Anyone care to sum up in a few sentences what this 20+ minute video is all about?
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
252 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
77360 readers
3937 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Alec has been on a multi-year quest to get an incandescent color profile from LED Christmas lights. I haven't watched this episode, but he usually does a pretty good job of recapping at the start of every episode.
It's always super entertaining, in my opinion.
Thank you. That would be lovely. I find LED’s flicker sometimes and are too “hard”, they lack the softer, more yellow profile of incandescents.
Probably what his rant is all about.
I'm curious about the options coming down the pike for people that don't like flicker. I heard some of you say that you run your LEDs off of DC power somehow. How do you plug in the string of LED lights to DC power?
Short generalized answer: it depends on the strip / strand... But if the strand has a brick at the end that is converting ac - > dc with 2 wires you can typically replace that with a better driver easily. It gets far more specific when a data line is introduced. It won't fix cheap LEDs outright but it can change how they behave.
while I disagree with his hatred of blue and green LED christmas lights being too much (I actually love them), I do love hearing about his process to find the christmas lights of his dreams.
I look forward to these videos every year 😁
I feel like this video touched some larger philosophical points about technological progress. It's to work and create with restraints. If there are no limitations you end up with an unfocused mess.
I've seen that cropping up in a lot of videos lately from tech adjacent creators. Cathode Ray Dude veered off in his video about an HP laptop that had a feature that overwrote the Windows boot splash screen with a calendar view using the "Ring -2" management system into this kind of beautiful screed about basically why society is unraveling.
As always, he created a delightful video!
Alec out there fighting the good fight for us.
I bought these lights, they're sitting on the kitchen table waiting to be opened and put on a tree! I'm so excited!
I literally wait every year for this video.
Did he ignore flicker problems again like last year? Because flicker ruins lights for a lot of us
I dunno. I just bought the Sylvannia led traditional white lights. Flicker free. Finally.
That's what's so stupid about the whole problem - the solution is known and easy but it costs a tiny bit more to make so lots of manufacturers don't do it. It just needs to run off DC instead of AC. Simple.
I wonder if you could use four of the LEDs themselves to form a full bridge rectifier?
Electroboom needs a lemmy
Did you read "full bridge rectifier" in his voice, too?
Of course!
Would still need a capacitor or something or it would flicker at 120Hz (in the US) but that's not much more cost I would hope.
Also those 4 would flicker more than the rest of the string.
I just looked it up and I'm fairly certain it wouldn't work. Every time the output waveform gets too low then the led would turn off, which is what creates the flicker. An led needs a constant current to stay on constantly.
I actually ran my outside lights on rectified DC power last year because the flicker kills me
Say more about this. I also don't like flicker
Short answer, cut an extension cord in the middle and solder in a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER.
This gives you DC power. Now your lights will not flicker. They are also like 50% brighter.
But wait! The catch is that a lot of the strings are reversed in the middle so only half of it works on dc. You then have to cut the lights in the middle, swap the wires, and reconnect them.
Its a lot of farting around but looks nice.
His obsession over color quality while ignoring the flicker is very annoying.
He mentions flicker several times in the video.
I meant ignore in the context that he said it doesn't personally bother him.
I may never understand why people get pissed at creators focusing on an issue they are passionate about - because that viewers specific issue wasn't mentioned or focused on. Surely there is content that aligns with what you are seeking without forcing every other creator to monologe out every possible edge case like a US drug advert reading out side effects.
Yeah, none of you guys are the main character, I'M the main character.
Something to that effect, yeah. I genuinely get people pointing out or raising the issue in the comments... If for no other reason than to perhaps inform the creator / community of something. But that has a far different energy than this. It almost always feels hostile.
But he mentions that there is stuff coming for flicker-sensitive folks.
i'm sure they're not perfect but i've had good luck with C7 ceramic LEDs from amazon.