WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.132 As we swiftly approach the end of November... 00:00:04.612 --> 00:00:07.611 oh, as December draws so near, it's here, 00:00:07.611 --> 00:00:09.668 the holiday season is upon us. 00:00:09.668 --> 00:00:16.026 And, as is tradition, many people will be stringing colorful electric lights all every which way. 00:00:16.026 --> 00:00:17.537 Because why not? 00:00:17.537 --> 00:00:23.264 And, as is tradition, this person makes a video about the awful state of Christmas lights 00:00:23.264 --> 00:00:27.752 brought about by scientists who were so preoccupied with whether they could, 00:00:27.752 --> 00:00:30.915 they never stopped to think if they should. 00:00:30.915 --> 00:00:35.615 But before I launch into the tirade  I've launched into half a dozen times now, 00:00:35.615 --> 00:00:41.020 here's an actual Christmas light storage tip I learned from a teacher in high school. 00:00:41.020 --> 00:00:44.236 When it comes time to put the Christmas lights away for the season, 00:00:44.236 --> 00:00:46.562 don't use the tried and true 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 00:00:51.261 --> 00:00:53.246 because that's bad. 00:00:53.246 --> 00:00:57.565 Sorry, Dad, they just get way too tangled up and tend to break. 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. 00:01:05.203 --> 00:01:08.461 Cut at least two slits with one on each  end. 00:01:08.461 --> 00:01:10.944 Then, and this is very important, 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. 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. 00:01:26.264 --> 00:01:33.094 [a very high-pitched rendition of Entry of the Gladiators] 00:01:37.389 --> 00:01:38.098 Okay, 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 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 00:01:48.822 --> 00:01:51.548 with all your Christmas lights on them. 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. 00:01:59.392 --> 00:02:03.763 And so long as you remember to start wrapping with the female end, 00:02:03.763 --> 00:02:10.267 they function as a decent spool when it comes time to decorate next year. 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. 00:02:15.046 --> 00:02:15.961 So there you go! 00:02:15.961 --> 00:02:19.710 And now back to my regularly scheduled tirade. 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:26.147 You see, I am old enough to predate the commercialization of LED lighting technology. 00:02:26.147 --> 00:02:31.367 When I was a youngin', we were still mostly shoving electricity through tiny tungsten filaments 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. 00:02:38.169 --> 00:02:40.425 That's just how light bulbs worked. 00:02:40.425 --> 00:02:45.257 And since the underlying technology produced a full spectrum white light output, 00:02:45.257 --> 00:02:50.477 if we wanted to produce colored light, we'd need to use filters 00:02:50.477 --> 00:02:55.669 which removed certain frequencies of light and only let some through. 00:02:55.669 --> 00:02:57.981 This had two inevitable side effects: 00:02:57.981 --> 00:03:00.618 One, the filtering wasn't perfect, 00:03:00.618 --> 00:03:07.116 so the colors produced, while often quite intense and beautiful, weren't unnaturally pure. 00:03:07.116 --> 00:03:11.856 It does not look, for lack of a better word, electronic. 00:03:11.856 --> 00:03:17.885 Secondly, this filtering from a wide spectrum of light to a small sliver of that spectrum 00:03:17.885 --> 00:03:20.863 reduces how much light escapes the bulb, 00:03:20.863 --> 00:03:25.348 causing those colored lights  to be much darker than their clear counterparts, 00:03:25.348 --> 00:03:31.373 particularly the cooler colors on the shorter end of the spectrum, such as blue and green. 00:03:31.373 --> 00:03:35.450 Now, I am fully familiar with that Douglas Adams quotation which says, 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." 00:03:41.415 --> 00:03:46.173 And while I'm sure there's some wisdom there relevant to my whole deal, 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 00:03:53.821 --> 00:03:56.365 only sort of applies to me. 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, 00:04:02.422 --> 00:04:06.831 it has made Christmas much, much worse. 00:04:06.831 --> 00:04:10.794 Now, instead of decorating with warm and pleasant festive lighting, 00:04:10.794 --> 00:04:20.040 we are decorating with horrid points of flickering saturated colors that belong in a gaming PC. 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:22.643 And not even, like, a good one. 00:04:22.643 --> 00:04:24.243 Why is this? 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:30.099 Well, because LEDs are actually only capable  of emitting light of a single wavelength. 00:04:30.099 --> 00:04:34.132 This means they produce a single and very pure color. 00:04:35.225 --> 00:04:39.785 Now, when it comes to white LEDs, there's some trickery involved. 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, 00:04:46.817 --> 00:04:49.633 good old fluorescent lighting technology. 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. 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 00:05:03.311 --> 00:05:08.875 and converts the high frequency light it produces down to various lower frequencies 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. 00:05:15.333 --> 00:05:18.000 We've gotten incredibly good at this. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:22.611 While cheap and nasty LEDs are still on the market in the bargain bin, 00:05:22.611 --> 00:05:29.256 any decent LED fab these days is capable of producing incredibly good white LEDs 00:05:29.256 --> 00:05:34.153 that produce light which is nearly indistinguishable from an incandescent filament. 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 00:05:40.502 --> 00:05:45.042 that we can make very convincing mimics of incandescent light bulbs. 00:05:45.042 --> 00:05:49.151 This is all innovation I'm 100% on board with! 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 00:05:55.773 --> 00:05:59.704 for producing a fixture or bulb with a selectable color temperature. 00:05:59.704 --> 00:06:02.152 Or, as is my favorite application, 00:06:02.152 --> 00:06:07.351 automatically shifting the color temperature down as light intensity decreases 00:06:07.351 --> 00:06:11.900 to mimic the warming effect of an incandescent bulb on a dimmer switch. 00:06:11.900 --> 00:06:14.843 You can build that directly into a light bulb 00:06:14.843 --> 00:06:19.701 which means you can use old-fashioned dimmer switches to control new fangled light bulbs, 00:06:19.701 --> 00:06:21.761 and you don't even need an app! 00:06:21.761 --> 00:06:25.655 Philips used to shove that tech into pretty much every kind of light bulb they sold, 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. 00:06:30.965 --> 00:06:33.743 Even their own website filter doesn't work. 00:06:33.743 --> 00:06:37.332 You people need to start caring about lighting more than you do! 00:06:37.332 --> 00:06:41.190 I'll rant more about that later, but back to Christmas lights. 00:06:41.190 --> 00:06:46.897 While we have had the capability to produce extremely good white LEDs for a long time 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 00:06:54.911 --> 00:06:59.535 but who also want to have the aesthetics of old hot-glowing-wire light bulbs... 00:06:59.535 --> 00:07:03.297 that memo just never gets received by Christmas light manufacturers! 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. 00:07:09.850 --> 00:07:14.096 Now, instead of taking a white light and filtering it down to various colors, 00:07:14.096 --> 00:07:19.253 each light produces its own wavelength, which leads not only to oversaturated colors 00:07:19.253 --> 00:07:24.158 but especially in the case of multicolored light sets like this, which have blues and greens, 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, 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. 00:07:37.783 --> 00:07:43.060 It's Christmastime, not the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. 00:07:43.060 --> 00:07:48.943 Now, the really frustrating thing here is that the solution to this problem is obvious! 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. 00:07:58.218 --> 00:08:03.674 Produce Christmas lights with warm white diodes that then have a color filter over them 00:08:03.674 --> 00:08:07.597 like we used to have to do with incandescent lights. 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 00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:17.934 and color them by hand with various materials to demonstrate that 00:08:17.934 --> 00:08:22.597 A) this could be done and 2) it works reasonably well. 00:08:22.597 --> 00:08:26.303 I was never completely happy with any of my various experiments, 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. 00:08:34.012 --> 00:08:37.797 And as many of you know, this is finally starting to happen. 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, 00:08:45.262 --> 00:08:48.715 but who actually bothered to do something about it. 00:08:48.715 --> 00:08:53.079 True Tone started out making LED C7 and C9 light bulbs 00:08:53.079 --> 00:08:57.416 which actually looked exactly like the incandescent bulbs they replaced. 00:08:57.416 --> 00:09:01.457 And they are truly great products which I can personally vouch for. 00:09:01.457 --> 00:09:03.185 I love them. 00:09:03.185 --> 00:09:07.060 But they weren't making mini lights... yet, 00:09:07.060 --> 00:09:11.157 so I just kept making the same video year after year. 00:09:11.157 --> 00:09:15.390 Then last year, my friend Dan  let me know about Vintaglow lights, 00:09:15.390 --> 00:09:19.769 and these were almost perfectly argeted at me specifically. 00:09:19.769 --> 00:09:23.585 This is my preferred color combo of red, yellow, green, and blue, 00:09:23.585 --> 00:09:28.386 and they executed the idea much better than any of my experiments could. 00:09:28.386 --> 00:09:34.164 I did have a few nitpicks, but well... 00:09:34.164 --> 00:09:35.918 those have all been taken care of. 00:09:35.918 --> 00:09:39.544 This is a set of generation 2 Vintaglows, 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. 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. 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. 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, 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:08.381 and I haven't gotten around to it right yet. 00:10:08.381 --> 00:10:11.691 I might do that for Connextras but it'll be a couple of weeks. 00:10:11.691 --> 00:10:15.631 But since so many of you know about my Christmas light opinions, 00:10:15.631 --> 00:10:19.503 I tend to be alerted to the existence of new options on the market. 00:10:19.503 --> 00:10:23.445 And this year there were a couple of developments worth sharing. 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. 00:10:32.182 --> 00:10:36.186 But both of them are carving out a very specific niche 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 00:11:17.076 --> 00:11:21.298 But Tru-Tone and Merry Co are quite a lot more persnickety, 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. 00:11:28.880 --> 00:11:32.672 But I also get the sense that both of them will  feel a sense of accomplishment 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,   00:11:39.334 --> 00:11:43.127 So with that, let's look at this copycat. 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 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. 00:11:55.007 --> 00:12:01.768 But there now exists a Sylvania-branded "Traditional Glow" set of Christmas lights which are... 00:12:01.768 --> 00:12:03.308 pretty good! 00:12:03.308 --> 00:12:05.802 These appear to actually be made of glass, 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. 00:12:13.779 --> 00:12:16.408 But the green... 00:12:16.408 --> 00:12:18.010 the green's not great. 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. 00:12:24.568 --> 00:12:28.893 Honestly though, that's really the only problematic color. 00:12:28.893 --> 00:12:33.310 This is not my favorite color combo, in fact, it's my least favorite, 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 00:13:05.376 --> 00:13:07.622 Now, this is as good a look as you're going to get. 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. 00:13:13.352 --> 00:13:16.189 Which I will take as a very good sign. 00:13:16.189 --> 00:13:22.249 People know this looks better,  but haven't been able to get them until quite recently. 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. 00:13:30.735 --> 00:13:33.014 The blue is extremely faded. 00:13:33.014 --> 00:13:36.000 That might as well be a cool white. 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, 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. 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. 00:13:55.356 --> 00:13:59.112 And now, a small diversion on nomenclature. 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. 00:14:05.777 --> 00:14:11.419 And I have one positive thing to say, along with several very negative things to say. 00:14:11.419 --> 00:14:13.043 I got excited by the packaging, 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:18.928 which had been revised for 2025 and which was  touting "classic incandescent glow," 00:14:18.928 --> 00:14:21.624 but that was just pure lies. 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. 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. 00:14:34.874 --> 00:14:41.615 So, whoever your supplier is isn't getting the memo. 00:14:41.615 --> 00:14:44.575 Or else you haven't figured out how to write that memo yet. 00:14:44.575 --> 00:14:47.567 So, what's my positive thing to say? 00:14:47.567 --> 00:14:53.211 Well, Menards is rolling out the term "vivid" for some of their other multicolor options. 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 00:14:59.343 --> 00:15:01.654 for you freaks which like that for some reason 00:15:01.654 --> 00:15:06.729 and the more pleasant vintage versions I'm yearning for. 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. 00:15:12.121 --> 00:15:16.206 But I think vivid versus vintage is a good distinction. 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:21.590 Though I also think the "traditional glow" works well. 00:15:21.590 --> 00:15:24.896 I'm starting to think a big issue with modern lighting 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. 00:15:31.491 --> 00:15:36.043 So, while they can describe something as looking off or harsh or unpleasant, 00:15:36.043 --> 00:15:39.602 it can be difficult to communicate the specific reasons. 00:15:39.602 --> 00:15:44.325 A simple distinction like "vivid" and "vintage" might be just the trick! 00:15:44.325 --> 00:15:48.834 And now, a second diversion on color combinations. 00:15:48.834 --> 00:15:53.645 For this video, I checked out a different mostly Midwestern mega merchandise mecca, 00:15:53.645 --> 00:15:54.931 Meijer. 00:15:54.931 --> 00:15:58.790 For those who aren't familiar with Meijer, which is probably most of you, 00:15:58.790 --> 00:16:02.931 it's essentially Walmart but run out of Michigan by a different family. 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 - 00:16:09.301 --> 00:16:12.070 branded as Phillips, oddly enough. 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. 00:16:18.637 --> 00:16:22.223 And bought some, many more than two of them. 00:16:22.223 --> 00:16:27.903 But then I discovered that the Philips-branded multicolored sets for sale at Meijer 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. 00:16:32.444 --> 00:16:36.856 Red, yellow, green, blue, and purple - 00:16:36.856 --> 00:16:39.469 though you might call it magenta. 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. 00:16:46.205 --> 00:16:48.673 And it also made me realize something. 00:16:48.673 --> 00:16:53.554 In the past, I have said I want none of those purples or pinks. 00:16:53.554 --> 00:16:56.090 But that's not strictly true. 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. 00:17:03.537 --> 00:17:08.655 That's why I don't like these sets with red, orange, and pink. 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 00:17:15.104 --> 00:17:18.004 with scant pops of blue and green. 00:17:18.004 --> 00:17:23.971 This combo swaps orange for a bright yellow, which actually stands out from red. 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. 00:17:30.934 --> 00:17:34.090 So, it also stands out as a separate color. 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. 00:17:40.843 --> 00:17:45.027 I realize most of what I'm doing here is rationalizing a subjective opinion, 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. 00:17:52.486 --> 00:17:58.065 I like the red, yellow, blue, green combo because each color stands apart from the rest. 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. 00:18:05.486 --> 00:18:10.687 This five color combo with yellow rather than orange and purple rather than pink 00:18:10.687 --> 00:18:15.290 manages to have five colors which are all very distinct from one another 00:18:15.290 --> 00:18:18.779 and so the addition of that purple doesn't bother me. 00:18:18.779 --> 00:18:21.248 In fact, I like it! 00:18:21.248 --> 00:18:25.855 And since the multicolored twinkling sets also have that combo, 00:18:25.855 --> 00:18:27.761 well, you know, I bought a bunch. 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. 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. 00:18:41.558 --> 00:18:45.282 I'll see how my opinion changes once I get the ornaments on there. 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. 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. 00:18:58.845 --> 00:19:04.489 I know the folks at these companies are the reason the situation is starting to improve, 00:19:04.489 --> 00:19:07.515 and they're even more persnickety than I am. 00:19:07.515 --> 00:19:12.217 I've purchased products from both companies and have been extremely happy with them. 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. 00:19:18.987 --> 00:19:21.803 I'm not a very good Christmas lights influencer, 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. 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. 00:19:37.792 --> 00:19:39.904 I like what both of them are doing, 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, 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. 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. 00:20:00.649 --> 00:20:04.303 And if you've been afflicted with Christmas light issues similar to mine, 00:20:04.303 --> 00:20:09.427 or perhaps even ones I don't have, such as a sensitivity to flicker, 00:20:09.427 --> 00:20:12.150 I think it would be worth signing up for their newsletters. 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. 00:20:19.888 --> 00:20:23.206 So kudos to everyone at both companies. 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. 00:20:29.783 --> 00:20:32.128 Slowly but surely. 00:20:32.128 --> 00:20:36.000 People genuinely want Christmas lights that look like this! 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. 00:20:42.868 --> 00:20:49.236 So many people have sent me hopeful things to investigate which turn out to be disappointments. 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. 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. 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. 00:21:08.552 --> 00:21:11.167 But it has to be real effort. 00:21:11.167 --> 00:21:16.175 These Sylvania lights are close, but there's a good distance to go. 00:21:16.175 --> 00:21:22.750 And their white strands, while solidly above average, are still using quite cheap diodes. 00:21:22.750 --> 00:21:26.339 This white is too pink and color rendering is poor. 00:21:26.339 --> 00:21:32.425 Vintaglow proved last year that you can source these tiny little diodes with excellent light output. 00:21:32.425 --> 00:21:38.606 Genuinely, their clear mini lights are incredibly good and nearly indistinguishable from incandescent. 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... 00:21:44.352 --> 00:21:48.915 and the big box stores don't seem too inclined to do that work. 00:21:48.915 --> 00:21:51.101 And now I'm going to finish this video up 00:21:51.101 --> 00:21:56.462 with an unscripted section where I talk about some of my other LED-related complaints. 00:21:56.462 --> 00:21:59.902 I've written down a list of things to cover, and here we go: 00:21:59.902 --> 00:22:02.135 We'll start with a call back. 00:22:02.135 --> 00:22:05.885 "You people need to start caring about lighting more than you do!" 00:22:05.885 --> 00:22:08.117 I meant two things by that. 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 00:22:13.787 --> 00:22:15.637 (as well as cheap to operate) 00:22:15.637 --> 00:22:20.588 that overlighting your environment is very easy to do. 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. 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. 00:22:35.240 --> 00:22:37.850 This is supposed to be in your line of sight. 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. 00:22:43.172 --> 00:22:48.630 And a lot of modern Christmas light installations are horribly bright. 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, 00:22:54.174 --> 00:22:56.757 it was like they had a billboard in their front yard. 00:22:56.757 --> 00:22:57.807 That's not good! 00:22:57.807 --> 00:23:00.075 But it's not just Christmas lights. 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. 00:23:09.799 --> 00:23:13.746 I've talked about this before when I  made my video on switched outlets - 00:23:14.169 --> 00:23:20.963 we are now very used to having central overhead lighting which is extremely bright. 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 00:23:26.762 --> 00:23:33.185 table lamps and task lighting and complain that there's not enough light. 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. 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. 00:23:48.917 --> 00:23:50.571 It's not actually that different. 00:23:50.571 --> 00:23:53.705 The saucer light is probably a little more aesthetically pleasing, 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. 00:24:00.591 --> 00:24:04.024 And I think you would agree that's not good enough. 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. 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. 00:24:17.124 --> 00:24:18.965 It's really bad. 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 - 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. 00:24:30.581 --> 00:24:33.723 I think that is actually a much more pleasant environment. 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, 00:24:40.630 --> 00:24:41.785 oh well, 00:24:41.785 --> 00:24:44.174 then the room can look underlit. 00:24:44.174 --> 00:24:47.499 But I would challenge you to change your mindset to ask, 00:24:47.499 --> 00:24:50.061 "Well, what actually needs to be lit?" 00:24:50.061 --> 00:24:51.025 Here's a great example: 00:24:51.025 --> 00:24:55.098 I changed the light fixture above my dining room table to this. 00:24:55.098 --> 00:24:59.033 Not only because it's mid-century modern in a way that I very much like, 00:24:59.033 --> 00:25:03.909 but these light fixtures only direct light down. 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, 00:25:11.821 --> 00:25:16.387 but it also meant I was looking at light bulbs when sitting at the table. 00:25:16.387 --> 00:25:22.223 This fixture, by directing light only down at the table, creates a very moody environment. 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. 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. 00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:36.253 Lighting impacts your environment so much, 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. 00:25:46.432 --> 00:25:48.541 But continuing on that train of thought, 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. 00:25:54.887 --> 00:25:59.212 I no longer get that hung up on people who claim to prefer daylight balanced  lighting - 00:25:59.212 --> 00:26:02.813 I still say "claimed to" because of what I'm about to say - 00:26:02.813 --> 00:26:08.486 But I am increasingly convinced  that the people who prefer daylight lighting 00:26:08.486 --> 00:26:11.629 (in some contexts - I'm not going to say you can't prefer it) 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, 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, 00:26:25.429 --> 00:26:33.254 then the only thing you have experienced with  warmer lighting is badly lit and underlit environments 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. 00:26:39.438 --> 00:26:45.266 So I think something that has happened is there's an some combination of un - 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 00:26:52.023 --> 00:26:56.407 and having more sources of lighting in your home than just a single overhead light 00:26:56.407 --> 00:27:03.222 and not recognizing that it's not the color temperature that makes that environment look underlit, 00:27:03.222 --> 00:27:06.943 it's the fact that there isn't enough light in enough places. 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, 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. 00:27:18.168 --> 00:27:22.149 One of the things that we still have is wattage equivalents. 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. 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. 00:27:34.108 --> 00:27:39.251 And now that LEDs have broken way beyond that level of brightness, 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 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. 00:27:53.207 --> 00:27:54.719 I'll just put it like that. 00:27:54.719 --> 00:27:56.796 How am I doing for an unscripted section? 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. 00:28:00.865 --> 00:28:03.348 But to reiterate I guess 00:28:03.348 --> 00:28:08.430 I really feel like people these days  are less interested in replicating certain kinds of lighting, 00:28:08.463 --> 00:28:12.574 like using additional lamps or directional light. 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. 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, 00:28:27.655 --> 00:28:32.550 like uh basically can lights in the eaves and my god, 00:28:32.550 --> 00:28:34.435 they are just way too bright! 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. 00:28:39.573 --> 00:28:41.214 It does not look good. 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. 00:28:50.403 --> 00:28:52.311 But maybe we shouldn't. 00:28:52.311 --> 00:28:56.205 And for another great example of just because you can doesn't mean you should, 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. 00:29:03.030 --> 00:29:07.377 And I'm talking like traditional neon signs made of bent glass tubes. 00:29:07.377 --> 00:29:09.926 I'm a little sad for what that's doing to the neon industry, 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. 00:29:15.195 --> 00:29:18.955 However, so many of these products, while they look great, 00:29:18.955 --> 00:29:21.106 are way too bright! 00:29:21.106 --> 00:29:26.010 It's as if nobody who makes them has ever seen an actual neon sign. 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, 00:29:31.502 --> 00:29:36.590 the contrast is against a dark background, the night sky. 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. 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. 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. 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* 00:30:03.540 --> 00:30:08.720 They only look correctly  illuminated in already very bright environments. 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   00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.531 in really small spaces, but it's so easy to go overboard. 00:30:18.531 --> 00:30:23.164 And I wish more people were thinking about that as a possibility. 00:30:23.164 --> 00:30:25.996 And for my last LED hot take, 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. 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. 00:30:36.676 --> 00:30:39.565 One of the things that the LED is letting us do now 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. 00:30:45.637 --> 00:30:49.545 But when you have that completely unlimited freedom, 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. 00:30:53.882 --> 00:30:59.376 Whereas on the other hand, when we used to have to design around standardized light bulbs, 00:30:59.376 --> 00:31:02.452 that led to a lot of really interesting creations. 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 00:31:11.730 --> 00:31:12.707 (for the most part) 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. 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. 00:31:29.848 --> 00:31:32.407 are losing their sense of purpose. 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, 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. 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. 00:31:56.546 --> 00:31:57.656 Yeah. 00:31:57.656 --> 00:32:00.294 Okay. Well, that's the end. 00:32:00.294 --> 00:32:02.825 I didn't write anything for the outro either, 00:32:02.825 --> 00:32:05.992 so hopefully uh the music is fading pretty well. 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. 00:32:10.389 --> 00:32:12.870 And I guess the only thing left to do is to cut the black. 00:32:13.681 --> 00:32:17.674 ♫ a jazz version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas ♫ 00:32:19.542 --> 00:32:20.248 just like I promised! 00:32:20.741 --> 00:32:23.804 ...and string it - shove it more appropriately. 00:32:24.474 --> 00:32:26.638 [laughs] 00:32:26.638 --> 00:32:31.190 ...better, so long as you remember to start wrapping at the female end, 00:32:31.190 --> 00:32:35.227 then they become a nice and functional spool... 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. 00:32:40.539 --> 00:32:43.447 [angry sigh] Or did I? 00:32:43.447 --> 00:32:45.859 No, I did. I just got tangled up. 00:32:45.859 --> 00:32:47.258 Wait, did I? 00:32:48.210 --> 00:32:50.549 No, I did not. Darn it. 00:32:50.549 --> 00:32:58.686 Here, watch watch me do it again because last year me made a boo boo. 00:32:58.686 --> 00:33:01.546 Which is why I am being very... 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 00:33:09.454 --> 00:33:11.123 or you will regret it. 00:33:11.687 --> 00:33:16.919 They glow with a bright white light. 00:33:16.919 --> 00:33:17.889 That doesn't work 00:33:17.889 --> 00:33:18.389 [laughs] 00:33:18.389 --> 00:33:24.627 which caused those filaments to get so incredibly hot they glew with a bright white light. 00:33:25.261 --> 00:33:25.761 Glew? Heh. 00:33:28.545 --> 00:33:31.184 So here's a fun fact: 00:33:31.184 --> 00:33:34.647 I wrote this end-of-video captions gag in the middle of Kansas. 00:33:34.647 --> 00:33:38.572 Just passed a billboard advertising an "Old Fashion (sic) Soda Fountain" 00:33:38.572 --> 00:33:42.870 This isn't what you were expecting for an end-of-video captions gag, huh? 00:33:42.870 --> 00:33:44.341 Well, me neither. 00:33:44.905 --> 00:33:47.859 Merry Christmas!