Aren't passively-cooled LED grow lights better?

HPS, MH, CMH / LEC and other high intensity discharge lights increase in efficiency as the bulb gets warmer, because much of their light is generated by super-heated gasses inside the arc tube. Cooling these bulbs decreases their efficiency, even though it is necessary to keep your grow room from overheating!

LEDs make light in a fundamentally different way; by directly converting electricity to light. The cooler the LED, the more efficient this process is: you get more photons per watt from a cooler LED than if the temperature is increased. LEDs also degrade at a rate directly linked to the temperature they run at; the warmer they are, the faster they permanently lose light output.

Some of our competitors claim fan-cooled LED grow lights are "inferior", that they are not engineered properly, or point out that fans are moving parts that can break. They conveniently omit the fact that they are sacrificing efficiency and LED longevity by not actively cooling their fixtures. In the fine print of many of the usage instructions they recommend maintaining air movement over their fixture- in other words, aiming a fan at it- because they didn't build one into the fixture themselves. Some even have fine print in their warranties that invalidates the warranty of the light if it is allowed to overheat, or is run in an environment that is "too warm".

PhytoMAX-2 LED grow lights utilize a patented, redundant system of high-quality fans to keep our LEDs running as cool as possible to maximize efficiency and longevity. There is no need to get your own fan to aim at the fixture as with passively-cooled lights. Our grow light fans are rated for a 70,000 hour life; 8 years if run 24/7, so failures are incredibly rare. And even if one or two fans fail, the remaining fan(s) will keep the LEDs cool. Unlike passively-cooled LED grow lights, we also include a backup system which will turn the LEDs off if the room gets too warm, in order to prevent causing permanent damage. There is no fine print in our warranty regarding operating in overly-warm conditions!

If anything, by sacrificing efficiency and LED lifespan, the passively cooled LED grow light fixtures are "not properly engineered" and "inferior"!