Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This will be the honest review for anyone wanting to pull the plug and buy a Kind LED grow light. I must admit from the start, I had very high hopes for this LED when I purchased it last September (2015). I gave it a full 8 months of use to see how it would perform and now I will discuss the pros and cons of what my experience has shown me about the Kind LED K5 XL1000 grow light. I want to be fair in my analysis of how this light will perform so I will discuss the Pros and the Cons based on my observations thus far: PROs: *This LED comes with 8 built in fans that help reduce its overall heat output. This built in cooling is a nice design feature because, if used alone in an average sized grow space, it will not require secondary air cooling in order for you to maintain ideal temperatures. *The functionality of the light helps the user program custom ON/OFF times as well as progressive on and off scenarios. This helps to mimic nature and while the benefit seems to be marginal overall it is something that does help the user create a more natural grow environment for your plants. *Programming the REDs/BLUEs/& Whites is nice as it gives you control over the various spectrums. Effectively this allows you to use the light for all phases of a plants life cycle from seedling, vegetative and flowering. *The UV & IR lighting is something that a lot of other grow lights don’t offer, but they do help most plants grow more efficiently and maximize their genetic potential in an indoor grow space. CONs: *The fact that the diodes used are not a name brand (Cree, Bridgelux, etc.) is rather disconcerting considering the cost. The reason I point this out is because the actual footprint that this LED offers is simply not “as advertised”. In my experience the footprint was more reasonably suited for a 3x3 grow space and not much more than that. *The light penetration for this unit is a BIG problem that really became apparent as time went on. I noticed that the top canopy of my plants were okay and what I had come to expect from an HPS light, but anything 6 inches or more underneath the canopy really suffered and underdeveloped throughout the entirety of my grow. If you want anything to grow under your canopy, this is NOT the light for you. *The power cord that comes with the unit is shockingly insufficient. Even if the light is right next to an electrical outlet vertical height will become a problem very quickly. While an extension cord can rectify this problem, the user shouldn’t need to buy secondary equipment in order to run this unit as designed and keep the grow light at a safe distance away from the canopy so that the plants do not end up getting “light burned” or “light bleached”. *Early on I noticed a problem with the programming function of the light (I later confirmed with other buyers that they too had this problem). Sometimes when programming the light I would enter my on/off times, my values for % of power, and which A/B/C light(s) I wanted on and/or off and my settings would simply disappear. This would be remedied by simply redoing the entry one or two more times, but this kind of programming error can create significant problems for the hobbyist who has invested $1,700.00 for a grow light that is supposed to be the equivalent of a 1,000 watt high pressure sodium grow light. *At the sake of being repetitious I do believe this bears repeating, but the marketing promises did not pan out in my overall experience. This light was touted as a 1,000 watt HPS replacement, and even when I did side by side comparisons (1,000 watt HPS vs. the Kind XL1000) I never had this fixture out perform an HPS light, not once, no matter what I grew underneath it. Overall I will not be purchasing any other LED lights from this manufacturer based on the 8 months I used this light fixture. I have to give this product 1 star because the cost is a HUGE investment for people like me who have to save for months for something like this, and it has left me with a light that I cannot use and no one wants to buy. Sadly the pros do not outweigh the cons for me, and the fixture left me underwhelmed despite the fact that I was really rooting for it to beat out the HPS alternative. Hopefully the manufacturer will fine tune their product and add more powerful diodes from Cree or the like to help bring this fixture to the next level. In the meantime the HPS is back up, and I am left very disappointed.