Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I currently have 9 of these grow lights. I grow a number of veggies, greens, and herbs in my basement year around to provide my family of 3 with fresh veggies and salads all year. I prefer growing everything inside since there are no insects or animals eating them; there is no soil splashed on them from heavy rains; when I do my gardening is not determined by weather; I control the environment (extreme heat or fear of frost); and I have fresh veggies and herbs available all year. I use these grow lights on 5' shelving units with two shelves per unit to allow for growth of the plants I grow. The pictures give you an idea of some of the plants I have grown under these lights. At this point in time, I can supply all of the veggie greens, tomatoes, bell peppers, and herbs my family needs, and have done this for over 2 years. All are organically grown and picked fresh as we need them. There seems to be some confusion as to whether LED tubes can be used instead of the T5HO tubes. YES, they can!! I have been using the Sunlite T5 6500K LED tubes in all of my fixtures for a couple of years. These tubes are made to be used in T5 fixtures that use a ballast. If you have a few of the T5 grow lights as I do, using the Sunlite LED tubes makes a huge difference in your electric bill. Ten years ago, or so, before LED tubes were available, I set up a room to grow veggies and herbs using only T5 lighting. When my electric bill hit over $600, I decided I couldn't afford to grow veggies indoors. I now have 2 large rooms in my basement set up for growing plants, and any increase in the electric bill is not anything I would complain about. When using the 4' Sunlite tubes, each tube uses 25 watts of power vs. the 54 watts used by each T5 tube. In addition, the T5 tubes emit a lot of heat. After turning them on, they are too hot to touch within a couple of minutes. If plants touch the T5 tubes, they are very quickly burned. The LED tubes stay much cooler, and don't burn plants that touch them. In addition, the T5HO tubes are florescent tubes that gradually lose the quality of light with use. The LED tube maintain the same quality of light until they actually burn out. The LED tubes are supposed to last up to 50,000 hours. So running them for 16 hours a day, they should last for over 8 1/2 years. Florescent tubes will maintain lighting quality for a little over a year. Both the T5HO and T5 LED tubes are very bright, but what does that mean to the plants? One reviewer measured the lighting by lumens. This measurement can be very deceiving as this measurement measures only the brightness of the light which does not always equate to the light usable by plants. For example, a 6500K tube will be much brighter than a 3500K tube, but the light usable by plants will be the same. The better way to measure lighting for plants is to get a PAR (Photosynthesis Active Radiation) reading which is the amount of lighting used by plants for photosynthesis. At any rate, I measured the PAR of the T5HO tubes as the same distance as the T5 LED tubes, and the LED tubes rated 100 nm higher than the T5HO tubes. Other advantages of these plant lights are the ability to turn off half the tubes when you don't need bright lighting, the 8 foot heavy duty power cord, and the option to daisy chain them in order to use less outlets. Since I have had some of these grow lights for over 2 years, I believe the cost of the initial investment was well worth the price. The only delivery problem I have had was one broken tube that I wasn't going to use anyway, and now and then the shiny material under the bulbs is slightly dented. In conclusion, I believe the cost of these grow lights are well worth the investment. I know the LED tubes are expensive, but they will pay for themselves over time with the savings of power usage. UPDATE 05/05/21: Of the 9 Vivosun fixtures I have, 3 6-tube and 6 8-tube, four of them have failed in less than a year. These fixtures are great when they are working, but suddenly, tubes on them go out. When testing these tubes in a different fixture they work, and replacing the tubes with new, they still do not work. The sockets the tubes are in just stop working. So far, Vivosun has been great about issuing a credit for the defective fixtures, but it's a pain in the neck to have to replace them and reinstall them. For future lighting, I will be looking for an alternative product that is more reliable. I hope this review was helpful for you in making a decision on lighting for your plants. If so, please click on the helpful button below.