Christmas/Fairy lights with that old fashioned twinkle and glow?

[PositivelyGlowing]

I'm one of those who prefer the 'old school' indoor Christmas lights, therefore the filament/incandescent mini bulbs which look like tiny candles , each just over an inch long and maybe 3mm to 4mm in diameter. These give off a wonderful glow and often have a gentle twinkle function. I also prefer multi-coloured instead of just plain white. I'm very fussy about my lights. :-)

Trouble is that the old bulbs use a lot of energy, on the other hand LED bulbs are extremely cheap to run (just a few pence a week even at today's energy prices) BUT they are often harsh and overly bright and any 'twinkle' function is more like a maddening flashing sequence. They are also more often that not in the 'wrong' colours - they should be Red, Green, Blue and Yellow but these days they often throw in Orange, Purple, Pink and other colours.

Are there any indoor LED bulb strings which effectively mimic the soft glow of the older filament/incandescent mini lights? Either battery or mains powered? They don't need to by the mini candle shape Must be in the Red, Green, Blue and Yellow colours and also have a good twinkle function if possible.

Thanks in eager anticipation of loads of suggestions. :-)

I've just had a look and I can't see them online anymore. I got mine in store, photo attached, but they were definitely available to buy last week via the website.

Sorry, previous picture was dreadful quality.

I have yellow LED lights inside metal filigree hearts. They come quite close

Thank you!

They look lovely, I am going to give this a try.
I looked at the Christmas World ones, but the reviews weren't great, break quickly, and not as bright as the vintage ones.

Sorry OP but they don’t exist. I have the Aldi Pickwick lights and they are lovely but they are BRIGHT and nothing like the soft glow of filament bulbs. LEDs can’t replicate it. Your best bet is to get very, very tiny LEDs so the brightness is at least much much smaller.

I feel that lights get worse each year. Warm white turns out to be lime green or orange, or worse - bright white you can see from space. They also seem to consume massive amounts of battery power whereas before, they'd last all Christmas.

I miss the lovely warm white lights John Lewis and Lifhts for Fun used to do, theyve now both gone on the bright spooky white bandwaggon.

I’ve just bought a set of 1970’s Pifco lights (ebay)...the ones from my childhood. They’ll cost far more to run but I’ve mourned their disappearance for a few Christmases now!

Those sharpie lights really do look great!

Probably not what you’re looking for but they have these on Rex London

You lot inspired me to sharpie my coloured LED set - red white blue green. I couldn't do anything with the blue, so used a purple pen on the white lights. That toned the white down to pink and balances out the cool blues and greens.

My suggestion is to do it before the lights go up!!

Those Aldi lights are quite garish, bought them last year but didn’t use them.

Anyway here’s the tester set I did, didn’t photograph to well as I took photo in the dark I used every shade of the pens I had to see which worked better but they all look good.

Ps they were just shoved on the fireplace for photo purposes!

Also you have that added headache of blown bulbs, especially the fuse. Need to keep plenty of spares on hand.
Although I love my traditional fairy lights, I don’t like how hot they get.

I popped in to my local garden centre today and had a look at the lights they had some beautiful ones in which were called rainbow as opposed to multicolour

It reminded me of this thread which I saw when it was active a few weeks ago

Anyway they definitely included a pink bulb and were a lot softer than the multicoloured lights they were displayed next to

They were made by Premier I'm considering ordering some for the nostalgia !

Yes this is what I would have said too. Contrary to the OP, I have never seen coloured LEDs with pinks and oranges along with the usual red, yellow, blue and green. The latter (which I have) are too bright and the colours too vivid.

I'm lucky if mine last a few weeks :(

I bought these last year. Really good quality and I think they fit the description you're looking for!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B096R1FXY4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I want these colours, but in LED. Remind me of a freshly opened tin of quality street in the 80's.

We have new ‘Twinkly’ smart fairy lights this year. You use an app on your phone to map them and then you can set any combination or pattern of RGB colours you want. They are still LEDs and don’t have the glow of filament bulbs (which I agree with a pp is impossible to replicate) but you can set the colours to exactly your desired shades.

I've looked at the Twinkly smart lights online but they are hideously expensive.

We got them on a Black Friday offer but yes, they are expensive. Depends how many sets of cheaper lights you go through looking for the right effect, I suppose!

UK Christmas World has these classic LED strands which are essentially warm white lights inside of coloured casings, and these nail the look of the old strands imo
https://www.ukchristmasworld.com/products/120-led-multi-coloured-classic-retro-fairy-string-lights
https://www.ukchristmasworld.com/products/240-led-multi-coloured-classic-retro-fairy-string-lights

I was really lucky and bought 4 sets of the old type from a charity shop last year, pat tested. They were £1 a set.

Ah @Vexnatos those are perfect! I expect they don't twinkle at OP wants but I'm tempted! Just looking at the picture made me feel all cosy inside.