I'm starting to look at it this way: - Amber lights work great for fog, heavy snow and dust. They also work well enough when none of those conditions are present to light up necessary areas of the "path" with slightly diminished output. - White lights work great for lighting up areas when there is no fog, snow or dust, but don't work when those conditions are present. Amber/Yellow works for ALL conditions, some better than others. White ONLY works when conditions are clear. The obvious choice if you can only get one pair of lights would be Amber by process of elimination. If you can get more than one pair of lights, get a pair of each.

Amber came to popularity originally from needing a better light for foggy weather

I build custom flashlights as a hobby, and am glad to see someone that actually understands color temperature and it's correct application. Another common issue I see is the lumen crazy consumers. Many companies list blatantly false output numbers for wow factor. Others are pretty good about true numbers, but even then that is NOT the only factor to check. Beam pattern, lens clarity, and the correct combination for the intended use are far more important. I have 3 nearly "identical" lights I show people to explain this point. One 4500 lumen 5000K mixed beam, one 350ish lumen 5000K pencil beam, and a 4500 lumen 6500k mixed beam. In the end they usually go for the 5000K mixed beam or the pencil beam light if they are just after throw.

An old northern trick was to turn off your head lights but keep your amber running lights on when stuck in a night time heavy snow (white-out). Naturally you have to reduce speed but, you go from 10ft visibility to several 100ft. I've shown it people and who couldn't believe the hack. I always thought the vehicles sold with fog lights should be of a lower K so you had that choice. Thank you so much for the explanation; now I understand why it always worked!

I really appreciate your "science of lighting" approach. In my experiences, for fog (Tx Gulf coast), amber or selective yellow mounted as low as possible works great. Your light zone charts really help with which products to use.

Thanks for the clinical breakdown regarding the pros and cons of each color light. Very useful video!

I've been looking for the ideal set up for my TW200. What I find is that the aftermarket LED lights are indeed more blue, but they project much further, which I love, yet I still prefer the temperature of the stock lamp.. The problem is that they don't flood the ground near the front of the bike the way the stock lamp does, and at night on a rocky, slow hill climb, I have to remember what I saw 20 feet in front of me because it will be pitch black by the time I am actually rolling over or between the obstacle. This video tells me I need a small amber(or more natural color temp) flood bar to illuminate the terrain directly in front and beneath me. I think a combination of those colors with multiple lights might be the ticket. Thanks for the great video!!!

Quality as usual. This is a great video explaining lighting. Thanks for taking the time to put it together 👍

Great video. I'm so glad somebody is talking about what a bad idea those "blue" (anything over 5000k) lights are in every way: more glare for oncoming drivers, less useful visibility, and more reflected glare as well, due to the fact that the shorter wavelengths of blue light refract and diffract more than longer wavelengths, and also that our eyes are not as good at processing them. I'm looking into amber lighting partly to become more visible to other drivers, especially for motorcycles. I notice how attention-getting they are when I see other vehicles with them.

Thanks for the breakdown. Would love to see more of the science behind the explanations you’ve given, just because I’m a nerd and love to see the tests that prove out these recommendations. I find it fascinating to understand how that stuff works, but this definitely answered some of the more nuanced questions that I’ve had.

Would love to see a follow up short video in snow fall or fog. This video was great and I learned more about blue light fatigue

Former Baja Design customer here (like 20 years ago) - it's important to know that Narrow-band Amber is better than filtered White as filtered white still has a ton of blue in it. Meaning you need a Amber emitter, not a phosphor converted Amber (Blue LED under a thick blue-blocking amber phosphor) or filtered Amber (Blue LED under a thin blue-passing yellow phosphor, then a yellow filter cutting out the blue). Counter/clarification to the point @1:25, the output is a matter of lighting design - it's not a failure of the color itself, it's the cost and component count required for a similar lumen output. But then you have to consider what you're doing with the light after it's created as a lighting engineer. If you take a 200lumen white LED and filter (absorb) 30% of the generated light out (Baja here quotes Amber filter loss at 15% @2:04, but remember they bastardized "amber" to really mean "selctive yellow" @1:33), you're not sending 200 lumens down the road anymore (more like 140-ish). To get that same 200 lumens with narrow-band amber however, you'd probably need 3x the LEDs than one would need with white from the same manufacturer product line. But that's not aples to apples is it? Because that filtered white is only sending out 70% useful light - so you probably only need 2x the Amber LEDs. This is where the actual design part comes in. You need to know how many lumens of what band of light you need, then you have to design a fixture that outputs that light. Contrast actually causes more eye strain than the total lumens, and eyes do better with contrast at longer wavelengths. Remember, at night, the total contrast includes the illuminated versus the non illuminated areas - so your pattern has a huge impact on eye strain. You want to have a fairly even illumination with hot-spots only where you expect longer throw distance (inverse-squre law for dispersed energy). I'm still waiting for some manufacturer to build-in a single beam LIDAR (or a vehicle's 3D radar for cruise-control/collision avoidance) to measure the hotspot distance and auto-dim the fixture to account for the actual illumination on-road - which is much more interesting when you expect dynamic terrain conditions at higher speeds and multiple beam spread types.

As a photographer and theatrical lighting designer, this is the best explanation of color temperature in road lights I have seen. I want to also add comment about the myth of a "fan" beam", which you might want to do a video on. Many, many fog lights rely on using the fan beam only. This is only good for distance. A good "fog" light must also flood light directly in front of the vehicle, since fog on the hiway means you are going slow. I noticed in your vids that you have good "frontal wash". This is a step ahead of most hiway lights out there.

Great video! You put in great perspective I think a combo of both is a huge advantage.. 👍🏼

You learn something new every day! Thank you!

LP6 pillar lights in the yellow was one of my best decisions. And S-Pro 2s in the back bumper for backing up. Love them both.

This was great, never knew all the details about lighting in this regard. Thanks.

Amber colored fog lights were popular add on to a vehicle in the '80s. We called them fog lights. Very few had clear lights on their cars, even less had both.

I am currently running the Squadron Pro's on my Tacoma and Polaris RZR, super bright lights, no complaints whatsoever, highly recommend them!

Thanks for the science behind your explanation! love it.

I had a set of very nice amber lights with a true pencil beam years ago. They were the absolute best in poor conditions. I have never found another true pencil beam amber light set. Loved the explanations and comparisons in your video. Thanks for helping me see the light.

I LOVE your "white" light outputs. It's so frustrating trying to find a product that fits my needs/budget that has reasonable CRI and isn't BLUE. So silly to me that people run bright intense super blue lights and think that it will be better on road. Driving rural roads in fog/poor conditions regularly has made me DESPISE most modern headlights. HIDs still seem to be killer, especially in a lower temp color. You guys should do a CRI/temp comparison with the big names. CRI is more like "area under the curve" and for our eyes it is usually a lack of reds that our eyes are missing that makes things seem... off when viewed under an LED. They're getting better about it (I bought a cheap hyper-tough shop light that actually listed the CRI the other day, it was over 70 which is pretty good for generic OTS emitters in a $20 fixture) and I definitely notice. Even if the color of the bulb viewed directly looks really similar, the colors of everything else around and how it affects my eyes has become something I'm extremely aware of as I age. I find it really difficult to read or do finer tasks without the contrast provided by higher CRI stuff.

purchased your LP6 for my HD amber and white.... can't wait to see the performance of the combo light.

This is excellent, I have two yellow Baja design LP6 in the amber spread beam and they work great. They also help artificially lower the temperature of the other brands spot pattern dual row led light bar from 6000k to something more comfortable.

I run a combo of a single row clear 20” and two amber squadron sports. I find on nice dry clear night my clear with my led headlights is fantastic. Only drawback to clear is sign reflection can be distracting. Rainy wet nights, snow or fog, I run the amber squadrons in conjunction with amber lamps. This ability to choose my desired kelvin weather permitting has improved my often very dark commute

Awesome information thank you Baja Design. 😊

Great quick breakdown. It's been hard for me to explain this to folks.

Thanks a lot for your video very informative and illustrative answers all my questions 👍

I remember years ago putting a set of sylvania silverstar bulbs in my car and initially they appear to be brighter than stock, after a while I put the orig back in because I found that I had better vision with the warmer color even though it appeared dimmer. with my first 4x4 I put a pair of 100w halogens and my current truck has a pair of little 2" square amber LED's(the ad said they were 3" but they fit so nice I decided to just keep em). they don't carry too far cuz they're really small, but still a huge improvement over stock headlights and I really feel the warmer color gives you better depth perception and doesn't kill your night vision as bad as the more blue lights that are so common

Nice! Informative video. Based on your testing, I don't feel too bad about my array of old-school Koito quartz-halogen headlamps and KC Daylighters. They've got a warmer (referring to color scale) output, a bit yellowish, compared to many LED lamps I'm seeing. I'm sure they don't hold a candle to BD lights (see what I did there), but these lights are on my Scout II, which I don't drive super fast at night anyway. It's a camping vehicle I use in the deserts east of San Diego.

Thanks for the science behind your explanation nice work

I worked along the Dalton Highway and in Prudhoe Bay for many years in a job were I spent much of my time driving. This was many years ago and I used light Force lights on my company truck. I had two white and two blue. The blue worked the best in whiteout conditions.

thanks for the explanation. I love my BD lights and typically switch to amber in the winter but this makes me think I'll leave them like that all year

The only critique I have is that our eyes haven't really adapted to see best at noon on a sunny day. Under those conditions there is so much light available that we don't have to use every photon we can find. Where we do struggle is at night. We've never used the sun to see at night. But we have used fire. A million years of using the warm, yellow light of fire to see in the dark has caused us to be more sensitive to those wavelengths. There's also some evidence that our ancestors were crepuscular, operating more at dusk and/or dawn than midday. Again, more yellowish light. The science I've read shows us more acute in the 3,500-4,300k range than 5,000k. That quibble aside, the fact you even know what "selective yellow" is and that you aren't pushing for "superwhite" bulbs in the gigawatt range puts you at the top of the list of places I'll look next time I need lights.

Both are good and should be used depending on the weather or the elements outside! Great video!

I love the amber - I use them frequently in very low visibility snow storm conditions and, in the worst conditions, will turn off my headlights and just run the low bumper mounted squadron pro combo lights. The beam pattern is also excellent for illuminating the shoulder and staying on the road.

I have both amber fog lights and bright white aux lights. I did use the big clear white during a blizzard in the Sierra Neveda this past winter and it really lit up the road and made it way better to drive through. But, I never use them for very long, maybe five minutes at a stretch.

I run 2 LP 6s on my road glide . 100 % nothing better safely travel through the darkest of nights 👍🏻 Thank You.

Thanks for the information that was super informative 👍

Brilliant video, now to find out if I can get these in Aus, failing that, lenses for my existing LED spots

Loving this content guys! 🔥

Much appreciated, so much good info here! 🎉

Good video. I’ve learned from it. Thank you.

We have Baja Design fogs on our GX460 but they are white. So far so good, but I do here amber is better for the desert offroading we do. Thank you Baja Designs for such a nice video ❤️

What I didn't hear among the many facets you addressed was the physics of viewing your lit space and what it takes to then change to glance at darkness/unlit space. Only guessing, but amber would seem to be the winner in that category. Red lights in dark rooms and submarines would seem to support that. Or is the sport such that all the attention is forward? Nice stuff. I appreciate having more science to understand what has made me so happy changing both my home and work to 5000K. And also having my opinion tempered so I don't go losing sight of where 3000K has its place. And the blue end science was a bonus. I was recently confused by an "expert" saying that blue filters for viewing computer monitors was just snake oil.....

Cool video didn’t know the difference’s.

Love your products. I have the lp6. My friend has a bunch of another brand, my 2 lights out performs his 8 lights that are same size

my opinion is that a set of amber fog and driving lights below the hood are ideal for fog and driving lights (maybe even a spot/driving combo in the grill/bumper) with white for ditch and overhead offroad lights intended to give you more detail at longer range, but I do not do desert... I do what has become known as overlanding. (being a product of the 70s in the midwest I am more partial to callin it boondocking)

I drive for rideshare apps nearly everyday... I love having a pair of amber fog lights mounted in my bumper. Turn all others off and only that one on when its raining, snowing, foggy, dusty ... y'all got it.

This was a great quick pitch for those who have come here for a fast answer. But Id like to see a more detailed breakdown of the "how's and whys", and why competitor companies DD.. make choices like using a 4100K diode behind an amber lens. vs not vs baja etc. I use amber HID and LED for fog and snow where I am and have for 17 years. And in Europe its been used since the auto light was invented practically. It has serious advantages at controlled powers. Which is why I liked in this video he makes that very clear. Not just a sales hit of more is better, buy lots, etc. for the ride in this clip at 4:36 id like to see it reversed, just to test it out. Try the 5k short range and proximity, and the amber in Long range up top. Reduce the overhead eyebrow glare and use the yellow to show that better contrast of terrain to come. Where obviously in poor weather I wan the amber low and down.

I’m an optometrist with extensive training in physics, optics, light and illumination, not to mention the human eye. The real reason amber lights “cut through” dust, fog, snow is because amber reduces/eliminates the shorter blue wavelengths from the output beam. The blue wavelengths scatter more than other colors when hitting particulates in the air and thus prevent the beam from penetrating through the fog, snow, dust, etc. It has nothing to do with “optical workload” (whatever that is). Also the reflected blue wavelengths scatter within the eye, degrading the image quality. Additionally, eliminating blue makes the light reflected back to you (allowing you to see the environment) more monochromatic, and thereby reduces the effects of chromatic aberration. And yes, having a better quality image is less tiring for the eyes.

great info. keep it coming!

As a Baja D dealer, the Amber is selling quite well, I feel like the demand is really high to at least one some Amber light on the from of your SxS, great vid!

.....And this is why you guys are the best.

Daniel Stern has an excellent writeup on selective yellow light!

*I gotz both! Clear on the roof, Amber in the Bumper, separate switches*

Good info....thanks !!

i can tell you from my point of view having larger Fog lights on my truck. I can tell the biggest difference with my fog vs my white lights, the amber color tends to make my whole surrounding more visible with less blowback from what it is hitting with the beam. In the woods it makes the most difference allowing me to see a better angle from the sides of the truck. For me amber is better than blue or white.

Great light’s I’ve had mine a long time now!

General off-road use I think white is good. However with fog or haze, you get a reflection back with with a higher temp so a lower or yellower light would be perferable

I have seen both in the dunes. If you aren't following someone and it's not blowing sand I believe clear is the best. I would say you get the most effective usable light. If you are back in the pack I would recommend amber. I like having my yellow and clear separate so I can use whatever is better for my situation at the time. I find having both on at the same time my clear wash out my yellow.

Decades ago, my motto was amber to be seen and clear to actually see. Much has changed in the optics field since then.

Very informative.

Awesome job!

Hadn't considered it was too much blue light but I always thought that a 5000K or amber light replicated the natural colors of the environment closer which is why it seems clearer, even if it might not be because of reduced output. Fascinating.

Well done, thanks.

Thanks for the good info! I’m looking for some deer repelling lights… recently had a bad “interaction” when a deer jumped onto the road about 20’ ahead of our 50mph car!😣

Great video.

would be nice to see FPV video comparisons through different conditions

Since the 80s, we’ve used the amber color to cut through those mountains in the Philippines in those thick fogs. Amber color cuts through the dense fogs and it’s much easier to the eyes mostly when driving on long windy road.

Since the Kelvin temperature can be modified with just a lens cover, shouldn't the same result be achieved with amber glasses/goggles? Does the light have to be produced at that temp, or can it simply be received at that temp?

For me the biggest advantage of amber lights is knowing that I'm not blinding others. When I had white lights people would often flash their high beams at me, even when I only had my low beams on. Now I have ambers (rated at the same lumens as my old white lights), I've noticed people don't flash their brights at me any more.

Great video. Very informative. Love your shit!

I gotta try half amber lens & half clear

Amber-led will always be the better option in terms of better visibility in all weather conditions. I prefer amber light for better visibility in all weather conditions and less fatigue for long driving trip.

Hi Thank you for the clients information about Amber and clear about whether.. Great 😊

The reason for thinking on the reflection of dust comes from the purpose of fog lights being placed low on the vehicle. Placed further from your eyes, you will get less reflection on the fog or dust into your eyes. The selective yellow allows you to look past the reflections easier as well.

FINALLY!!!! Its taken be a long time to change from Halogen because of all these 6000k lights. I hate them to drive behind. The issue with blue light is even worse in high humidity as blue refracts sooner than yellow so you get even more glare. Thats why fog lights are yellow but you dont need fog to "see" the difference. 3200k is my fave allrounder.

Amber lights just look cool.

Great info!

The "best" result is actually all the different colours run together, along with NOT pointing them all straight ahead on high beam, but having some up, some down and some to either side, in all colour configurations from amber (orange) through yellow to white, to a crystal white (a bluish white) to pure BLUE as well, because funnily enough, "reflective road signs" are best viewed at night, with a blue LED (pure blue) which doesn't do much as a general light, until a sign is seen in the approaching distance, when the BLUE comes into it's own lighting up the sign, long before you can read it correctly, if only seen using either amber/yellow or white. It has something to do with the way we see BLUE better when it returns from a GOOD reflective surface, than from being "not reflected" back from the likes of trees, dirt and anything else apart from, the reflective painted surface of "a sign".

I have a 22 X3 and Recently picked up an linkable, do you guys sell the ambre Lens for the linkable?

Yellow is excellent for improved contrast (less glare). In the past, France had all headlights such a colour. Whilst less of an issue off-road, they are less dazzling to other road users.

My baja designs onx 2008 bar is still going strong. It out last the 3 trucks it was on

In Australia where we are legally allowed to drive on our roads with driving lights, I have personally found Amber coloured driving lights are a lot easier on the roads especially driving past reflective road signs with 2 spotties, 1 double row 41" light bar and 2 12" light bars. When used in a work light/camp light scenario, Ive found Amber lights dont attract bugs as much as white lights do. Just get Amber

Maybe it's my eyes but I see so much better and feel more relaxed with the white light than I do with any yellow lights. Yellow seems to strain my eyes actually, so even though some out s are valid with fog, snow, dust etc I still prefer white. The key to white however is keeping it lower to the ground. A white light got me works better in bad conditions when it mounted at the bottom of the bumper vs over the top of the truck shining down.

Thank You!

What about using glasses with amber/ yellow lenses with clear lights?

When I was a wildland fire fighter during the spring when it’s really dry in Florida driving your bulldozer down dirt roads and 2 trails stirs up a lot of dust the bright clear white lights make it hard to see with all that dust and smoke in the air .we would turn off the light bars and just use the lights in the grill 🤟

The Kelvin/color temperature scale is actually a star temperature scale. Stars that burn at these different temps produce light in those wave lengths.

I run amber for my fogs and ditch lights and white for my light bar. Plenty of both amber and white light for whatever it is I am doing

The amber light advantage under fog and dust is not just in your eyes, there is a phisical principle called "rayleigh scattering" that describes how the warmer is the lights the easier it goes through the particles in the air. The same reason why the sunsets in the sahara desert are beautiful reddish with sand particles flying all around.

Great video, thanks for sharing. Would amber be better when it’s snowing. Less harsh bounce back?

Yes your on point.31.8 yrs looking for crack heads in alleyways .I used a coating film on my flash light and spot..

Amber (selective yellow) is overkill for me. My eyes would be happy if more lights were made with neutral white (4000k to 5000k) LED's, so it's nice to hear that BD is one of the few using LED's in that range, and I'll have to keep that in mind when buying lights again. High CRI would be the other thing that would make these lights so much better, and that's not something a lens swap can improve.

What about for more rock crawling / slow trail use? Thinking overland crawler rig. Squadron sport - would you go clear or amber and work or driving / combo pattern?

Do you make anything for the 3rd gen Nissan Frontiers?

As a cinema photographer working in the dark, we use a red filtered small spot light to prevent blindness in the shadow. "night blindness". Seeing outside the light cone is most important.

you didn’t touch on wet roads … i’ve always felt like amber is superior on rain soaked surfaces and ive attributed it to wavelength and refraction vs reflection …. would love to hear from @BajaDesigns ??

Happy your keeping with the connie name almost thought you ditched the name all together