I was just reading the exact same thing. Been doing a bit of research as I plan to replace my headlights shortly. HID's are made for projector housings and will be brighter if you get quality housings and bulbs. They do take a second or 2 to warm up, but will be brighter. LED's are made for reflector housings. Instant on for when you want to flash high beams.

I am getting these headlights. Headlights They have a projector for the lows, which I will run HID bulbs in, and reflector housings for the high beams. I will run LED bulbs there.

 

Hmm, kinda.

LED's are not made for reflector housings, in the same way HID's aren't. But you can get some nice LED's that line up well with the filament bulb, they just typically cost a lot more.

You're not going to see the benefit of fitting HID's into those housings, just stick with some decent LED's and the projectors will do the rest.

 

"LED's are not made for reflector housings, in the same way HID's aren't." as mentioned "kinda". The only way of not fitting is because the filament or light emission source is not at the focal point of the reflector. Incandescent bulbs have filament placement and size specifications. If an alternative light source can be designed to those specs, what is the conflict? If an LED can be made to the same specs and focal point then any problem would have more to do with the reflector design and accuracy. That does make it cost more to design and (the big variable) provide adequate quality control. I have had good results with the LED bulbs I have (they weren't cheap), made a big improvement, the cutoff is as good or better than OEM. I did do a thorough aim, actually dropping the cutoff line 2 inches low at 25 feet, the brighter light output made the final pattern wider at a usable distance for driving.
Far as fitting an HID bulb in the F`150 reflector isn't the bulb itself too long, interfering with the cap in the low beam housing??

That pretty much eliminates a HID low beam replacement unless the housing is modified. KM

 

Yes it's mostly about size and placement of the light source, more expensive LEDs will (these days) normally give good output accuracy. The other potential factor is the quality of the reflector, sometimes the brighter source shows up accuracy issues that didn't matter before due to low light output.

 

This. Quality of the LED's matter. I picked up some cheap LED's when I first bought my truck. Didn't like them. They blinded oncoming drivers (constantly flashing headlights at me), and the pattern of the beam just wasn't good. SO I switched back to standard bulbs.

Last year I picked up a higher end LED bulb for the truck, and it is WAY better then the cheaper one. Better than that standard halogen in most was too. The high beam was better on the halogens. But that's why I have an LED light bar on the bumper.

Can't speak for HID's yet, as I have not owned any other than some KC off road lights. BUt I am going to be replacing my stock headlights with a set that has a projector for HID low beams, and halogen lights with reflectors for high beams. I will likely replace the highs with some quality LED's.

 

HID´s are nice. but they take a minute or two to reach peak brightness because of the way they light. and they produce a glare that is worse than LED´s, but the bulbs are not as bright as LEDs. i prefer LEDs

 

I'm really not sure what HID's you've experienced, were they like the first ever HID's invented? or some janky aftermarket versions?

The warm up period does exist, but it's sub 1 second for anything in the last 15 years and they still start bright. HID's should never be outside a projector, so no glare exists as a result, again, sounds like your experience has been aftermarket retrofitted HID's in reflector housings - there is just no way to aim HID bulbs that way because their filament is so much larger than the halogen bulb.

The brightness isn't a technology thing, it's a price/performance thing, just like LED's. Factory HID's are usually very good, but as a rule, and this has been the case historically too, HID retrofits were always a bum deal, thankfully LED's got big backing and the technology advanced significantly over the past ten years, where even some cheaper units have an LED the right size, and the right position, to work when retro'd into a reflector housing.

That's the two things LED's struggled with, first was them not caring enough about the position of the LED in the housing (affects aim/glare etc.) The second thing is brightness, the tech wasn't there to have a reliable, bright LED in the same size as a halogen filament, so even when they got the position right, the LED chip had to be too big to get the brightness up.

 

A whole bunch of the problem is the ancient DOT regulations about light output. They still work in candelas (visible intensity from the light source), vs lumens (how much light is given off), vs lux (how bright your surface will be).
DOT limits most auto headlamps to 75000 candelas, and also limit wattage which does not translate well to HID and LED technology. USA OEM manufactures design to a lower limit than the technology can produce. Put simply OEM incandescent bulb reflectors can be overpowered. KM

 

I had both .. LED is easier to deal with .. HID look nice but they sometimes have issues