This year’s SEMA show in Las Vegas, NV was definitely the year of LED lighting products! It was pretty incredible to see all the different products, and of course, there were many copies of LED products. Many of the popular LED light bar products from last year now have Chinese knock-offs this year, and the same is true with the Truck-Lite 27270C 7″ Round LED headlight commonly used in Jeeps and Motorcycles:
The new KC Hi-Lites 7″ round LED headlight is actually made by Peterson Manufacturing, and they call it the model #701C, you can see more information about the original Peterson version here: Peterson Manufacturers 701C
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why KC Hi-Lites hired Peterson Manufacturing to brand these lights for them because that’s what KC Hi-Lites does – they see a product they think they can re-brand that already exists, stamp their logo on it, and pretend they came up with the idea in the first place, kind of like their new “KC Flex” LED offroad lights which are made by Heretic Studios and re-branded.
The Peterson Manufacturing product is absolutely a knock-off because the design is extremely similar, and according to this press release the product was released in July of 2013 – over a year later than the Truck-Lite products.
The Anzo product on the other hand is kind of pathetic. The oddly-shaped divider between the high and low beam sections MUST have a negative impact on the light output and just like everything else made by Anzo, they are a Chinese knockoff of the traditional Truck-Lite product.
I would like to, in the very near future, get my hands on one of each of these headlights and do kind of a shoot-out competition to see which one really is the best, but for now, I thought it would be good to just show you the two new lights that are coming out to compete for market share against the original Truck-Lite product.
