The Big Question … Halogen or LED?

Halogen systems have been the staple of landscape lighting system designers for many years. They provide beautiful light with a warm white color that compliments landscaping very well. The wide choice of bulb wattage, beam spreads and fixture styles allows for a level of control that creates high contrast lighting that is very pleasing.

Advanced Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting is now challenging halogen’s dominance by providing the same beautiful warm white light, but using 75% less electricity and providing superior reliability. LEDs lasting approximately 20 years take the place of the halogen bulb, so there are more yearly bulb changes and the sometimes troublesome halogen bulb socket has been eliminated. Since LEDs run much cooler than halogen bulbs, the associated burn or fire risk with halogen lighting is also removed.

All this adds up to tremendous savings in operating and maintenance costs for an Advanced LED system. Advanced LED fixtures have a wide range of allowable operating voltages - anything from 9 to 15 Volts. Conversely, the halogen bulb has a very limited operating voltage range of 10.8 to 12 Volts. Operating outside of this range severely limits the life of the halogen bulb causing frequent bulb replacements that undermine the systems reliability.