Tru-Tone C9 LED Christmas lights - an overview

[@TruToneBulbs]

Hi Alec! Thanks for finding and sharing Tru-Tone lights in 2021. That was a great big surprise for our incredibly small business! We’ve gained insight and theories into why we haven’t previously seen these types of LED Christmas lights, along with other behind-the-scenes stories, and in-development challenges we think you might find interesting! We’d love to chat if you’re interested! -David

[@SeriouSXXFireworks]

When will your class mix and classic cords be back in stock? And if they are sold separately how come he had them packaged already together? Thanks

[@TruToneBulbs]

@@AdhamOhm We'd just like to introduce ourselves. There's pretty much just two of of us here at Tru-tone and we have stories we think Alec would find interesting.

[@TruToneBulbs]

@@SeriouSXXFireworks Our limited resources haven't been able to keep up with increasing demand. All of our bulbs work in standard light strings or other lit decorations. Alec looks like he's swapped our bulbs into a standard retail light string. Our Classic mix is still available in our most popular C7 size at the moment, along with the C9 Jeweltone classic mix, but it looks like most items will be sold out for the rest of this year before much longer. We're still very new and incredibly tiny. Thanks for your patience as we grow.

[@SeriouSXXFireworks]

@@TruToneBulbs I would like to buy from you but buying the C9 bulbs in the five pack mixed and that expensive light string is just too expensive. Unless you can do a discount?

[@embers_falling]

@@SeriouSXXFireworks as a small business, profit margins are small, as they don’t have the same resources available as the bigger competitors, thus prices are bound to be a bit higher. but you do get what you pay for.

[@benji376]

Im glad to see some companies making genuine realistic incandescent-looking Christmas LED lights

[@Xeonerable]

Just seeing the wattage difference between the LED and incandescent is absolutely insane. The LED has got to be one of the most important inventions of our time.

[@ChuncleMonkSki]

Absolutely! I love the warmth of incandescent bulbs, however LED's are getting much better.

[@dangerousmythbuster]

I'd suggest that the transistor is still more important than LEDs.

[@paulkocyla1343]

@@dangerousmythbuster A transistor consists basically of 1.5 diodes, so it´s only 50% more important ;)

[@lorenzo42p]

transistors wouldn't exist without diodes, which were invented first

[@travcollier]

Well, it did win some folks a Nobel Prize ;)

[@RobertSzasz]

It's a small thing, but I think I just fell in love with that company. They usually add a pine scent to their boxes, but offer a well thought out fragrance free option. That's the sort of attention to detail that sets companies apart.

[@boscoalbertbaracus1362]

mmmmmmm toxic chemical scents yummy

[@sdotcire2574]

I purchased a set of the "Jeweltone" lights after your video because the classic lights were sold out and I like the "Jeweltone" lights better. I purchased a sample pack of the classic lights so I had a proper comparison. Also, while I was checking out, they ask how you heard about them and I specifically mentioned the Technology Connections youtube channel!! Cheers!

[@jacksonurenmusic]

The jewel tone ones are beautiful! One of my neighbors has them on their house and they look so pretty.

[@biomerl]

Yeah, this guy is probably true tone's favorite person right now.

[@Danokh]

Why do people like the look of incandescent or true tone lights for Christmas decorations? Isn't the benefit of LEDs that you can get white light and not yellow light. Genuine question, im just wondering.

[@robertpucovsky]

@@Danokh I'd say the warmth and nostalgic reasons. Some people prefer using cool white indoor as a common lighting and others (like me) prefer warm white indoor. So I'd say it pretty much translates to Christmas decorations as well.

[@jacksonurenmusic]

@@Danokh there an unexplainable nuance to the incandescent lights that can’t necessarily be captured in the regular led ones. The regular LEDs tend to be a little to bright and are what is called monochromatic, which means they only produce one color per bulb, and they tend to be harsh. The True Tone ones replicate the white filament of the incandescent instead of producing the monochromatic colors of the regular ones. This is what makes them seem so realistic.

[@Yakkers]

What a wonderful invention, I know this is a pretty niche product but it's still really nice to see someone committing so heavily to creating visually indistinguishable LED strings. The day someone does this for mini bulbs is going to be the day someone makes a lot of money from me

[@1992djg]

I love c7 size bulbuls and made it my year long mission to find the perfect led replacement to incandescent Everyone makes the dumb faceted bulb I want smooth

[@spacefolder]

I really do find amusing that all of us who like this channel, even coincide in how lightbulbs should cast their colors! (Things that muggles won’t even notice)

[@nousername102]

@@spacefolder As a hufflepuff this is a mood.

[@Jehty_]

@@spacefolder there is a fallacy in your reasoning. We who don't care about Christmas lights just are keeping our mouth shut. So there is a group of people who love this channel but couldn't care less about Christmas lights.

[@vintagefancollector1436]

It’s not as niche now because it’s caught on really well in the last two years!!

[@stevefaul1710]

We ordered two sets of all blue - one of the few options still available at the time. We like blue. They arrived in 3 business days. (We're in Ohio) And when I plugged them in my wife got an instant wave of nostalgia. They are authentic right now to the slight imperfections in the paint coating. I would imagine these are more shock resistant than the old bulbs because LED's aren't as delicate as a filament. Tru-Tone is very responsive to emails - at least right now they can be - and love to hear from customers. Thanks for the tip, TC!

[@matkomenso5644]

That's weird. I sent them an e-mail asking a few questions and they completely ignored me. Twice in the course of an email a month.

[@markclowe]

@@matkomenso5644 Perhaps your email got filtered by their spam defenses, not even making it to their spam folder. If you happen to be on a provider who is lax with spammers or if your email server happens to have been implicated in spam delivery, it's not unusual for ALL people emailing from that system to be blocked by some defense systems (Barracuda, etc.). Just giving them the benefit of the doubt. We have actually had this happen to us after blasting out relatively small email campaigns to people not 100% opted in. We would usually get a complaint from our provider because they started showing up in some email blacklists. There are web sites you can check to show blocked providers and server IP ranges that have been blacklisted. There is a procedure to get removed from these, but they usually timeout after some period of hours or days. Since not everyone uses these defense mechanisms, this may only become an issue with a single company you try to email. This is just ONE possibility of why they may not simply be ignoring your email... they never got it. Why would they pick on you specifically when others are reporting excellent service via email? Makes ya think, right? 😉

[@ropersonline]

@@markclowe "Makes ya think" someone is being very verbose in defense of a particular private company's public relations.

[@markclowe]

@@ropersonline I don't even know who they are. I'm just a geek who has dealt with this issue before. Rather than assuming someone is arbitrarily ignoring you, why not look at other possibilities?

[@BryanTorok]

@@markclowe Do you have any suggestions for work around? What could a person try? Would switching to a gmail or yahoo email account get one around the problem? Or, would one's ISP still be blocked even though they used a different email service? I ask because I belong to group where periodically one or another of our members will suddenly find his emails are not going through the email list and we found the list service is blocking his ISP. Roadrunner is one ISP that we've encountered this with, but there are others. In fact, I recently heard that a large provider was blocking all emails from AT&T.

[@Jaymac720]

The incandescent set uses more energy in a night than the dishwasher used for a wash. That’s kind astounding to me. That’s a lot of energy for lights

[@CptJistuce]

Incandescent lamps are very efficient heaters, but not particularly efficient lights. (Their entire principle of operation is to heat the filament up enough that it starts glowing. Once you realize that every incandescent bulb has at it's core a white-hot piece of metal, it starts to make sense.)

[@Jaymac720]

@@CptJistuce I know how they work. It still took me aback though to see such small lights using that much energy

[@CptJistuce]

@@Jaymac720 Apologies if I came across as condescending. I didn't mean to. The parenthetical was almost not included, then I realized that a significant portion of the world doesn't actually know how light bulbs of any sort work. In hindsight, considering the channel in question, I should've probably just assumed everyone knew already. But yeah, a lot of small incandescent bulbs add up fast. I much better understand why my parents didn't want to hang the "fat" christmas lights when I was little.

[@torren5950]

Alec's little "shimmer" when he says "I am so pleased" is positively infectious. Edit: OK these comments about people thinking that name didn't fit had me a little scared that I'd somehow gotten his name wrong. But... nah, it's on his Patreon. *whew*

[@calsavestheworld]

I've been watching this guy for years and years and this is the first time I learned his name. He seems like a Lyle to me.

[@vwestlife]

@@calsavestheworld Or maybe a Marc, with a C.

[@vaskikissa]

@@calsavestheworld I always thought his name is Matt. I still refuse to believe it's Alec.

[@FiXato]

@@vaskikissa Mat is that guy from that other excellent tech channel, Techmoan. ;)

[@CharlesBangwiner]

Funny how comments about Alec trump those for the video itself. I was thinking of leaving a comment about how much I love watching him talk about anything. Glad to see I could leave it on top! 😍

[@davidcenteau-depina6192]

I've been instantly transported back in time to my youth. With all that heat the incandescents produce, I'm amazed we never burned anything down. These are amazing.

[@JB-fh1bb]

People’s homes *definitely* burned down 😅

[@BRUXXUS]

Wow, these things are incredible! They really must have worked hard to get them to look virtually identical. They also do sell the strings on their website for those that need them. I hope they continue to have success, because these things are awesome. :)

[@BazilRat]

Indeed. And they deserve to make a bucket from that work!

[@volvo09]

What's funny is that they did exactly what people have been saying from the start of LED C7 and C9 bulbs.... Make them look real. Maybe it took this long for LED technology to catch up and be a decent enough price, but either way they deserve to explode with sales for listening. Seriously. And I love their marketing too, which is something I never care about at all.

[@bsadewitz]

This isn't on topic, strictly speaking, but I recently fell down this rabbit hole, and I figured I'd post this under the comment with the most likes so people see it. I'm pretty sure that anyone who is into this channel would find this interesting, and no one I know irl wants to hear me blather on about it, so here it is: Effects of sweeping, color and luminance distribution on response to automotive stop lamps John D Bullough, Hua Yan, John Van Derlofske SAE Transactions, 1294-1298, 2002 Immediate response to stop lamps when driving is crucial to roadway safety. Previous research has demonstrated that neon and light emitting diode (LED) stop lamps that have a dynamic sweeping luminance distribution can be just as or more effective than standard stop lamps. Sweeping neon and LED lamps with sweep-up times equal to or less than 100 ms resulted in reaction times equal to or shorter than those obtained with a conventional, non-sweeping incandescent stop lamp. At the same time, an LED stop lamp having the same farfield luminous intensity characteristics as the neon lamp, resulted in shorter reaction times than the neon lamp. The LED stop lamp differed from the neon lamp in two important ways. First, its color was different; the LED lamp had a dominant wavelength of about 630 nm, in comparison to the neon lamp with a dominant wavelength of about 615 nm. Second, the luminance distribution of the LED lamp consisted of a series of high-luminance point sources, compared with the neon lamp, which was a diffuse luminous tube having a lower overall luminance. A series of experimental investigations is described with the objective of quantifying the relative impact of color and luminance distribution on vi suai response of stop lamps. The implications of the color and luminance distribution results of this study will be discussed with respect to stop lamp design and regulations. View at jstor.org [PDF] academia.edu Cited by 11 Related articles All 9 versions Fast-rise brake lamp as a collision-prevention device Michael Sivak, Michael Flannagan Ergonomics 36 (4), 391-395, 1993 Conventional tungsten-filament brake lamps have a relatively slow rise time. It takes approximately 250 ms for them to reach 90% of their asymptotic luminous intensity. This slowness of response can cause important delays of warning information to following drivers. We have designed a simple and relatively inexpensive circuit that produces a faster warning signal using a conventional lamp. As we have reported previously, this device reduces reaction times to the onset of brake lamps by about 115 ms. The present study evaluated the benefits of a 115 ms reduction in driver brake reaction time. Two approaches were used. In the first approach we calculated the reductions in effective stopping distance assuming a range of initial speeds. The results indicate, for example, that if the initial speed is 100 km/h. the reduction in the effective stopping distance is 3-2 m. In the second approach we calculated the reductions in the proportions of very long reaction times, assuming a normal distribution of reaction times that is shifted by 115 ms. For the distribution without the device we assumed a mean of 1·25 s and a standard deviation of 0·46 s. The results indicate, for example, that decreasing the mean by 115 ms yields a 55% reduction in the frequency of reaction times that are longer than 2·5 s. Is there anything that LED bulbs can't do?!? Hahaha

[@harrisonernst2990]

@@bsadewitz As an Electrical Engineering Student i find this very informative. Thanks!

[@arjunyg4655]

Honestly they probably just went to someone making incandescent versions and said “hey give us that bulb, but put a white phosphor LED in it” and of course they will look very similar.

[@NordicDan]

I absolutely love the oldschool style packaging. Reminds me of the spare bulb boxes that we had for our C9s as a kid in the 80s.

[@LMacNeill]

How the hell did we not all burn our homes down at Christmas time when I was a kid back in the '70s? We'd plug like 10 strands of these things into each other, and apparently were sucking down nearly 2 kW?! LOL! Insanity!!

[@kane2742]

And then there's the heat that they put off. We burned a hole in our couch one year when the tree was too close to it and a bulb was against the armrest. Fortunately, it didn't catch fire, but we did have a permanent bulb-sized hole in that couch.

[@BubbafromSapperton]

When I was a kid (a long time ago) our indoor lights were cloth-wound wire from probably the 1940's that didn't get retired until the late '70's, those were SO dangerous 😬

[@OriginalWarwood]

I mean, people did cause fires and many homes did burn down; you just likely didn't hear about it. Even now, nearly 800 fires reported occur in the US due to holiday decorations. Risk campaigns of the 80s were the result of those risks.

[@K-Riz314]

Not only that, but they were frequently plugged into a dodgy 4-way outlet adaptor that the TV, VCR and lamp were plugged into haha

[@redaethel4619]

I remember having to wrap the fuses in aluminum foil to keep the strands running. I'm also surprised nothing burned down as circumventing fuses is not a good idea.

[@telepathicalknight]

The incandescent ones also dry out a real tree SO fast. On top of the cost savings, I think the safety factor makes them well worth it!

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Truth!

[@SockyNoob]

Still gotta water a real tree even with LEDs, don't forget that. There's a video that shows just how flammable real trees are if not watered.

[@terrywiggins1736]

Yes, when I was much younger our Christmas tree caught fire and seriously damaged our house, I'm sure from the heat of the C7 style bulbs. I've always liked the C7 bulbs so much better than the mini bulbs, but I've always been concerned about the fire risk; while I love the look and smell of a real tree, I wouldn't consider one (besides the artificial trees look so good now), this looks like a great option.

[@12799MaDeuce]

I found incandescent C9 lights at home depot. I plugged them in at the store just to test them. I was absolutely shocked at how quickly I could feel a significant amount of heat *through the box*

[@mattsnyder4754]

They definitely put out a lot of heat. Although. That isn’t *entirely* a bad thing. Melts the snow off your lights so that they don’t get covered.

[@andreasu.3546]

That's perfectly normal and what one would expect. Your posting just gave me a thought: Just like there are kids out there who never heard a dialtone, there'll soon be kids who will never have felt the heat from an incandescent lamp. Not that that is necessarliy a bad thing though...

[@Plasmacore_V]

@@andreasu.3546 Don't worry the Sun will continue to exist for people that want that incandescent fix, hopefully.

[@lampmunchertv3861]

@@andreasu.3546 There will always be incandescent lamps. Chicken heaters, lava lamps, salt lamps and oven bulbs will mostly persist. Any alternatives to them are overcomlicated or inefficient compared to simply using an incandescent bulb. Also I'm sure incandescent christmas lights will still stick around for quite a bit longer. I prefer them because of the heat. It is nice in the winter...

[@JasonEDragon]

@@mattsnyder4754 I used to put up a lot of lights - including C9 lights on a few evergreen trees a few decades ago. Within a year or two I noticed that half the branches on one short needled evergreen died and half the branches on a long needed evergreen became stunted. Both had to be cut down. I don't miss incandescent C9 lights. I was curious and connected a spare set of 50 C9 LEDs that I bought at a big box store to my KillAWatt meter and it measured 3 Watts, power factor of 0.15, and about 23 VA. I've never noticed anything visually upsetting with my lights - and certainly not anything that would justify a wattage 12x larger for these other LED bulbs. And I like that my LED blue bulbs are as bright as the other colors, while they were always rather dim as incandescents. As residences are are still primarily billed by the kWh I'd think that would imply that utilities haven't found residential power distortions to have a significant impact yet.

[@Backroad_Junkie]

If you've ever been to Magic Kingdom during the holidays, they drape Cindy's castle in sheets of LED's. There's something like a couple of dozen "sheets" that drape the entire structure. (They're known as the "Ice lights", because it's supposed to represent... ice on the castle...) They have the LED's lit the entire night. It's supposed to draw around the same power as three household dryer cycles. The power consumption between incandescent and LED is amazing, considering they're outputting the same amount of light...

[@aonodensetsu]

yeah, cause LED makes light while incandescent makes heat, and a bit of light while it's at it

[@lwilton]

@Green Mamba Games BS. Things don't just pop out of the ground fully developed. I've been around since before there were LEDs of any kind. The first few generations of LEDs were absolutely miserable. It took 20 years of constant process development and inventions to get LEDs in more than red/green/amber and around 30 years to get a reasonably bright LED. 20 years ago it looked like the Feds were going to ban incandescent lights and force everyone to use the absolutely horrible CFL lights. That was the period when 100W lights turned into 95W lights "that make the same amount of light" (BS), and then into 90W lights the next year. Why? Because the Feds mandated that lights had to be 5% more efficient every year, and physics doesn't work that way. That went along for about two years until Philips and a few other companies finally managed to make a usable 120V LED replacement, and overnight CFL lights disappeared from the stores. About a year later the last incandescents followed.

[@MarkEichin]

@@lwilton yeah, people forget that some LED improvements involved a Nobel Prize in Physics. "No really, it is rocket science" :-)

[@chrishart8548]

​@@aonodensetsu incandescent is 95% heat 5% light.

[@aonodensetsu]

@@chrishart8548 incandescent is 100% heat, and the filament gets hot enough to glow

[@squirlmy]

Tru-Tone would do well to hire you as a consultant, maybe you could even focus an entire channel on LED lights, the Tru-Tone channel! Also: your energy savings didn't take into account whether electricity prices will rise, or possibly fall, in the next five years. If you're not installing solar between then and now, the savings could be even more significant than you're calculating now.

[@OrigamiMarie]

And the energy savings vs initial cost also didn't take into account the fact that some of us don't have many lights yet, and we would be buying new anyway, so the energy savings only has to cover the difference between these lights and incandescent stands.

[@robertpucovsky]

Cost is not the only thing to look out, but the fact that it is not consuming as much electricity is. It frees up the grid and less coal gets burned!

[@bbgun061]

My wife discovered that my C9 string was melting our tree in a few places. So I'm definitely buying some of these! Thanks for the review!

[@ForestCinema]

I saw a complete vintage set at an antiques store, and they wanted MORE per bulb than it would cost to just buy the new LED ones AND the new fancy socket strings.

[@tek4]

Thats when you know times are good to get the good ones lol

[@mammutMK2]

40 bucks is like "omg, are the crazy" , but it's actually only 2 dollar a bulb. And 2 to 3 bulbs went out every year, that it actually was cheaper to buy a new string just to strip for the bulbs, they buying replacement bulbs

[@nickwallette6201]

Honestly, it’s just nice to see someone care about anything. There’s so much crap out there that an actual craftsman’s labor of love is a real breath of fresh air.

[@CalMariner]

Dude, so stoked that these are available commercially now. You've had us convinced for years that the vintage colors are the way to go. Any flicker from (electroboom voice) HALF-WAVE-RECTIFICATION??

[@Vote4Drizzt]

He says at 10:06 that they are full wave rectified

[@concentricmachining4636]

FULL BRIDGE RECTIFICATION!!

[@CalMariner]

@@Vote4Drizzt right you are! Must have missed that. Good thing, too - the half wave ones are headache-inducing!

[@CalMariner]

@@capturedflame such horror! Didn't even know they did those!!

[@eDoc2020]

@@capturedflame IMO each half triggering on the opposite half-wave is better than them all triggering on the same half-wave. If they are the main illumination for an area the two halves will somewhat add together and reduce the flicker. As an added bonus the power factor will be better, letting you use sqrt(2) as many lights on the same cord.

[@ChristmasCrustacean1]

I bought some warm white LED christmas lights three years ago that have little clear plastic bulb caps over the LEDs. they made me extremely happy, nostalgia or not they just look pretty.

[@EnvAdam]

personally a big fan of nice quality LEDs properly implemented in something unlike whats become so common.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

I like everything about those bulbs. The color, the thermal reduction, the lower power use, even the retro-style box art!

[@Merennulli]

Looking at them side by side, I recognized the shadow in the left set of bulbs and thought surely those were the incandescents because we had that look with many of our bulbs when I was a kid. I'm glad they make them for the people with more positive memories of them, but I love the newer styles of LED ones so much more.

[@Grey_Duck]

Your Christmas light condom idea is interesting. Maybe a different company would be more equipped to handle it though. Companies like Lee and Rosco make lighting filters for entertainment lighting. I know Rosco makes color tubes for fluorescent lamps. They might be interested in your idea.

[@essentielley]

I LOVE these videos. I have complained about the led Christmas lights and have never had anyone empathize so this series you've done has been such a validating surprise! One suggestion though, if used outdoors I wouldn't leave them on till dawn because of the effects of light pollution on local wildlife.

[@rgnszeb123]

Those lights are darn near perfect, I hope this series doesn’t end tho because I love watching you review Christmas lights

[@vincentcalvacca9260]

Hi Alec: Vince from NJ here. Interesting video. Loved the comparisons and was shocked to learn of the tremendous difference in power consumption between the incandescents and led bulbs. Knew they were power saving but not to THAT degree. Wowee. Thanks again. Hope you and yours have a very Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year. God Bless. VGC

[@Mrshoujo]

Vince for Slap Chop?

[@bsadewitz]

The rabbit hole goes deep, my friend: Effects of sweeping, color and luminance distribution on response to automotive stop lamps John D Bullough, Hua Yan, John Van Derlofske SAE Transactions, 1294-1298, 2002 Immediate response to stop lamps when driving is crucial to roadway safety. Previous research has demonstrated that neon and light emitting diode (LED) stop lamps that have a dynamic sweeping luminance distribution can be just as or more effective than standard stop lamps. Sweeping neon and LED lamps with sweep-up times equal to or less than 100 ms resulted in reaction times equal to or shorter than those obtained with a conventional, non-sweeping incandescent stop lamp. At the same time, an LED stop lamp having the same farfield luminous intensity characteristics as the neon lamp, resulted in shorter reaction times than the neon lamp. The LED stop lamp differed from the neon lamp in two important ways. First, its color was different; the LED lamp had a dominant wavelength of about 630 nm, in comparison to the neon lamp with a dominant wavelength of about 615 nm. Second, the luminance distribution of the LED lamp consisted of a series of high-luminance point sources, compared with the neon lamp, which was a diffuse luminous tube having a lower overall luminance. A series of experimental investigations is described with the objective of quantifying the relative impact of color and luminance distribution on vi suai response of stop lamps. The implications of the color and luminance distribution results of this study will be discussed with respect to stop lamp design and regulations. View at jstor.org [PDF] academia.edu Cited by 11 Related articles All 9 versions Fast-rise brake lamp as a collision-prevention device Michael Sivak, Michael Flannagan Ergonomics 36 (4), 391-395, 1993 Conventional tungsten-filament brake lamps have a relatively slow rise time. It takes approximately 250 ms for them to reach 90% of their asymptotic luminous intensity. This slowness of response can cause important delays of warning information to following drivers. We have designed a simple and relatively inexpensive circuit that produces a faster warning signal using a conventional lamp. As we have reported previously, this device reduces reaction times to the onset of brake lamps by about 115 ms. The present study evaluated the benefits of a 115 ms reduction in driver brake reaction time. Two approaches were used. In the first approach we calculated the reductions in effective stopping distance assuming a range of initial speeds. The results indicate, for example, that if the initial speed is 100 km/h. the reduction in the effective stopping distance is 3-2 m. In the second approach we calculated the reductions in the proportions of very long reaction times, assuming a normal distribution of reaction times that is shifted by 115 ms. For the distribution without the device we assumed a mean of 1·25 s and a standard deviation of 0·46 s. The results indicate, for example, that decreasing the mean by 115 ms yields a 55% reduction in the frequency of reaction times that are longer than 2·5 s.

[@speedymcrunfast3]

Honestly loving the 'end of the year' energy in this video. Makes for a good comfy fireside feeling while I'm snowbound.

[@colinjohnson5515]

I really hope Tru-Tone will take orders after they return on Jan 10. I really don’t care how long they take to ship but I want to put C9 lamps up next year!

[@KenHeaton]

They are taking orders now on their website, I just placed one. They just don't ship until after January 10th as they are taking a break for the Holidays.

[@EddVCR]

I’ve always liked the warm tone of the incandescent Christmas lights, so I’m excited that they’ve finally succeeded in recreating the colors of the retro lights!

[@1ChevyGuy375]

I know right! Like how long have we been waiting for a company to wake up and create this for us. I want that vintage glow from an LED to save electricity and for safety concerns of bulbs getting hot.

[@thedeafwillowtobedeleted]

Thank you for showing off the True Tone light and specifically for showing the power draws. I’m working toward being nomadic and have limited battery power essentially. So a 14-18 watt light string that looks like that is far more palatable than the over 100 watts the traditional incandescent ones to me. I have the regular Christmas light string but prefers mixing bigger bulbs in my setup and this’ll work for me!

[@thedeafwillowtobedeleted]

@corey Babcock I don’t know of any Christmas lighting that lights up the same way in the video and runs off 12v? I do intend to install 12v lights once I pick up a van to convert in the next year (moving to Colorado and taking care of some stuff before going back on the road).

[@jaygilbreath187]

I bought some last year. Great set. I did get one “dud”. Spoke to customer service…they were VERY apologetic about the situation and sent a replacement bulb. Would definitely use them more but they are a tad expensive.

[@nigozeroichi2501]

My father forbade us from ever putting the C9 strings on the old hairy broomstick tree we had, there were noticeable melted spots on the tree, guess he learned the hard way before I was born😉

[@danielannan4797]

I absolutely loved the candid way you did this. The way you do your main channel is fantastic. But this felt like having a chat with a friend about their passion projects.

[@izzieweitman2338]

As Alec's hair grows so does his power...

[@lekoman]

Oh hey, this is my friend’s company! They’re just a couple of guys working out of their spot in Michigan with their ol dog Comet. They did the product work and all the marketing design (including composing the song in their commercial!) themselves. Cool to see them getting a shoutout here.

[@rileysherraden2654]

Mini balloons such as the ones used for water balloons might work well as a little condominium, don't know if that has been mentioned but i figure its worth a shot.

[@s.h.v.c2865]

or balloon animal balloons

[@nikkitronic80]

Can't wait to get true tone Christmas lights for our house next year! I keep hearing how great they are. Love the vintage look. So cool!

[@jaystus]

My house is cover this year

[@JohnDlugosz]

What's amazing, price-wise, is that each bulb has its own power supply to convert AC to the low voltage DC. That's the problematic part of so many LED bulbs, is the cheapness of the power supply. That is why they flicker and that is what tends to fail long before the LED itself. If they could make a LED-purpose-built strand that had a single, high-quality power supply that fed DC to the individual bulbs, I think it would be overall cheaper, last orders of magnitude longer, and could be made with a perfectly smooth DC output. The only drawback is the lower voltage would need much thicker wires for the same power carrying capacity. In order to easily string sets together, it could be built with a pass-through of regular lamp cord like they are now, which just acts as an extension cord to the other end; and a second pair of wires carries low voltage DC to this strand only.

[@pontiacg445]

LEDs don't work that way. They are not negative feedback devices, they draw more power as they heat up and therefore need current regulation, not voltage. Try and run them off a constant voltage instead of constant current and they will eventually fry themselves. They also deviate between themselves, so running constant current + series supply means at best they don't all brighten to the same level, at worse one will burn and kill the whole strip. Also, the voltage drop at LED forward voltage ranges would be insane. You've never seen what you want because it's pretty damn dumb. Adding a built in extension cord is just icing on the cake. Switching to running them series means a switching power supply to power the entire strip will be ~1/4 the size of a PC power supply at the least, you gonna hang that off your siding? Oh yeah, good luck finding the dead one when they burn out because it'll take out the entire strip that probably cost $150.

[@JasperJanssen]

@@pontiacg445 most normal indoor and outdoor led strings are low voltage strings. It’s only these specific ones that have power supplies per bulb. The better quality led strings have 36V current limited power supplies, with series/parallel configuration where sections of ten leds in series are driven in parallel. There are also strings (notably the “copper wire with smd leds soldered to it covered in epoxy” type) that just have all the leds in parallel. And no, they look just fine, they’re not notably unmatched. And of course there’s the stuff you really don”t want where the mains is just rectified and fed inTo the string straight up, but those are generally not for sale in the western world.

[@eDoc2020]

Internally the bulbs surely have high-voltage strings made up of a few dozen LEDs.

[@eDoc2020]

@@JasperJanssen Here in the US plug-in low-voltage light strings are basically unheard of, or at least I haven't seen them for sale anywhere.

[@JarrettWilliams99]

It would be tough to do that while retaining the ability to plug strands together end to end.

[@FurrBeard]

My parents early on standardized on the mini incandescent lights because when I was a toddler they figured that while they might get warm enough to be uncomfortable to touch, they wouldn't be likely to BURN me if I grabbed one as they feared might happen with the larger bulbs. (Those were used on the eaves of the house where they were safely out of reach.) I also had a Lite-Brite with all the different color pegs as a kid so the idea of having color-reconfigurable strings based on (ideally, high CRI) warm white LEDs makes perfect sense to me. Oh, and SMOOTHED full-wave rectified power is an absolute requirement! We can and should demand much higher quality in the power supply for a light string than we get now with all the half-wave horrors out there! Designing the strings with appropriate connectors and to a common DC voltage like 12V would make it possible to power them from a vehicle or battery much more easily not to mention replacing a failed power supply, or one that's too flickery for one's taste. I would just say I'd prefer something like bayonet-lock hard plastic caps over the idea of a soft silicone type cover because the lights I remember were intensely colored and CLEAR, and silicone is rarely clear as glass (or various plastics). Also, either rubbery caps are likely to be a PAIN to get on and off, or they're going to fall off and get lost. The former perhaps not a huge problem if one only sets up a string ONCE - but if one wants to reconfigure the colors for different events, it becomes an issue. Finally - going by my silicone kitchen trivet and some similar items - silicone rubber picks up dust like freaking mad, which would also look awful on lights.

[@Jaymac720]

Good lord I haven’t seen hair-down Alec. It’s always been slicked back so we never saw how long it’s really gotten

[@TalenGryphon]

It makes me happy to see that LEDs are finally able to replicate what people love about incandescent lights, while saving significantly on power costs. I might have to get some of these for decorating my retro home next Christmas

[@MrMoogle]

I was far more excited than I probably should have been to see this video in my feed, haha. I was looking forward to seeing you check these out and I thought I was going to have to wait another year. What a lovely surprise!

[@davegrimes3385]

I like the no script, off-the-cuff presentation. Thank you Alec for all your work, and wishing you a very happy new year 🎉

[@KenHeaton]

Hi Alec, thank you for this. I've been procrastinating on this for some time now as I was very concerned about the true colour or the bulb that I would get if I ordered a C7 LED replacement bulb online. I'm on Cape Breton Island, up in Nova Scotia, Canada, so can't find anything like this locally. I was afraid of ordering 100 of these online in Yellow and ending up with something greenish yellow, instead of the nice warm yellow I see in your video. Thanks for posting this, it is a great help, I just ordered 75 yellow and 25 orange for next year's display.

[@Tardisntimbits]

Hello from Ontario, fellow Canuck! o/

[@KenHeaton]

I ordered the C7 size and I just got an email saying they were shipped today. Yay!

[@ShoelessJP]

The amount of care over the quality of Christmas lights is not something I knew I care about, but Alec's passion for this is awesome and I'm suddenly very invested.

[@alexandrebelinge8996]

I do miss the classic chrismas colors of the old bulbs ! I'm so getting some next year !

[@ZENITH_System_3]

It’s amazing how they made led look incandescent! That’s awesome

[@Dave01Rhodes]

If they do release full strings I wonder if there’d be a benefit to going full DC with a single converter at the wall that can be swapped out. Seems like it’d be safer that way, and then they could go all out on the converter to make the power delivery as smooth and consistent as possible

[@CptJistuce]

There's no reason they couldn't aside from suddenly having two similar-yet-incompatible product lines. I suspect the nostalgic design is going to preclude a native-DC string, because if they use the traditional base, there's always a risk of someone installing the native-DC bulbs in an AC string and burning them out. And if they don't use the traditional base, it "looks weird".

[@FurrBeard]

This is what I think they should do if they take up Alec's idea about the color-configurable mini light strings. Run them off a quality smoothed DC power supply - and that way, if they choose a common voltage (say, 12V) they could easily also be run off batteries, vehicle power, etc.

[@apclaudiu]

There will be a benefit but not for the producer (except maybe it will be a little bit cheaper). Most of the LED's lamps are dying because of the electronics inside the bulb used for rectifying the current and reduce the voltage. Because of the small space for electronics they will also heat and reduce the life of LEDs. If you really want to prolong the life of the bulbs you will also dim them a little bit to reduce the heat further (by default they will run at the maximum power which is decreasing their brightness and lifespan). Yes, much better for consumer but less bulbs will burn and will have less revenue (unless they innovate and sell different colours, timer and effects incorporated in the power supply etc.). @CptJistuce just use a different socket inside which could look the same on the outside.

[@Dave01Rhodes]

@@apclaudiu I hope Tru-Tone aren’t in the business of selling self-destructing LEDs when demand will outpace supply for years to come.

[@apclaudiu]

@@Dave01Rhodes They not but the Chinese will. The bulbs are almost surely built in China and "maybe" coloured in USA. I do not know if they purchase in big enough volume to order a custom light bulb electronics. I had a lot of problems with LED lights dying in one year max two and those were from brand names. Better luck I had with noname ones or with cheap supermarket brands.

[@RREEJJEECCTTEEDD]

I'm glad someone's finally talking about how the LED light duty cycle leaves a flickering image(especially in the corner of one's eyes or in motion)

[@Blarbo]

You and my wife are so passionate about this. I didn't give this an ounce of thought before this.

[@paulhaynes8045]

As a Brit, I was utterly baffled by this video. I had no idea what Truetone lights were/are (weird name for lights) or why anyone would make a video about them! Eventually it dawned that this was some sort of nerdy, retro thing about old-fashioned Christmas lights. But why?! Over here NO ONE uses these lights any more - and haven't done for years. LED lights have been around for ages and are so much better than the old incandescent ones. Not only are they cheaper and give you far more 'bulbs' and options, but they don't get hot, and they DON'T FAIL! No more trying to get them to work each December, and no more trying to find which bulb has failed when they won't work (and God help you if two have failed at the same time!). But I liked the hair! Although when you do that wide-eyed, manic staring at the camera thing, it's now frightening, rather than just weird...

[@Vote4Drizzt]

True Tone is making an LED replication of Incandescent C9 sized Christmas Lights. Alec has been on record for years now both A. As an advocate for lighting efficiency and the superiority of LEDs in most applications B. As someone who cannot abide the specific changes in color quality that come with LED Christmas lights. He's been trying a variety of solutions to get the standard mini-lights(fairy lights in some places) to have a similar quality to what he wants but it's been difficult. C9 light bulbs have been considered Retro around here for a long time but there are folks who continue to buy and use them because LEDs have done a terrible job of replicating their brightness and color quality until recently. Wintergreen Opticors and True Tones are currently the only folks doing a decent job producing bright, durable, colorful C9 and C7 sized bulbs. I'm a big fan of LED and don't mind the LED colors as much, but there's no shortage of people who have trouble with it.

[@sickregret]

I have been watching your xmas light journey for years and I’m so happy to see you’ve finally found someone making the exact lights you want. You and LGR Clint should do a synth collaboration and the cover of your album should be a photo taken with your cardboard box camera. Cheers.

[@joy5976]

My grandma has little plastic pumpkin/ghost caps that go over Christmas lights for Halloween. I wish they were more popular, I love the idea of having a bunch of caps for each holiday

[@jayman4566]

We finished switching my parents over to the new Color accurate LED lights. They look great and are under 150 watts for 12 straps compared to 1400+ Watts. They are in their 70s and really don't care about the environmental impact but the $$$ saved.

[@KevboKev]

See, where you and I differ is that pink is a MUST in a multi-color strand for me. I love the warm orange/pink splash on my walls from old-fashioned incandescent lights. I purchased their Jewel Tru-Tone and they made my year!!! My tree looks phenomenal with them on.

[@Gunbu]

I ordered some C9 bulbs (pink, blue, orange, green) based on your recommendation. Hung them up on the house and they look fantastic. Looking forward to watching the video to see what you think!

[@myid9876543]

Hair’s growing out great, bud, thanks for making some entertaining content for us during these holidays, hope all is well with you.

[@CoolJRT2009]

I bought some Kmart miniature light sets here in Australia in both warm white (warm white LED's with clear caps) and coloured (red, pink, orange, green, blue monochrome LED's with coloured caps). I mixed and matched the caps from the coloured string onto the warm white string (I left pink out because the incandescent that my family bought back in the 2000's didn't have pink) and was able to get some pretty decent looking results. They're still quite dull and the blue is a bit too light, but they're good enough for the incandescent miniature light look for a low price

[@elizabethnewell3133]

We ordered the jewel lights. The presentation/packaging is fantastic. Retro and even includes scented packing paper that smelled exactly like the old can of Christmas tree scent we had. Nice product, very cheerful.

[@elizabethnewell3133]

Oh, and we got the string too which is delightfully old fashioned wrapped in cord

[@ForTheBirbs]

Thank you for your videos! I guess it's close enough to say Happy New Year. The power factor is good for the LEDS! Big Clive would be interested to see these.

[@Spindash54]

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of these Tru-Tones. Bookmarking them for future days when I’m a home owner. I’m going to want these for sure!

[@cradio52]

I absolutely need these and I REALLY hope they open a preorder system for next year. I tried buying them this year but they were all sold out.

[@onesandzeros2u]

I'm just here to se the pure joy, of this man, of finding the Christmas lights he has been looking for. Merry Christmas Alex. Thank you for your channel, and the effort you put into your excellent content.

[@smashed_penguin]

0:42 sounds way more natural IMO, like listening from within the same room, without it being overly reverb-intensive.

[@Friedbrain11]

Yeah, they used to sell a product to either correct the color or even change the color a bit and they were like clear type color and made specifically for mini bulbs. I used them back in the '80's LOL. The LEDs don't need a vacuum as that would actually hurt their longevity.

[@stephenh5166]

At a friends house a few weeks ago, I noticed his family had an interesting string of lights. They work kinda like what you've always described, a screw on colored lens which fits over the LED bulb. In his set, the bulbs were colored the same as the glass and looked like the cheap LED C7 sets you still see, but you could easily mix and match the bulb color with lens color. It would probably be possible to switch all the bulbs to white and achieve your desired effect. His mother thinks she bought the set 10-20 years ago, possibly from a Walmart. The only identifying thing I could find was a model number on the bulb replacement instructions. I couldn't find anything about it on the internet but maybe someone else would have better luck? It read "MODEL NO.:YMA-25L (0.02)C7P"

[@00SNIVY00]

I had forgotten about these until I watched this video. My parents would plug all the christmas lights and decorations for the yard and the house and I recently tested and found that 750W was being pulled through all the extension cords running through the yard. I saw these kinds of lights strung up on the fence and went over to see if they were incandescent or not. They were. And that strand running along the fence was consuming about half of that 750W; a bit over 300W was from the single strand of lights. Seeing this video very much makes me want to replace them, because they're nice lights, just hate how hot they get and wasteful they are in terms of energy.

[@swedish_brick_enjoyer]

I see to be the only person in my entire family that despises flickering LED Christmas lights. Other than the flicker these Tru Tone lights are amazing.

[@oisiaa]

I LOVE that someone like Alec cares about stuff like this (like I do). 99.99% (literally 1/10,000) of people couldn't care less about this, but I do and the rest of you do too.

[@ravick6940]

I'm very happy to see LED technology is slowly catching up to incandescent bulbs in quality of light. Hope the 10:00 thingy gets fixed by next holiday season :D

[@tookitogo]

The LEDs caught up a few years ago, and the power supply technology is very, very mature. The problem is that manufacturers cheap out and use cheap power supplies that allow flicker and/or fail long before the LEDs themselves do. But it’s not a technological problem, but one of cost-cutting. :/

[@theultimate77]

Had to send you a quick thank you for this video. I've been waiting a long time for them to be back in stock but just got my Tru-Tone order and am beyond pleased. They look just like old school incandescent C7 lights. I noted your youtube channel as where I heard about them. Thanks again!

[@markiangooley]

My parents had a string of maybe 40 C9 lights in the 1960s into the 1970s and we used them strictly outdoors. Big nostalgia thing for me. Big Clive here on KZbin uses his 3D printer to make friction-fit caps for small lights on strings. Mostly they’re fairly big caps.

[@jennhall522]

I have to thank you for doing this episode. I don't have the time to watch every video of all the creators I follow, so I didn't see whatever video you put out where you mentioned them. I am so glad you did, as I am going to buy and entire set of the jewel toned ones for my mom, sister and I. They are MASSIVELY nostalgic, and we mention every year how much we miss seeing them. We felt that the LEDs at first felt very....cold. Mostly that god awful white, eww. Even the bulb shape brings back memories! My favourite part of this company has to be their packaging. They were careful with the branding and made sure to make it as nostalgic as possible. What an excellent job they did.

[@Ni5ei]

You come across very relaxed and mellow in this video

[@diynevala]

Switching to leds is great! Now, I don't like christmas and anything around that subject, so I do not buy any decorations and I won't certainly have any extra lights for these holidays. Having this attitude pays for itself instantly, no matter what you are comparing it against - it is mostly free, does not add to any expenses, and is quite durable. This is my chrismas present to you all.

[@OrigamiMarie]

I would suspect that the glass bulbs for the LED lights will last longer than for the incandescent, because they will experience much less thermal stress.

[@kcrtxbw.4349]

glad they went for glass instead of plastic in terms of longevity

[@OrigamiMarie]

@@kcrtxbw.4349 Me too!

[@tookitogo]

Thermal stress on the glass envelope isn’t what causes incandescent bulbs to fail…

[@teslatrooper85]

Have you looked into Neopixel C9s yet? They do not have that nice filament imitation of the Tru-Tone bulbs, but they also are not monochromatic and can change color to approximate a color filter over white light.

[@ReneKnuvers74rk]

PF: current is out of phase with the VOLTAGE. The power is the momentary multiple of current and voltage. Every PF other than 1 has some energy flowing from the device to the power station.

[@MrPeetersmark]

I totally agree with you that the led lights are usually terrible, and the worst part is, is that there is no reason for it at all. I can’t believe how giddy you are are that you found some that are not crap. Just love it. Awesome stuff.

[@stevethepocket]

I'm glad these exist for the sake of backward compatibility, but I'd love it if they also made a type where the bulbs are DC-only, connect to specially-made strands with some kind of proprietary socket (kind of like the internal breakaway plugs CFLs used to have to make them forward-compatible with a socket type that never took off), and have a power brick on the strand itself with even better rectification. They could sell them even cheaper because I imagine building a whole AC converter into every single bulb is like half the production cost right there. EDIT: And so long as they're making their own strands, they could have them be wired in parallel too so if a bulb does go out, you immediately know which one it is and can replace it quickly.

[@Melds]

The bulbs are 120V and are all parallel. But I do like the idea of using a DC power supply to get rid of the flicker and provide maximum light.

[@jebeda]

I think for most simple circuit designs like they probably have in these things, these bulbs will probably run just fine on DC. If they are designed to be strung together in series and powered by standard 120V AC for a string of 20 bulbs, they would each be getting around 6V AC, so supplying two or three of them in series with 12V DC would likely work just fine - and no flicker! Cost wise, the circuitry for rectifying the AC is probably very inexpensive and economies of scale likely make it cheaper to make just AC bulbs and sell some of them as DC bulbs compared to making fractions of each type.

[@snidelywhiplash]

A huge advantage of this form factor is that they are customizable. If I need a string of 15 to cover a short run on a roof bump-out, I just cut a string to length, seal the end (or add a plug), and put the bulbs in.

[@rogerclarke7407]

14 watts for 25 lights, you could power 7X that with the monotone LED christmas lights. You can make your own sleeve by drilling out a C7 or C6 from a retired string to fit over M5 or smaller. LED christmas lights, I was an early adopter. I've had to retire a few strings, and here are a few things from my experience; 1. The plastic c9 bulbs are not durable, they come apart at a seam. get c7 they are usually solid, and from the street, you can't tell the difference. 2. Outdoor lights are sometimes not as watertight as you would expect, a dab of silicone may be required on the bottom, especially the ones with removable bulbs. Great show, very informative.

[@brently1973]

You need to do a video(s) about blow mold Christmas yard orniments and why they are so collectible vs the blow up ones (with air) now available. Although there is not much technology evolved. I still think they are cool and vintage :-)

[@DonGlassjr]

Thanks for the video. I still have GE C9 lights from the 70s with the original bulbs still working. I don’t always put them up, but when I do people always comment on how nice they look and love them better than the newer leds. I will definitely look into these. Funny side note. With the C9s all over the house my Wyze outdoor security camera’s night time viewing increased x4.

[@GhostOfLorelei]

I do like the new mic position. The dry signal sounds very nice. But you’re getting a pretty heavy first reflection in your room reverb, which (to me) means settings up *more* sound treatment (rather than less).

[@eviljohn]

Yeah, I'm hearing the reverb and it's thinning out the mid range on the vocal.

[@spoobledorp]

Holy CRAP those look nearly identical to the old incandescents, glad to see someone is finally making LEDs like this now

[@jimkeskey]

Its disappointing that Tru-Tone doesn't allow you to swap yellow for orange. The orange light has always looked too much like the red and makes the string lean towards too warm.

[@jenkinseric2]

I love watching your enthusiasm for small things. Keep up the good work. Eric in Canada

[@LakeNipissing]

Send one of the Tru-Tone glass bulbs to Big Clive, so he can use the "X-Ray" to find out if there is a vacuum (and what's inside).

[@richiedagger733]

I like that this is a tech channel that also appreciates nostalgia.

[@diapozitīvs]

My perfect string is that of a mini incandescent - you just plugged them in and they warmed my heart instantly. Wholeheartedly agree on the orange/yellow debocle - why such a close hues when you can do better? Sadly they're being phased out being the evil, "outdated" hungry technology and all I can see are LED replicas and replacements that brought me to these vids in the first place. A colored condom could save some clear LED lights for sure!

[@minacapella8319]

I love how excited you are over Christmas lights. And I love knowing why and understanding how big this is. Also I'm so glad you got a set, I hope you can get enough for some awesome decoration ideas for next year.

[@minacapella8319]

Also I think they look amazing for what they are and the energy costs and safety precedent is just great

[@jameshuot3706]

i still use incandescent bc i thrive in dim lighting and can't stand led flicker, but if there were a way to convert these to dc i'd be all for it

[@ambrosekillpack4841]

I have a bit of a nostalgia for the old style faded colors, but I can't help but love the vibrant vivid colors given off by monochromatic LED strands.

[@catsspat]

I could immediately tell left set was LED in the comparison shot thanks to the brighter blue. Incandescent bulbs don't emit that much blue, relative to other spectrums. Also for the confused like me, their C-7 is E12 (Candelabra), and their C-9 is E17 (Intermediate). Note your typical standard bulb in the US is Medium (E26). I've seen E12 sockets on small fixtures, but never saw E17 sockets in any regular appliance. Of course, E26 is everywhere.

[@chrisingle5839]

The C designation is for the bulb shape, not the thread.

[@snidelywhiplash]

That's interesting, bc the Tru-Tones aren't blue LEDs, but a clear filament LED with a blue envelope. I wonder if some of what you're seeing is an oddity of how way digital video renders colors, because the blue Tru-Tones I have are more akin to the soft blue of vintage lights (believe me, I wouldn't have bought them if they weren't close). Every C7 I've ever seen (dating back to 1950s lights) has been an E12 base, and all the C9s have been E17s. Intermediate-base bulbs are a bit of a niche application outside of Christmas lights.

[@SecurityDivision]

Incandescent lights and dry christmas tree branches are the perfect combination for your extra warm christmas experience :)

[@marcogenovesi8570]

200w for a set of christmas lights is perfect if the christmas tree is made of asbestos, which I guess were a thing too back in the day because why not.

[@envisionelectronics]

The trees weren’t made of asbestos. The flocking that some people like on trees contained asbestos.

[@hexachord4828]

Well, if you put the 200w set on an old aluminum Christmas tree the tree won't burn and it acts like a heat sink, problem solved! 😊

[@peterhodgkinson5095]

Now we need them for the UK market! I'm amazed how Tru-Tone make them look alike to the incandescent type