Best Outdoor String Lights of 2025

There are many practical reviews in this product category. One of the main reasons for this is the bulb itself. If not impossible, it is difficult to feel how durable a light bulb is using product specifications and photos. Although “crushing” notation can make you lucky, not always.

Another light bulb side to consider is the physical connection. Some of these are pre-installed and cannot be replaced by yourself. Some are pre-installed and can be removed. In my experience, most bulbs are packaged separately to install yourself. In most cases, that doesn’t matter. Occasionally, all of these products try to have waterproof seals, which can be difficult to install a light bulb. A few times I was worried that I might hold and twist the small bulbs and twist them hard enough, and that they might get crushed with my hands. No one did, but if you find yourself in the same situation, it may be worth getting some gloves.

Overall, the main concern for most lights is how much light they emit. In the past, some standard bulb tests have used integrated areas. That type of equipment can get a lot of information for the light source, such as lumen brightness, color rendering indexes, and more. Read more Light bulb test lab.

In this category, I was particularly interested in brightness. Unfortunately, these string lights cannot be tested on integrated spheres, but with some flashy mathematical magic I changed the required calculations from spheres to linear paths and came up with a viable solution. I use A Standard digital light meterwe were able to obtain an approximation of the light output of each bulb in the lumen.

Looking at the chart above, you can see the brightness of one individual bulb from each chain and the total brightness of the entire strand from the solar and battery-powered options. The real living bulbs were dim. Hampton Bay has the brightest individual bulbs, but Coleman says the brightest chain of the entire series due to the high number of bulbs.

With the AC power options listed below, the Brightech carries the brightest individual bulbs at around 196 lumens. If you hang 15 light bulbs on it, it will reach 3,000 lumens. Magitec has won the brightest overall victory with 30 light bulbs at 165 lumens, earning a total of 5,000 lumens. To be fair, Magitec offers two strands at one price, so one individual strand will be around 2,500 lumens. Approximately 500 fewer than a single Brightech strand.