What is the Difference Between Neon Car Lights and LED Car Lights?

What is the Difference Between Neon Car Lights and LED Car Lights?

This is a question that our customer service representatives get asked on a daily basis... What is the Difference Between Neon Car Lights and LED Car Lights? Which one is better? The answer to both of these questions is: It Depends! Both neon underglow and led underglow achieve the same goal: putting light under your car, they both simply do it a little differently. We're going to give you a step by step breakdown of the differences below.

First thing is first: We are going to make some comparisons on neon car lights versus led car lights for the underbody of the car on a general basis. If you take the best neon underglow kit and compare it to the worst led underglow kit, you aren't going to be comparing apples to apples. Our comparisons will be made assuming you are comparing name brand underglow kit to name brand underglow kit and generic underglow kit to generic underglow kit.

With that said, lets break the comparison of neon underglow versus led underglow down category by category.

1. Brightness: In general, neon underglow is brighter than LED underglow. Again, this is assuming you are comparing name brand to name brand or generic to generic. If you compare the worst neon underglow kit to the best LED underglow kit, this statement probably won't hold true. How much brighter a neon underglow kit or an led underglow kit will be on your vehicle than the other will also depend on what kind of vehicle you are putting it on. Remember that LED underglow will use individual LEDs (kind of like dots) to produce light, whereas neon underglow will use a single glass bar (usually encased in lexan or acrylic). The further you get from the ground, the better and brighter the neon underglow kit will look. They look fantastic on lifted trucks and suvs because the further you get from the ground, the more room the light has to disperse. If you get LED too far from the ground, it can start to spot and not show a uniform glow. LED can have the same problem on lowered vehicles that are extremely low to the ground. Overall, we recommend neon underglow over led underglow in terms of brightness. The Winner? NEON Underglow

2.Durability: Because led underglow uses individual led lights, they are virtually unbreakable during normal use and driving of the vehicle. Since neon underglow is made of long glass tubes, even though they are encased in lexan, they are easier to break. They will not break under normal driving conditions, but we don't recommend neon underglow if you drive on unpaved roads, go offroading, etc. If a large rock gets kicked up, you are a lot more likely to crack a neon tube than an LED tube. Short of getting into a car accident, or a mechanic putting a floor jack on them and crushing them because he didn't look before he put the jack under your car (you would be surprised at how often this happens), led underglow typically does not have any breakage issues.The winner? LED Underglow.

3. Patterns and color changing: LED underglow blows neon underglow out of the water in this category. Neon underglow kits are either on or off. They don't do patterns, they don't change colors, or do any other tricks. Most neon kits can flash to the beat of music by adding a music interface (if you need one we have them for sale), but that is the extent of the tricks a neon kit can do. They are meant for one thing: bright neon light. If you are interested in color changing or patterns, LED underglow, is going to be the way go to. The Winner? LED Underglow

In summary, both neon and led underglow have their benefits and drawbacks. If you're looking for overall brightness and nothing else, neon underglow is going to be the way to go for you. If you're looking for durability and patterns, etc, the led underglow is going to be a better option for you.