3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Pro6 boosted high beam testing



This was just a quick and dirty test to see what these bring to the table.

KC Pro6 SAE LED Driving lights


Combined stock + Pro6 driving high beam (single light)


High beam is inherently a bit more difficult to photograph. Toning down the saturation reduces the beam shape, higher saturation causes wash out.

The Pro6 beam is wider than pictured, but the center of the beam (shown) is higher intensity for better distance projection. These lights have a best in class distance projection for an SAE driving light, better than competing 30” light bars. The pattern is more focused than the stock high beam.

Comparison when adding to the stock high beam:


Peak output intensity is increased by 166%. The KC color temp I measured at ~5150k, just slightly higher than the spec’d 5000k. The color temp reading above is lower as it is the combined high beam.

The KC pattern control thanks to the reflector design is very evident when looking at the light, as it is no way offensive to look at if not directly in the beam pattern. Unlike a light bar that is just glaring and harsh to look at. The reflector design maximizes the effectiveness of the light source by having much greater focus and less wasted light causing it to be far more efficient in projecting distance compared to the forward facing LED light bar style products. This is another case where just looking at raw lumens or power is misleading in terms of lighting performance.

Just don’t look at the light from within the beam pattern.


Just waiting for my custom grill for vehicle based testing.

 

Answered via PM but for others the Hikari was about 6300k, which is reasonably close.

 

Driving home last night in the upside-down world...I mean a poorly lit road in Colorado I quickly realized that my 5500k H11B Hybrid FastBright 35W/Morimoto HID headlight bulbs were not doing a very good job compared to the stock ones. They are great in all other driving conditions at night. I only have 7,800 miles on my 2018 and replaced my bulbs within the first 1,000 miles, so I guess I have not driven in the snow much with this truck compared to my 2015. I did not have this issue with the LED bulbs in my 2015 though. I had RSI 6500k LEDs in my 2015 and H11B Hybrid FastBright/Morimoto HID Kit in my 2018. Maybe time for a switch?

It was snowing pretty good but not a blizzard by any means. My wife took this picture from the passenger seat.

 

Phillips H9’s, at 3200k, cut through the snow without glare. Color temp and aim help. I didn’t care for the 4300k HIDs I ran for a month last winter either, too much glare in blowing snow.

It could be you had no issues with the LED’s in your 2015 because they weren’t putting light evenly in the reflector, so the lack of glare was from parts of the reflector not being used.

 

Warp Speed!

High color temperature light is definitely counterproductive in snowing environments, LEDs have the same issue as it is an effect of the color temp. Most LEDs in a reflector housing lack strong focus so the light is actually not as bright, which also means the light reflected back off the snow is not as bright. Or the snow you drove in before was dryer, so it was not as reflective. Difficult to say exactly why your experience was different, but the effect is due to light color and output intensity, so all things equal both technologies of similar colors will experience the same issue. Halogens are lower color temperature, so while the issue is still present, it is at a lower level and not nearly as distracting. That and they will do the best job in preventing icing on the lens for cold weather environments.

 

Hello OP!

First off, thank you SO much for this writeup! It's nice to hear from another engineer who knows what they are talking about and can spread scientific knowledge instead of pure conjecture.

Since this thread is massive now, I see that your plug-and-play recommendation is the GE Nightbreaker Xenon +120. Is that still the case? What are your thoughts about the XD Xenons with the Philips 43K bulb or even the Philips XV2 48K bulb? When you made your original post you had said that XD discontinued the high performing German made Philips HID bulbs, which at least appears to be incorrect as of now?

I'd love to get your insight!

 

Best direct plug and play H11 is still the GE Xenon +120. If it were my truck, I'd likely run the Philips H9 and modify the bulb base to make it plug and play. I personally prefer the warmer color light of the Philips H9 for poor weather driving conditions (I'm in the PNW), and the fuller beam patterns the H9 provides over the more focused high efficiency H11.

For HID, the halogen projectors still allow uplight, which is intended for halogen levels of output. The amount of light output when using an HID capsule is pretty extreme, meaning the uplight is also drastically amplified. If you were to run an FMVSS headlight tests, you'll end up with levels of glare high over the legal limit even though you are running a projector, because it is a halogen projector with uplight, not an HID projector with complete cut offs. I also don't see the complexity of the HIDs requiring ballasts and warm up time as worth it when you could double your output in a much simpler system with a $7 bulb. And the halogen bulb does not have the same snow issues pictured earlier as well as keeps the lenses from freezing over in cold weather environments. One other thing I'll add, is if you have too much light, the significant contrast at the cut off of extreme brightness (especially with whiter light) vs extreme darkness actually makes it more difficult to see distance at night as your eyes become very limited to what is below the cut off.

XD did bring back the Philips 4300k bulb after the TRS buyout. The bulb now has a different base, the original had an actual halogen bulb style base, the new one has the XD HID bulb base for use in halogen assemblies. The new base is not as user friendly IMO, but won't change product performance once installed.

If you were to go HIDs, I would stay with the XD 4300k Philips bulb myself, for the reasons above about warmer color temps being more ideal in poor weather, and lower color temps are also less fatiguing to drive with. I would not recommend the XD ballast, it is off spec and the two units I had were both ~20% over wattage and also different wattage from each other. Instead I would look to purchase a Denso ballast (which is Toyota's OEM supplier). TRS sells Denso ballasts for rebased HID kits. They do cost more, but you are getting an OEM supplier grade Japanese made product of much higher quality, vs a Chinese made ballast.

But for the $14 investment in doubling your headlight output with the Philips H9s, I'd start there. You can even remove them from your current high beam, trim the tab, swap them into your low beam and test them out with no money out of pocket (assuming your high beams are not heavily used and the bulbs are near new condition).

 

Thank you so much for the reply! Glad to know your information is still accurate.

The GE Xenon +120 does sound like the way to go, especially considering the downsides and workarounds for the HID bulbs. I am in FL, so I don't need to worry about snow, but rain is a definite consideration here.

Another one that I'm curious about the claims they make are the Philips X-tremeUltinon LED which is a 6000 K bulb. Significantly higher color temp, but the claims they are making sound really good on paper. I'm guessing it suffers the same downsides as the other LED alternatives you tested?

 

I have the new Philips X-tremeUltinon LEDs in the H4 style 'bulb' and the previous generation ones but I do not have them in the H11. (ignore the background mess)




Recall that the LED width is critical to focus and distance projection. Strangely the new Philips are wider than the previous generation, which will mean less focused. I haven't tested them yet for a comparison.

Many of the more reputable lighting companies are working to legalize drop in LED replacement products, but they will have to meet new test compliance standards. One of those tests will be glare, which is a significant problem for drop in LED products in reflector housings. Since for a given design in a given housing, the more light produced causes glare to increase in a roughly linear fashion, a way to minimize the problem is make the product only as bright as it needs to be. Thus reducing the level of glare produced. So you'll notice that most these reputable brand products are really more of a technology transition product targeting OEM levels of output rather than the significant lighting performance upgrades many on here are seeking with an LED replacement. If you look at my distance test results from brands like Sylvania and Diode Dynamics, that is about what you see, something similar to stock output. The LED products that produce significant gains in the projector like the Hikaris will certainly fail any kind of compliance tests in a reflector housing due to extreme glare. Reputable companies designing these products need to design them to work in any light assembly, as the product classification is H11, there is no distinction for which vehicle it is installed in.

'Brightness' claims can also be very misleading, as some companies use light color as a way to advertise output brightness. Those previous gen Philips that advertise '150% more light' actually produce less light than stock. A stock H4 puts out 1100-1500 lumens, where as the Philips LEDs put out 1000-1250 lumens. You can see the output specs on the spec tab here: https://www.xenondepot.com/h4-philips-12953BWX2-LED-Bulb-p/12953bwx2.htm

If you were looking for LEDs for the 3rd Gen projector, I would use the Hikaris over the Philips for a lighting performance upgrade. Though the Philips will certainly be of superior build quality and reliability over the Hikaris.

 

I received my Philips H9 bulbs the other day, and ordered the extensions that was noted in a few posts. I plan on installing them tomorrow. Again, knowing I'm an idiot at these things and I have yet to remove the existing bulbs, are there any modifications that I need to do on the extensions prior to installing them on the factory harness? Does it matter about polarity?

Thanks so much for any and all help.

 

So excited about this, can’t wait until they are mounted and wired up!

 

You will need to notch your aftermarket extension harness with a small handsaw, dremel or knife to plug into the non-modified bulbs. The H9s are a bit more tricky to fit in the bulb socket than an H11, but they will fit. I find tilting the bulb slightly in at the top (IIRC) to get the engagement started when inserting makes it a tad easier. Halogen lights are unaffected by polarity.

 

Should be sweet. I’m going to test the Pro6 amber covers as well and see how they do for poor weather driving conditions.

White LED + amber cover = yellow light.

 

I loved my XD Phillips setup but they completely let me down because they would fail to ignite with my headlight switch in the "auto" position. Only way they would reliably work was if you started the truck in the "DRL OFF" position and then switch the headlights to "AUTO" after the truck had been running for a minute. Even if I started the truck in the middle of the day in AUTO headlight and drove into the night they would fail to ignite randomly on one side or the other. Put them on a relay, ran them off the battery, etc., they just didn't work. Nobody can be reasonably expected to remember to switch their auto headlights off every time they turn off the truck, or before they start it back up again. Beautiful when they worked but I'd have to turn them off and on a few times to get both bulbs to ignite at the same time. Currently sitting in a box in my garage and the GE bulbs are in my headlights. Got about 3 weeks of reliable use. Expensive lesson.

 

Hmm. Strange they wouldn’t ignite on auto. In theory I wouldn’t think anything is fundamentally different as far as input voltage to the ballast goes. It does sound like a ballast problem though, not a bulb problem. Which would lead me to question if switching the ballasts to OEM grade Denso units would be any better. But there is something to be said for keeping things super simple with a performance halogen solution.

 

I hate to keep bringing my bike into this thread as my example, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Now that I have two vehicles with LED low beams and halogen high beams, I've grown pretty fond of that combo. The reflector buckets in my bike seem to be shaped very well to kill glare with the LEDs. I think I'd be happier with the Hikari Ultra than the Nineo, though. The Nineo is adequately focused to throw the beam all the way to where it terminates into the ground, but I'd like just a tiny bit more focus on the road. I think the Hikari bulb would give me that little bit of focus the Nineo bulb is lacking. The high/low combo, imo, is excellent. I finally got out of the city lights on a dark road, and my previous impression of the Silverstar Ultra was very premature. Using them on the dark road let me see what they were actually lighting, and they were doing a great job. With the ditch/road light the LEDs offered, the long throw of the Silverstars, and the combined color temp of the two, I felt very comfortable riding at night with no street lights. I think that speaks volumes for this combo.

Remind me; The stock high beams in the Taco are already pretty good, right? Are those worth upgrading?

 

Just installed the Morimoto 2-Stroke 2.0 LEDs into my '19. Absolutely love them! Way better than stock, and while they can't match a good HID kit, they're far easier to install. Just ordered the XB fog housings too to complete the package

 

I am happy with my LED's also

 

Many people seem feel they are not great. The stock H9 bulb in there is already the best halogen option. The Hikaris saw about a 20% improvement in peak beam intensity, though the forward distance projection area of the beam wasn't quiet as focused. I was doing this for a real upgrade:

 

Ok. That's what I was looking for. I'm pretty fond of the LED/halogen combo, so if the stock bulbs are good I'll leave them be.