How to Choose the Best LED Headlights

[NicKlaus]

Headlights are standard driving equipment for every vehicle. Headlight plays a very important role in road driving. If there is not enough light, the drivers cannot see the front clearly. Headlight types can be differentiated due to the chips inside. Most vehicles are equipped with halogen bulbs, which will gradually be dim. To deal with this, you can choose the best LED headlights as the replacement.

 

While search in Wiki, headlight just means the light given by the headlamp, which is the term for the headlight device. And most headlamp can be divided into the headlamp housing, headlight, wiring harness, fog light and turning signal, but fog light and turn signal will be separated with the headlamp assembly in some car models such as Jeep Wrangler.

 

Headlight Configurations
As for the headlight, it has three main parts, high beam, low beam and daytime running lights (DRL).

 

High Beam
The high beam can be also called as main beam, driving beam or full beam, which provides a bright and centered light on the front. The high beam can only be used while there are no oncoming vehicles in the extremely dark driving road, as the high beam is too bright to blind the oncoming vehicles or pedestrian and make accident happened.

 

Low Beam

Low beam, also sometimes termed as the dipped beam, passing beam or meeting beam, can provide an adequate designed light for forward and lateral illumination. The low beam is limited so as to control the glare toward the oncoming vehicles and pedestrian. Thus, the low beam can be used wildly in the night time.

 

Daytime Running Light (DRL)
Daytime running light, as the name referred, can be used in daytime driving. As a kind of signal light, the DRL need to be turned on as to show other drivers you are coming towards. According to figures, turning on the DRL while driving on road can reduce accident by 12.4% and reduce the risk of death rate by 26.4%. Some high-end vehicles are equipped with LED driving lights for DRLs nowadays.

 

Factors Influence the Headlight
Beam Type
Most vehicles are equipped with Halogen bulbs as the driving light source for the factory headlights. As we have compared before that, halogen headlight will be dim and the light will be yellow or even amber as the driving time gets by. And the LED driving lights can be the best replacement for the Halogen, as the LED headlights are much brighter but consuming less power. And LED can be working for about 30,000 to 50,000 hours, much longer than the halogen headlights. As the configuration is easy, LED headlights can directly replace the halogen headlights and nothing need to be modified.

 

Some may claim that their vehicles are equipped with HID headlights. HID headlights are much better than halogen headlights, but there is one disadvantage—it needs 3-5 seconds to warm up the headlight and then the headlights can work normally. While LED headlights do not have such kind of problem. However, if you want to upgrade the HID headlights with LED headlights, some wiring may need to be modified. Thus, the LED headlights may be better comparing with halogen headlights and HID headlights.

 

Lighting Effect
In fact, the lighting effect is mainly influenced by the headlight housing. There are mainly two configurations of headlight housing—reflector housing and projector housing.

 

Reflector Housing
For vehicles using reflector housing, the light will be reflected as the light is on. Equipped with the reflector housing, the light can be scattered in a wild range with flood beam but there will be some unused light. Many halogen headlights are equipped with reflector housings.

 

Projector Housing
As for vehicles with projector housing, light is projected through the lens, which can make a better pencil beam. And also, using the projector lens, the light will not scatter in wildly, which will give more accurate and bright light. Many LED headlights and HID headlights are used projector housing. Thus, for better lighting performance, you can upgrade the reflector headlight housing with projector headlight housing.

 

Choose the Best LED Headlights
The headlight assembly for normal vehicles like sedan, SUV, and trucks, maybe a little bit hard to upgrade, which needs huge modifications. However, you can choose to upgrade with the LED headlight bulbs. Normally, every headlight has the bulbs inside, and most factory bulbs are halogen bulbs. Due to the configuration of the LED is similar to halogen bulbs, LED can directly replace the halogen bulbs and do not need further modification. Just plug and play, you can get the new LED headlights.

 

As we have mentioned above that headlight has the high beam, low beam, and DRL, you need to pay attention to when upgrading the headlights to LEDs.

1. You need to make sure the plug type of your factory halogen bulb type and then choose the corresponding LED plug types.
2. Halogen bulbs and LED headlight bulbs are of the same plug type, which has the Hi-lo beam bulbs and single beam bulbs. For hi-lo beam bulbs, one pair of LED headlight bulbs can support both high beam and low beam, while vehicles need single beam for high beam and low beam, you need to purchase 2 pairs to separately support high beam and low beam,
3. If you have upgraded the reflector headlight housing into projector headlight housing, the plug type changes and you need to check the plug type which can fit your new projector headlight housing.
4. For some vehicles which designed the high beam together with DRL using the same bulbs, upgrading the bulbs will be a little bit difficult. You need to add extra DRL decoders to avoid bulb working error. Otherwise, your DRL cannot work in a normal way.

 

Jeep Wrangler Headlights

Jeep Wrangler can also upgrade the headlights with the LED headlight bulbs. However, there are also many different kinds of Jeep Wrangler headlight assembly which can be easily replaced by Jeep Wrangler. The factory Jeep Wrangler headlights are reflector headlight housing with halogen bulbs which may not look very cool and practical. So how about upgrading the headlight with LED driving lights.

 

Auxbeam Jeep Wrangler headlights have many different choices for you. All Jeep Wrangler projector headlights include the high beam, low beam and DRL (sometimes will also be called as atmosphere lights), which is convenient to upgrade all the thing at the same time. And the installation steps would not be hard. Just remove the old headlight and unplug them and install the new headlights on then plug them on.

 

Conclusion
Also, there are many different kinds of LED driving lights that can be installed on the bumper or bull bar. LED driving lights can be the auxiliary lights as you need more light in driving. Upgrading your headlight into LED projector headlight may be better for both practicability and aesthetics. Choose the best LED headlight solution according to your vehicle types. LED headlights can help you get more brightness.

Edited June 3, 2019 by txab