --> 00:17:23,971 This combo swaps orange for a bright yellow, which actually stands out from red. 215 00:17:23,971 --> 00:17:30,934 And rather than a pink, which is simply a lighter red, it has a true magenta between red and blue. 216 00:17:30,934 --> 00:17:34,090 So, it also stands out as a separate color. 217 00:17:34,090 --> 00:17:40,843 Here's a comparison between the more intense purple here and the paler pink of a more typical set. 218 00:17:40,843 --> 00:17:45,027 I realize most of what I'm doing here is rationalizing a subjective opinion, 219 00:17:45,027 --> 00:17:52,486 but I really do think it's important to have very distinct colors to make a pleasing combination. 220 00:17:52,486 --> 00:17:58,065 I like the red, yellow, blue, green combo because each color stands apart from the rest. 221 00:17:58,065 --> 00:18:05,486 But the much more common red, orange, pink, blue, green has three warm colors which all just smear together. 222 00:18:05,486 --> 00:18:10,687 This five color combo with yellow rather than orange and purple rather than pink 223 00:18:10,687 --> 00:18:15,290 manages to have five colors which are all very distinct from one another 224 00:18:15,290 --> 00:18:18,779 and so the addition of that purple doesn't bother me. 225 00:18:18,779 --> 00:18:21,248 In fact, I like it! 226 00:18:21,248 --> 00:18:25,855 And since the multicolored twinkling sets also have that combo, 227 00:18:25,855 --> 00:18:27,761 well, you know, I bought a bunch. 228 00:18:27,761 --> 00:18:34,700 I put them in my tree this year, though, I will be honest, it might be just a bit much. 229 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:41,558 There is a thin line between Christmas cheer and tacky, and this is right up against it. 230 00:18:41,558 --> 00:18:45,282 I'll see how my opinion changes once I get the ornaments on there. 231 00:18:45,282 --> 00:18:51,324 So, there's really not a whole lot more to this video, but I want to circle back to Tru-Tone and Vintaglow. 232 00:18:51,324 --> 00:18:58,845 If you're after the sorts of Christmas lights that I am, I would strongly encourage supporting their efforts directly. 233 00:18:58,845 --> 00:19:04,489 I know the folks at these companies are the reason the situation is starting to improve, 234 00:19:04,489 --> 00:19:07,515 and they're even more persnickety than I am. 235 00:19:07,515 --> 00:19:12,217 I've purchased products from both companies and have been extremely happy with them. 236 00:19:12,217 --> 00:19:18,987 Links to their store pages are in the description, though my tardiness means a lot of stuff is already sold out. 237 00:19:18,987 --> 00:19:21,803 I'm not a very good Christmas lights influencer, 238 00:19:21,803 --> 00:19:30,184 but I am apparently enough of a Christmas lights influencer to get the inside scoop on some new products they have in the pipeline. 239 00:19:30,184 --> 00:19:37,792 However, once again, I'm in a bit of an awkward spot because True Tone and Mary Co are competitors. 240 00:19:37,792 --> 00:19:39,904 I like what both of them are doing, 241 00:19:39,904 --> 00:19:47,280 and since Merry Co focuses primarily on mini lights while Tru-Tone focuses primarily on C7s and C9s, 242 00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:53,100 I feel like they complement each other quite well and you will not catch me picking favorites. 243 00:19:53,100 --> 00:20:00,649 So, I will just say they both have some really cool new stuff coming which I am excited to see. 244 00:20:00,649 --> 00:20:04,303 And if you've been afflicted with Christmas light issues similar to mine, 245 00:20:04,303 --> 00:20:09,427 or perhaps even ones I don't have, such as a sensitivity to flicker, 246 00:20:09,427 --> 00:20:12,150 I think it would be worth signing up for their newsletters. 247 00:20:12,150 --> 00:20:19,888 They really are the epicenter of good nostalgic Christmas light innovation and are actually getting it done. 248 00:20:19,888 --> 00:20:23,206 So kudos to everyone at both companies. 249 00:20:23,206 --> 00:20:29,783 But I will take it as good news that other brands and stores are finally starting to get it. 250 00:20:29,783 --> 00:20:32,128 Slowly but surely. 251 00:20:32,128 --> 00:20:36,000 People genuinely want Christmas lights that look like this! 252 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:42,868 But you have to make it clear that it's something special and you have to have it on display and actually lit. 253 00:20:42,868 --> 00:20:49,236 So many people have sent me hopeful things to investigate which turn out to be disappointments. 254 00:20:49,236 --> 00:20:54,628 You can't just put the word vintage on the  packaging and hope that'll work, Menards. 255 00:20:54,720 --> 00:21:01,150 People can see what's wrong with modern Christmas lights, but they might not have the best words to describe it. 256 00:21:01,150 --> 00:21:08,552 If some actual effort is put into creating a best of both worlds product, people will buy it. 257 00:21:08,552 --> 00:21:11,167 But it has to be real effort. 258 00:21:11,167 --> 00:21:16,175 These Sylvania lights are close, but there's a good distance to go. 259 00:21:16,175 --> 00:21:22,750 And their white strands, while solidly above average, are still using quite cheap diodes. 260 00:21:22,750 --> 00:21:26,339 This white is too pink and color rendering is poor. 261 00:21:26,339 --> 00:21:32,425 Vintaglow proved last year that you can source these tiny little diodes with excellent light output. 262 00:21:32,425 --> 00:21:38,606 Genuinely, their clear mini lights are incredibly good and nearly indistinguishable from incandescent. 263 00:21:38,606 --> 00:21:44,352 But it takes a lot of work to keep overseas suppliers from cheapening out just a little too much... 264 00:21:44,352 --> 00:21:48,915 and the big box stores don't seem too inclined to do that work. 265 00:21:48,915 --> 00:21:51,101 And now I'm going to finish this video up 266 00:21:51,101 --> 00:21:56,462 with an unscripted section where I talk about some of my other LED-related complaints. 267 00:21:56,462 --> 00:21:59,902 I've written down a list of things to cover, and here we go: 268 00:21:59,902 --> 00:22:02,135 We'll start with a call back. 269 00:22:02,135 --> 00:22:05,885 "You people need to start caring about lighting more than you do!" 270 00:22:05,885 --> 00:22:08,117 I meant two things by that. 271 00:22:08,117 --> 00:22:13,787 First, we are now in a place where LEDs are so good and so efficient  and so cheap 272 00:22:13,787 --> 00:22:15,637 (as well as cheap to operate) 273 00:22:15,637 --> 00:22:20,588 that overlighting your environment is very easy to do. 274 00:22:20,588 --> 00:22:27,240 One of the reasons I don't like modern Christmas light displays is because they're just too bright. 275 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:35,240 No lights like this are very bright at all because these are bare filaments you are staring directly at. 276 00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:37,850 This is supposed to be in your line of sight. 277 00:22:37,850 --> 00:22:43,172 So, the thing you're looking at needs to be very dull. Otherwise, it's going to strain your eyes. 278 00:22:43,172 --> 00:22:48,630 And a lot of modern Christmas light installations are horribly bright. 279 00:22:48,630 --> 00:22:54,174 I got caught off guard by someone who decorated way before Thanksgiving on my drive home and, geez, 280 00:22:54,174 --> 00:22:56,757 it was like they had a billboard in their front yard. 281 00:22:56,757 --> 00:22:57,807 That's not good! 282 00:22:57,807 --> 00:23:00,075 But it's not just Christmas lights. 283 00:23:00,075 --> 00:23:09,799 One thing that has also happened is I think LEDs have changed standards people have for lighting in a largely bad way. 284 00:23:09,799 --> 00:23:13,746 I've talked about this before when I  made my video on switched outlets - 285 00:23:14,169 --> 00:23:20,963 we are now very used to having central overhead lighting which is extremely bright. 286 00:23:20,963 --> 00:23:26,762 And that means a lot of people these days will look at more traditional lighting environments where you have things like 287 00:23:26,762 --> 00:23:33,185 table lamps and task lighting and complain that there's not enough light. 288 00:23:33,185 --> 00:23:40,213 Whereas what I think is really the case is you've gotten used to very cheap and bad lighting. 289 00:23:40,213 --> 00:23:48,917 I challenge you to figure out the difference between a single overhead saucer light and a bare light bulb hanging on a string. 290 00:23:48,917 --> 00:23:50,571 It's not actually that different. 291 00:23:50,571 --> 00:23:53,705 The saucer light is probably a little more aesthetically pleasing, 292 00:23:53,705 --> 00:24:00,591 but the pattern of light that it shines in the  room is almost identical to a single light socket on the ceiling. 293 00:24:00,591 --> 00:24:04,024 And I think you would agree that's not good enough. 294 00:24:04,024 --> 00:24:11,736 But because LEDs are now so bright, you can have enough light to see in the room with a single point of light. 295 00:24:11,736 --> 00:24:17,124 And, uh, I honestly think people are just getting used to that, even though it's bad. 296 00:24:17,124 --> 00:24:18,965 It's really bad. 297 00:24:18,965 --> 00:24:25,331 One thing I've seen a lot of people complain about is hotel rooms because hotel rooms generally don't have overhead lighting - 298 00:24:25,331 --> 00:24:30,581 and they might have a light by the entrance to the room and then lamps throughout the room. 299 00:24:30,581 --> 00:24:33,723 I think that is actually a much more pleasant environment. 300 00:24:33,723 --> 00:24:40,630 But again, when you're used to having a single overhead light that illuminates the entire room from the center, 301 00:24:40,630 --> 00:24:41,785 oh well, 302 00:24:41,785 --> 00:24:44,174 then the room can look underlit. 303 00:24:44,174 --> 00:24:47,499 But I would challenge you to change your mindset to ask, 304 00:24:47,499 --> 00:24:50,061 "Well, what actually needs to be lit?" 305 00:24:50,061 --> 00:24:51,025 Here's a great example: 306 00:24:51,025 --> 00:24:55,098 I changed the light fixture above my dining room table to this. 307 00:24:55,098 --> 00:24:59,033 Not only because it's mid-century modern in a way that I very much like, 308 00:24:59,033 --> 00:25:03,909 but these light fixtures only direct light down. 309 00:25:03,909 --> 00:25:11,821 The previous light fixture had the bulbs able to shine in all directions, which meant the room was very, very bright, 310 00:25:11,821 --> 00:25:16,387 but it also meant I was looking at light bulbs when sitting at the table. 311 00:25:16,387 --> 00:25:22,223 This fixture, by directing light only down at the table, creates a very moody environment. 312 00:25:22,223 --> 00:25:26,923 There's almost no light hitting the walls at all, unless I turn on my accent lights. 313 00:25:26,923 --> 00:25:33,039 That's the sort of stuff I would really encourage more people to be cognizant of and to play with. 314 00:25:33,039 --> 00:25:36,253 Lighting impacts your environment so much, 315 00:25:36,253 --> 00:25:46,432 but if all you want is enough light to see, you're probably going to end up with environments that are very harsh and very overlit. 316 00:25:46,432 --> 00:25:48,541 But continuing on that train of thought, 317 00:25:48,541 --> 00:25:54,887 there is a weird twist which I think has happened as we have made daylight balanced lighting available. 318 00:25:54,887 --> 00:25:59,212 I no longer get that hung up on people who claim to prefer daylight balanced  lighting - 319 00:25:59,212 --> 00:26:02,813 I still say "claimed to" because of what I'm about to say - 320 00:26:02,813 --> 00:26:08,486 But I am increasingly convinced  that the people who prefer daylight lighting 321 00:26:08,486 --> 00:26:11,629 (in some contexts - I'm not going to say you can't prefer it) 322 00:26:11,629 --> 00:26:18,352 but I'm increasingly convinced that a lot of that is because if you have had an underlit environment before, 323 00:26:18,352 --> 00:26:25,429 like for example, you lived in a house which had a single boob light in the center with two 60W bulbs in there, 324 00:26:25,429 --> 00:26:33,254 then the only thing you have experienced with  warmer lighting is badly lit and underlit environments 325 00:26:33,254 --> 00:26:39,438 and if you swap those warm lights  for daylight balanced light your visual acuity will go up. 326 00:26:39,438 --> 00:26:45,266 So I think something that has happened is there's an some combination of un - 327 00:26:45,266 --> 00:26:52,023 I don't want to say unawareness but poor awareness of the virtues of task lighting and directed lighting 328 00:26:52,023 --> 00:26:56,407 and having more sources of lighting in your home than just a single overhead light 329 00:26:56,407 --> 00:27:03,222 and not recognizing that it's not the color temperature that makes that environment look underlit, 330 00:27:03,222 --> 00:27:06,943 it's the fact that there isn't enough light in enough places. 331 00:27:06,943 --> 00:27:13,105 What I'm trying to say here is that LED lighting technology has freed up a lot of new ideas, 332 00:27:13,105 --> 00:27:18,168 but it has ended up changing our expectations in what I would say is a bad way. 333 00:27:18,168 --> 00:27:22,149 One of the things that we still have is wattage equivalents. 334 00:27:22,149 --> 00:27:26,933 We still look at light bulbs and say that's a 60 watt equivalent or a 100 watt equivalent. 335 00:27:26,933 --> 00:27:34,108 And that's because it was, in the incandescent days, a fairly consistent amount of light output per watt. 336 00:27:34,108 --> 00:27:39,251 And now that LEDs have broken way beyond that level of brightness, 337 00:27:39,251 --> 00:27:45,955 I think it's just quite easy for us to expect  brighter lights in the same location 338 00:27:45,955 --> 00:27:53,207 rather than expecting more lights spread out to have a more pleasant environment which is more evenly lit. 339 00:27:53,207 --> 00:27:54,719 I'll just put it like that. 340 00:27:54,719 --> 00:27:56,796 How am I doing for an unscripted section? 341 00:27:56,796 --> 00:28:00,865 I'll tell you, I don't think I'm doing pretty great because my next thing is a thing I already talked about. 342 00:28:00,865 --> 00:28:03,348 But to reiterate I guess 343 00:28:03,348 --> 00:28:08,430 I really feel like people these days  are less interested in replicating certain kinds of lighting, 344 00:28:08,463 --> 00:28:12,574 like using additional lamps or directional light. 345 00:28:12,574 --> 00:28:20,603 And this has resulted in a lot of overlit environments, which is changing people's idea of what enough light is. 346 00:28:20,603 --> 00:28:27,655 One example, there's a house that I drove by that was built in the last couple years and they've got some exterior eaves lighting, 347 00:28:27,655 --> 00:28:32,550 like uh basically can lights in the eaves and my god, 348 00:28:32,550 --> 00:28:34,435 they are just way too bright! 349 00:28:34,435 --> 00:28:39,573 There's way too much light being fired  out of these eaves of this house and it looks horrendous. 350 00:28:39,573 --> 00:28:41,214 It does not look good. 351 00:28:41,214 --> 00:28:50,403 But I really think more and more people are just expecting cannons of light now that the LED can do that for us. 352 00:28:50,403 --> 00:28:52,311 But maybe we shouldn't. 353 00:28:52,311 --> 00:28:56,205 And for another great example of just because you can doesn't mean you should, 354 00:28:56,205 --> 00:29:03,030 if you haven't already run across these, there are now really convincing LED alternatives to neon tubes. 355 00:29:03,030 --> 00:29:07,377 And I'm talking like traditional neon signs made of bent glass tubes. 356 00:29:07,377 --> 00:29:09,926 I'm a little sad for what that's doing to the neon industry, 357 00:29:09,926 --> 00:29:15,195 but it's a lot easier to work with and you don't have to deal with blowing glass, etc. 358 00:29:15,195 --> 00:29:18,955 However, so many of these products, while they look great, 359 00:29:18,955 --> 00:29:21,106 are way too bright! 360 00:29:21,106 --> 00:29:26,010 It's as if nobody who makes them has ever seen an actual neon sign. 361 00:29:26,010 --> 00:29:31,502 And the trouble with making it brighter is that, especially when you think of something like a neon sign, 362 00:29:31,502 --> 00:29:36,590 the contrast is against a dark background, the night sky. 363 00:29:36,590 --> 00:29:44,219 And if you have something with an ornate shape which is being illuminated, if it's too bright, you can't read it. 364 00:29:44,219 --> 00:29:50,491 There's a lot of new Christmas decorations that are coming out that have that sort of LED neon look to  them. 365 00:29:50,491 --> 00:29:57,189 And the thing is, they're so freaking bright that if you have them outside, you're never going to be able to tell what that is. 366 00:29:57,189 --> 00:30:03,540 Like, uh, I've seen a Santa head, which is just going to look like a red and white blob from any reasonable difference* 367 00:30:03,540 --> 00:30:08,720 They only look correctly  illuminated in already very bright environments. 368 00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:14,400 So, this is what I mean about the LED is great  because it means we can make really bright lights   369 00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:18,531 in really small spaces, but it's so easy to go overboard. 370 00:30:18,531 --> 00:30:23,164 And I wish more people were thinking about that as a possibility. 371 00:30:23,164 --> 00:30:25,996 And for my last LED hot take, 372 00:30:25,996 --> 00:30:30,358 this is something that is more vibes based than anything else, but I wanted to bring it up. 373 00:30:30,358 --> 00:30:36,676 I truly believe that when you have too much freedom in design, this can be a bad thing. 374 00:30:36,676 --> 00:30:39,565 One of the things that the LED is letting us do now 375 00:30:39,565 --> 00:30:45,637 is create these incredibly interesting light fixtures and whole new kinds of light fixtures which are very cool. 376 00:30:45,637 --> 00:30:49,545 But when you have that completely unlimited freedom, 377 00:30:49,545 --> 00:30:53,882 sometimes you end up making a lot of stuff that looks cool but isn't very functional. 378 00:30:53,882 --> 00:30:59,376 Whereas on the other hand, when we used to have to design around standardized light bulbs, 379 00:30:59,376 --> 00:31:02,452 that led to a lot of really interesting creations. 380 00:31:02,452 --> 00:31:11,730 And so in a sense, I am truly bummed by what the LED has done because it's now so cheap, so easy, and so reliable 381 00:31:11,730 --> 00:31:12,707 (for the most part) 382 00:31:12,707 --> 00:31:22,677 that we have made some really visually interesting things that just don't actually work that well as light fixtures. 383 00:31:22,677 --> 00:31:29,848 And uh I've had this thing going on where I feel like a lot of sectors of the economy and industries etc. 384 00:31:29,848 --> 00:31:32,407 are losing their sense of purpose. 385 00:31:32,407 --> 00:31:38,629 And I think that the LED is a great example of that where now that we have brighter, faster, cheaper, stronger, 386 00:31:38,629 --> 00:31:44,906 we just do that rather than thinking about what would actually be a really good application for this technology. 387 00:31:44,906 --> 00:31:54,713 And thus explains why it's taken 10 years for  someone to do this at a mass market scale. 388 00:31:56,546 --> 00:31:57,656 Yeah. 389 00:31:57,656 --> 00:32:00,294 Okay. Well, that's the end. 390 00:32:00,294 --> 00:32:02,825 I didn't write anything for the outro either, 391 00:32:02,825 --> 00:32:05,992 so hopefully uh the music is fading pretty well. 392 00:32:05,992 --> 00:32:10,389 I think we're going to do that jazzy We Wish You a Merry Christmas I typically do on these videos. 393 00:32:10,389 --> 00:32:12,870 And I guess the only thing left to do is to cut the black. 394 00:32:13,681 --> 00:32:17,674 ♫ a jazz version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas ♫ 395 00:32:19,542 --> 00:32:20,248 just like I promised! 396 00:32:20,741 --> 00:32:23,804 ...and string it - shove it more appropriately. 397 00:32:24,474 --> 00:32:26,638 [laughs] 398 00:32:26,638 --> 00:32:31,190 ...better, so long as you remember to start wrapping at the female end, 399 00:32:31,190 --> 00:32:35,227 then they become a nice and functional spool... 400 00:32:35,826 --> 00:32:40,539 And you'll notice on this one,  I did not remember to start at the female end. 401 00:32:40,539 --> 00:32:43,447 [angry sigh] Or did I? 402 00:32:43,447 --> 00:32:45,859 No, I did. I just got tangled up. 403 00:32:45,859 --> 00:32:47,258 Wait, did I? 404 00:32:48,210 --> 00:32:50,549 No, I did not. Darn it. 405 00:32:50,549 --> 00:32:58,686 Here, watch watch me do it again because last year me made a boo boo. 406 00:32:58,686 --> 00:33:01,546 Which is why I am being very... 407 00:33:02,462 --> 00:33:09,454 ...I did - I did this on several of these and that is why I am making sure I point out start with the female end 408 00:33:09,454 --> 00:33:11,123 or you will regret it. 409 00:33:11,687 --> 00:33:16,919 They glow with a bright white light. 410 00:33:16,919 --> 00:33:17,889 That doesn't work 411 00:33:17,889 --> 00:33:18,389 [laughs] 412 00:33:18,389 --> 00:33:24,627 which caused those filaments to get so incredibly hot they glew with a bright white light. 413 00:33:25,261 --> 00:33:25,761 Glew? Heh. 414 00:33:28,545 --> 00:33:31,184 So here's a fun fact: 415 00:33:31,184 --> 00:33:34,647 I wrote this end-of-video captions gag in the middle of Kansas. 416 00:33:34,647 --> 00:33:38,572 Just passed a billboard advertising an "Old Fashion (sic) Soda Fountain" 417 00:33:38,572 --> 00:33:42,870 This isn't what you were expecting for an end-of-video captions gag, huh? 418 00:33:42,870 --> 00:33:44,341 Well, me neither. 419 00:33:44,905 --> 00:33:47,859 Merry Christmas!