H11 LED Fog Lights vs. Halogen Yellow Bulbs (Comparason Pics)

I finally got my 30-SMD LED H11 bulbs in today and decided to take some comparison pics. Most of you were already aware that LEDs in the fog lights don't emit much light, and that's right. Since I got these pretty cheap and they were a newer/better design using brighter SMD LEDs, I decided to pick them up anyways and test them out.


This is what I'm using now. Nokya H11 2500K 80W bulbs (not my pic, but the same thing). I had them as left over fog light bulbs after getting rid of my Audi a few years ago. And I don't think they're really 80W, or are any risk of overheating the wires since I ran them for almost 2 years already and they've been running fine in the Prius for the past week now.





Here's what I got today. 30-SMD LED H11 bulbs in a 'super white' color.





Here's how it looks in the fog light housing. The bulbs are pretty big and it's a tight fit, but still fit fine in there.





Here are some comparison pics of how the LEDs look compared to the halogen "2500K 80W" bulbs. You can see the difference in how bright one is. Similar to putting a 'super white' LED into the headlight housing, these are also more blue looking when in the fog light housing.







You can see how the ground is lit up in the above pics, and in this pic. When sitting in the car, the Nokya bulbs really light up the road pretty good in the Prius and I can definitely see the difference on the road when driving. With the LEDs, I can't see any difference from the driver's seat when I turn them on.






So there you have it. Just some more pics showing that LEDs (even the newer, more powerful & brighter SMD LEDs) are still not as bright as halogen bulbs. Don't get me wrong, these are still very bright when I turned them on, but not nearly effective as halogen bulbs when used as fog lights. And if they were more white looking and matched my LED headlights, I would use them just for looks. Even if I got some brighter LEDs, I still don't think they'll be as bright as halogen bulbs.

If you want bright fog lights, stick with halogen bulbs or look into an HID kit (I may get one later, but I'm fine with my setup now).

 

LOL. What do you mean "how they work?" Most people know what LEDs are, and have a basic understanding how they work and operate - using less voltage & current needed to power the bright SMD LED panels (search google for more technical details). But also most people want to see it in a real-world application (the "fashion pictures") to get a better sense of how it looks on the car. So that's what I provided for them, and now they have a better idea of what to expect if they were contemplating whether to go this route or not.

 

BTW, I should've added.... the reason I did this was because all of the other "LED vs Halogen" bulb comparison pics I've seen were with the older LED bulbs, like what you see below. Those 'standard' LEDs are not as bright as the SMD LEDs, like the comparison pics by a user from 2 years ago. Technology changes every year so the SMD LEDs are supposedly the 'latest & greatest' LED lights right now.

 

Since you completely missed the point, the pictures of the car that I posted were to show the difference in brightness of the LED vs. the Halogen in the fog light housing, and how much illumination they emitted and how bright they are compared to each other. Obviously the factory LED headlights are more powerful than the halogen headlights, but that's a completely different subject altogether. I didn't buy the LED lights for their "look" but for testing & comparison use. My post was to show the difference with today's technology of brighter SMD LEDs vs regular halogen bulbs.

 

You can do a search online for them, but just make sure you look for the current SMD LEDs and not the older ones like I posted above. Look at the pictures I posted to see exactly how they look. Mine came from China, which is the only place making them right now.

 

I put 3000K HIDs into my fog light housings. The light on the ground is more & brighter than the Nokya bulbs, but it's spread out all over the place where as the Nokya bulbs shined more "in front" of the car in a centralized area. The HIDs, no matter how much I adjust the aim, just scatter all over the place and actually don't help as much as the Nokya bulbs when lighting up the ground in front of you. I might switch back to the Nokya bulbs, but I'll probably try a different temp HID bulb first and see how they work out.

As for the 'look' on the car, the HIDs shine bright yellow on the ground (same as the Nokya pics above) but they look bright white like the LED headlights when you look at them from a distance. Much brighter looking than the Nokya bulbs, but just different looking if you're expecting them to look yellow in the housing. If anything, they look very faint yellow since they're so bright.

Just a FYI.

 

Either Nokya or Luminics H11 bulbs will work. They're basically the same thing, same color, same wattage, same price. Just get which ever one is available to you.

The yellow bulbs "look" better when you look at the car. But the yellow HIDs I have in there now perform better illuminating the ground ahead of you at night.

Yes, but you can adjust the aim on the foglight housings and point them down and away from other drivers. I tested this out with my wife driving the car back & forth towards me on the road while I was either walking or driving my other car. No glare at all, and with 3000K HIDs it's actually less glare as you get closer to the car.

I ran the same Nokya bulbs in my Audi for 2 years and never had any problems, and then another 1.5 years in my BMW, since they both used the same H11 bulbs. I put the same bulbs into my Prius and used them for a month before I upgraded to HID's. Never any problems with any of the cars.