Which lights (revisited)? LED vs HID vs Halogen

Published 13 November 2019

A little while back, we did an article on Which lights? LED vs HID vs Halogen, and that got a lot of good feedback. It’s been a while now, and we’re revisiting our article as there’s been a lot of major changes in 4WD lighting since then. We’re also adding in a new category into the comparison – hybrid or compound spotlights.

So what’s changed?

The biggest changes that we’ve seen is the rise of high-quality LED spotlights. Some of the new products around, like our laser LED lights, offer distance viewing that’s as good or better then some HID lights while still providing that amazing LED spread that we all love.

Let’s recap on what each type of spotlight does well, and does not quite so well.

LED Spotlights

LED spotlights universally offer a great spread beam that lets you see the side of the road with a lot more detail than any other type of spotlight. This lets you see animals, and other obstacles, before they become a bigger problem then they should be.

The downside to LED spotlights is that they normally don’t have a good distance reach, and can leave you lacking. This has changed recently with the release of the new-style LED spotlights, sometimes dubbed as ‘laser lights’. They aren’t really lasers, but just use one or more high-powered LED chips with a reflector cup that’s engineered to give a narrow pencil beam instead of a spread beam.

The other downside is that LED lights are normally a brighter white light, which sounds good, but can increase eye fatigue and definitely gives you the highest reflection from road signs.

HID Spotlights

HID spotlight still rule pure distance vision. While the new LED’s are getting close, they still don’t quite match a really good HID light for forward vision.

Halogen Spotlights

Halogen spotlights are the most old-school technology and use the most power by far out of all of the options. They also can’t match the spread light of LED’s or the distance of HID.

So that’s all bad then, isn’t it? Well, not all bad. Halogen is often the best lights for long-distance driving as they are the closest to the visible light spectrum and are the easiest on your eyes.

Hybrid or Compound Spotlights

These are the new kids on the block, and are a really great idea for a lot of people that need features from different options.

The main variations that we see these days are a HID lamp with an LED surrounding ring. Personally we love this idea because you get the distance and clarity of HID lights with the spread of LEDs in a single light. Good ones even let you have individual switches for each type, so you can run HID, or LED, or both depending on your needs at the time.

What’s the best option now?

Our recommendations from the last article have changed but not too much.

What we would use now is a good LED light bar to get the spread that you need for outback and low-speed driving, and we’d couple that with a pair of HID or “laser” LED spotlights for long-distance vision.

What do you run?

We’d love to know what lights you run, and why! You can leave a comment below, or head over to Facebook or Instagram and tag us.