TruLight vs Trimlight: RGBW White Light Against RGB Only

What Trimlight Does Well, and Where It Stops

Trimlight can put a clean set of color-changing lights on your house, and for basic holiday color that may be enough. Bowdrie agrees the installs can look good for the holidays. Trimlight falls behind on white light and on the app. No Trimlight product can make a pure white, and as of May 21, 2026, Trimlight's own customers rated its app 2.9 stars on Apple. TruLight puts three dedicated warm white LEDs in every node, and its app has thousands of patterns and 144 effects.

No White LED in Any Product

Every Trimlight product is RGB only, so there is no true warm white and no pure white anywhere in the lineup. TruLight has 6 LEDs per node, 3 RGB plus 3 dedicated warm white. Bowdrie says pure white is the color TruLight customers use most.

48V vs 12V

TruLight uses one box and one data line at 48V and needs a power injection only about every 400 lights. Trimlight uses 12V and needs power injected every 50 to 70 lights. Older 5V Classic systems already installed need it every 10 to 30. Either way it usually needs a separate box for the front and back of the house.

A 2.9-Star App

As of May 21, 2026, Trimlight's own customers rated its app 2.9 stars on Apple and 2.8 on Google Play. Reviewers mostly praised the lights and complained about the app. TruLight's app was at 4.6 stars, with 144 effects and an animated preview.

Full Side-by-Side Specs

*True Warm White: Every Trimlight product is red, green, and blue only. There is no dedicated warm white LED, so warm white is approximated by mixing RGB.

*True Pure White: Without a white LED in the fixture, no Trimlight product can produce a true pure white. This is a hardware limit, not a software one.

*Warranty: Trimlight publishes a Lifetime Product Warranty page at trimlight.com. Read both sets of written terms; coverage, proration and labor differ.

*Power Injection: Trimlight uses 12V and needs power injection roughly every 50 to 70 lights. Older 5V Classic systems already installed need it every 10 to 30, which is worth knowing if you are servicing one. Either way, lower voltage cannot carry power as far on a single run, so injection points land far more often than on a 48V system.

*Whole-Home Wiring: Because a 12V run cannot make big jumps, most Trimlight dealers install a separate controller for the front and the back of the house.

*Animated App Preview: The TruLight app shows each pattern animated on a sample house. The Trimlight app has no animations.

*True Global Zoning: Trimlight uses a numbering system: you type a light count into a single field and drop a color onto it. There is no true global zoning. Bowdrie says TruLight and JellyFish are the only two systems he knows of with master zoning.

*Landscape Integration: Trimlight landscape lighting uses its own 24V box, separate from the eave box, which is 12V. TruLight zones landscape lighting on the same system.

*App Store Rating: Ratings shown in the video, as of May 21, 2026. App ratings change over time.

The Three Trimlight Products, Explained

Trimlight sells three main product lines, and it helps to know the difference before you get a quote. There is the original Classic bulb, the newer 3L bulb, and the Commercial puck light.

The Classic is the oldest. It has a single LED per bulb, a very thin 3-wire system around 20 gauge, and it sticks out from the track. The 3L is the update, with three LEDs per bulb instead of one. The Commercial is a puck-style disc that looks almost identical to the Gemstone and Bosso pucks.

All three use the same WS2811 chip, carry the same 50,000-hour rating and are RGB with no white LED, so any Trimlight product you pick is RGB only. TruLight has one product line with 6 LEDs per node, the UCS7604 chip and a 100,000-hour rating.

The WS2811 Chip in Every Trimlight Light

Every Trimlight light uses the WS2811. Bowdrie calls it an “OG chip” that was the best on the market in its day. It is a 3-channel RGB chip, though, so there is no white channel, and that is why no Trimlight light has a pure white.

TruLight uses the UCS7604, a 4-in-1 RGBW chip with a dedicated warm white channel. That channel gives TruLight a real white and smoother dimming, and the lights carry a 100,000-hour rating, double Trimlight's 50,000.

To check the chip claims yourself, search “WS2811 vs UCS7604” and read the results. Bowdrie does that search on camera in the video. Open the search

Why No Trimlight Product Has a Pure White

This is the biggest gap. Trimlight has only red, green, and blue LEDs in every product, including the newer 3L and the Commercial puck. When you ask for white, the system blends RGB together, which reads cool and a little blue. There is no warm white channel and no pure white. Even Gemstone, which has been around a long time, has added an RGBW option. Trimlight has not.

TruLight has 3 dedicated warm white LEDs per node in addition to the 3 RGB LEDs. The warm white LEDs give a soft white of their own, and all 6 together make a pure white. Bowdrie says TruLight's app data shows pure white is the color customers use most, for security lighting, backyards, pools and walkways. If the white looks off, you see it every night.

12V vs 48V: Injection Points and Extra Boxes

Trimlight uses 12V and TruLight uses 48V. A lower-voltage system cannot carry power as far on a single run, and without more injection the lights at the far end dim from voltage drop, so installers have to splice in a new power injection every 50 to 70 lights. Older 5V Classic systems already installed need one every 10 to 30.

Bowdrie says a 12V run cannot make big jumps, so almost every Trimlight dealer installs two boxes, one for the front of the house and one for the back. Each controller carries one line of data, so covering more areas means more boxes and more wiring.

A TruLight system uses one box and one data source, with an injection only about every 400 lights on the 48V run. That leaves fewer splices and fewer boxes to fail later.

Landscape Lighting: Two Boxes vs One System

Trimlight does offer landscape lighting, but it is a whole separate system. The landscape lights use a 24V box of their own, and the eave lighting uses a separate 12V box. To control your landscape lights you open the app, select that box, and adjust it. To control the house you select the other box and start over.

TruLight puts landscape and roofline lighting on the same app, box, and data source. You zone a section as landscape and control it with everything else.

The App: 10-12 Patterns vs 144 Effects, and 60 Presets vs Thousands

Bowdrie calls the app Trimlight's weakest area, and Trimlight's own app store reviews say the same. It has roughly 10 to 12 motion patterns, things like chase forward and chase reverse, and it is capped at 60 presets total. There are no animations in the app, so you cannot see what a pattern looks like without walking outside.

TruLight's app has thousands of patterns and 144 effects. It has 72 presets for Christmas alone, more than Trimlight has for every holiday combined. Each pattern plays as an animation on a sample house in the app, so you can pick one without walking outside.

TruLight App

• 144 motion effects
• Thousands of presets
• Animated house preview
• True global zoning
• Motion sensor zones
• Music manager by zone
• 4.6-star rating (May 21, 2026)

Trimlight App

• 10-12 motion patterns
• 60 presets max
• Animated house preview
• True global zoning
• Motion sensor zones
• Music sync by zone
• 2.9 Apple / 2.8 Google Play (May 21, 2026)

Numbering vs True Zoning

Trimlight does not have true zoning. In Bowdrie's words, “It's not even selecting. You have to count.” Instead of selecting lights or building zones, you type a number into a single field. If you want the first 22 lights to be red, you put 22 in the bubble and drop the color red onto it. You have to know the light numbers on your house, and there is no master or global zoning.

TruLight has true global zoning. You can tell the system that lights 87 through 122 should reverse direction every single time, on any pattern, and assign motion sensors per zone. Bowdrie says JellyFish is the only other company he knows of with that kind of master zoning. Trimlight sets direction pattern by pattern, so you have to go into each pattern and reverse it yourself.

15 Years In, Still No White Light and No Motion Sensors

Trimlight has been around for about 15 years, and its lineup is still RGB only, with no white LED and no motion sensors. Bowdrie asks what that says about a company that still will not offer RGBW.

TruLight already offers dedicated white LEDs, a music manager and motion sensors that a dealer can add to the system. A motion sensor turns permanent lighting into security lighting that can replace a big flood light, and Bowdrie says that gets through HOA review far more often. The sensor sits in or beside the track, and existing TruLight customers can add one through their dealer. Learn more

Straight From the Video