The icicle strings dangle from the eaves and brightly colored bulbs festoon the hedges. Yet to many, something feels chilly about the holiday decorations on homes this year. (click below to read more)
The holiday light show at this Geneva, Ill., home showcases 100,000 Christmas lights strung on four miles of cords. Homeowner Bruce Paipech explains what inspired his light show and why he chose LED lights over incandescent.
It's the light-emitting-diode, or LED, decorations, they say.
"I walked by a home that had LED lights the other day and they had all the coziness of an operating room," says Mary O'Neill, 49 years old, the manager of a software company in Grand Rapids, Mich. She tried LED Christmas décor three years ago but her family revolted, so she switched back to regular lights.
LED holiday lights are going mainstream this year as retailers tout a lighting technology that they say lasts dozens of holiday seasons instead of a few and cuts holiday energy bills as much as 80%. The lights are safer, and let people connect more strings together without blowing a fuse, they say. Big retailers such as Target Corp., Home Depot Inc. and Lowe's Cos., as well as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., are shifting holiday selections to include more LED lights and displaying them more prominently in their aisles.
"We don't foresee it stopping," says Brad Whited, who oversees Home Depot's holiday-décor merchandise. "Customers were accustomed to the incandescent look. But LEDs are getting so much better."
LEDs are lighting up the trees at Rockefeller Center, Disneyland and the U.S. Capitol this year. Government agencies are increasingly prodding consumers to embrace the technology as a way to cut power consumption, though there are no mandates for holiday lights, unlike the required phaseout of incandescent indoor bulbs. The Department of Energy estimates that if every household switches to LED holiday lights, Americans will save $410 million a year on their power bills.
A spokeswoman for Target says LEDs account for about 40% of its Christmas light sales so far this year, adding the retailer has sold more LED holiday lights each year since introducing them in 2005.
Nevertheless, some customers say LED light twinkles less brilliantly than incandescent lighting.
Lighting manufacturers say such criticism stems from old or cheap decorations that radiate a purplish hue. Engineers at Osram Sylvania, part of Siemens AG, say newer varieties can twinkle, faithfully reproduce soft white light and come in sizes similar to the big, "C9" incandescent bulb lights many consumers grew up with.
Bruce Papiech, a wind-farm developer in Geneva, Ill., went all-LED this season in his most elaborate holiday display ever: an extravaganza of more than 100,000 shimmering lights, choreographed via computer to Christmas carols.Several contractors assembled the display over seven weeks.
"I can literally plug everything into a single outlet," says Mr. Papiech, 59 years old, who estimated he is using less than 20 amps of electricity compared to the 100 he would need with incandescent lights.
While he has seen dramatic improvements in the quality of white LED lights, he says he got his lights from a high-end contractor, Holiday Creations Inc., and spent more than $10,000, including installation.
He threw away his comparatively modest former repertoire of several thousand incandescent lights and icicle strings, saying they were starting to get glitchy.
Though LED lights have been around for nearly a half century, they only started catching on as alternatives to incandescent holiday lights over the past few years because they can cut electricity bills many decoration-minded consumers receive in November and December.
LED lights cost about twice as much as incandescent bulbs, but the price has been dropping. Lowe's, which estimates LEDs now make up roughly half its holiday lighting selection, says they have decreased in price to $3.97 for the most basic 35-count set today from about $14.99 for pioneer models in 2005. The same size incandescent set goes for $1.97.
"That bluish tint that a lot of people didn't like—the new technology is offering a warmer color," says Troy Dally, senior vice president of outdoor products at Lowe's.
Home Depot and Lowes are making a big push this year to get consumers to buy LED holiday lights, saying they use less energy and have come down in price. But as Miguel Bustillo explains on Lunch Break, many people think they lack twinkle and warmth.
Atlanta-based Home Depot now carries 88 varieties of LED holiday lights, compared to just 45 kinds of incandescent lights. It recently held a "trade-up" event to spur consumers to turn in old strings and upgrade, spotlighting the ability of fancier LED lights to meld colors and form dazzling synchronized displays. At last year's event, the company took in 152 tons of old light strings.
Still, some hobbyists are hoarding twinkly, incandescent bulbs.
"I will start celebrating Festivus before I switch to LED lights," jokes Kevin Grove, a 50-year-old information technology specialist from Houston, referring to the fake holiday introduced into popular culture by "Seinfeld." He scours websites to find bulbs because of shrinking store supplies, he says.
Even some early adopters say LED decorations remain a work in progress. Tracy Apps, a Web developer from Milwaukee, recently added solar-powered LED lights to an all-LED holiday collection she has been slowly building to illuminate her ranch-style home. The solar-powered lights only lit up dimly for few hours after dusk, popping back on after the sun came up.
"They're a little funky," she says. "But overall, these lights have gotten much better. I have them from all different years so I can tell."
Cara Jo Miller, a Detroit photographer and Web designer, says she decorates her downtown high-rise apartment with lights all year long, but admits to getting "a little excessive" during the holiday season. She hastily aborted an LED conversion attempt two years ago because the decorations left her cold.
"The last thing I want living in Detroit is to come home to my blankets and tea and turn on some chilly-looking lights," says Ms. Miller, 27.
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