I have seen permanent outdoor led lights you can mount once, and manually change which color patterns there are based on the season.
However I’m skeptical of amazon reviews and skeptical that anything outdoor can last more than a year or two.
Has anyone had success with something similar? I like the idea of mounting once, using it a couple times a year and leaving it up for a purpose and not to be tacky.
I just bought Govee lights this year and put them up. It was a couple hundred dollars vs $4800 for professional permanent lights. I don’t know how long they’ll last, but I know I’m getting too old to be climbing on my roof.
Overall I like the lights, but I have nothing to compare them with. They’ve been up since just before Halloween.
Govee seems to be the best off-the-shelf option for this as nobody else has really pursued this mostly hobbist market outside of custom installers like you mentioned.
I also think they should last quite a while since they’ll be mounted up in the soffit outside of any direct sun or rain exposure which is what’s bad for electronics.
As long as the cables are soft, don’t expect them to last. Oh, they are all soft? Well…
With LEDs in general the power supply is usually what makes a good one. Bean counters love to save money there because you can design a supply with very few parts, if you add a few more you can have a good supply. A better quality supply will have protection for itself and the lights. LEDs really like to run at their rated voltage, and they hate power spikes.
For lights used outside the IP rating (how water resistant it is) usually needs to be taken with a few grains of salt.
If I wanted something permanent-ish I would talk to people that install it professionally.
While I have done Christmas lighting, I have never done Christmas light fixtures themselves. I do a lot of outdoor lighting for work. For my own personal stuff at home I always make my own power supplies.
Some friends of mine did this, but they got it through a service, not Amazon. I don’t recall how long they’ve had them out, though. I think maybe a year at most, or maybe two. Not very long.
