20 Best Led Can Light Retrofit (2023 Updated)

excellent! easy install. love that you can adjust from 5 different lighting feelings, from dim to bright sun light. just check every unit where wires connect to orange connector most of them are not fully seated in need to push black and white wires on both ends to make sure the clip has grabbed the wire, so it doesn’t pull out one came out on me while i was installing the fixture so check everyone don’t want a short that’s how fire start pay attention, please.

otherwise as of today great product I just ordered 10 more well worth the price just wish they could lower the watts I went from 9 watt to their 11 due to much better-looking piece and adjustability i guess sometimes looks beat efficient.

These are terrible. I had 63 of these installed in my new construction home. After 1 month they started falling out of the ceiling. We have had 30 fail so far. All have the exact same issue. The screw that holds the mounting bracket is broken.

We have ordered and put in replacements only to have the same thing happen over and over again. We have been in the house little over a year now and they are still randomly falling down.

This review is for the SUNCO 1PK Retrofit Recessed LED Baffle Downlight 11W 600LM 3000K. After the laws changed regarding incandescent bulbs those high wattage, high heat, bulbs that sucked huge amounts of electricity are not only becoming harder to find they cannot compare with LED’s for brightness, longevity, energy consumption or anything else that I am aware of.

This SUNCO unit was designed to retrofit inefficient can type lights that were mounted in the ceiling between the joist’s. This SUNCO unit has a pigtail off the back that has a plug that will simply plug into the newer style flush mount in ceiling can light fixtures as well as an adapter that screws into an E26 socket for those you don’t want to replace.

The light fixture has flip out spring mounting clips so you can fit it into most 4” metal can light fixtures without the need to change the can nor a bunch of electrician’s tools. When these can type light fixtures first came out you saw them everywhere but they are big and with a 150 watt incandescent or halogen bulb they generate a tremendous amount of heat.

The SUNCO retrofit fixture does not produce such high amounts of heat so it can be used in the same locations and be much safer while giving off much more light with far less energy, saving you money and helping the environment at the same time.

This 11w LED is comparable to a 40w halogen light bulb. The specifications say the LED has a life expectancy of more than 37 years, can you imagine installing a light and not changing it for nearly 40 years? While you aren’t changing bulbs you are also saving money and helping the environment too.

It’s a no brainer to use LED’s instead of halogen or incandescent bulbs in most situations. SUNCO LED’s are also dimmable and compatible with most existing dimmers. You can’t go wrong changing over to LED’s.

I never write reviews but this product is so bad I just had to. First of all, the springs to hold it in the ceiling kept falling off of the cheap thin metal holders. As I tried to attach the 2nd arm of a spring to the existing pot light, off it would come.

4 or 5 times on each pot light (I unfortunately bought 4 lights). Secondly, they don’t fit tight to the ceiling. They get close, but sit about 1/8″ from the drywall and although you can push them up tight, they don’t stay tight.

After all of this trouble on what should have been a 5 min job, I discovered that a 5/6″ trim is not a 6″ trim. More like 5 3/4 or 5 7/8. I was using them to replace 30 year old 6″ pot lights and when I compare them, they are smaller in diameter.

Almost 6 is not 6. I should have known that a size marked with 2 possibilities couldn’t be good, but I’ve installed many Halo led pot lights of different styles and up to this point they were perfect, so I trusted them – obviously a big mistake.

I can’t believe this is a Halo product given the cheap construction and poor fit. Maybe they would work on new construction but certainly not acceptable for retrofit (as advertised). Now that Halo has broken my trust, I don’t know if I will ever buy a Halo product again.

And of course, in a pandemic, I can’t return these until who knows when.

1. After much searching, this product was a life-saver–allowing me to add a recessed shower light in a second floor bathroom with insulated ceiling (a retrofit I. C. housing is available and needs to be purchased along with this “trim”).

2. At the same time, I used 2 more of these to convert two existing 4″ Par30 recessed housings (pot lights), so all 3 lights now match. 3. The kicker is that all 3 fixtures now use a total of 3x14W= 42W, for the equivalent light output of about 200W–or 3x65W if using the old Par30’s.

That’s 1/5th the energy cost–amazing!! Plus, if I even get near 1/2 the promised longevity (25,000 hours or 12 years), they will have paid for themselves in just the bulb replacement costs alone. 4.

However, you should be aware of a couple of caveats: a) As the reviewer below noted correctly, there is no way these are “50W Par20 equivalent” as is claimed. They are far brighter–closer to to 65W or 650 lumens.

b) The Product Description does not give the beam angle for these (which is unforgiveable since they are replacing PAR directional lights), but my guess is that they are close to 80 degrees–a super-wide flood.

This is much wider than a typical Par20 flood (30 to 60 deg. ) or spot, (8-10 deg. ). This gives this product a very diffuse, non-directional quality to the light output which can be very disturbing to some.

c) If you have never used an LED light fixture or bulb before, you should try one before purchasing. The light quality is much different (harsher) than an incandescent source–perhaps even more so than a CFL, IMO.

Also, the colour temperature of 3000K (or 2700K on some LEDs) is supposed to be a Warm White equivalent to incandescent or even fluorescent. Not even close, in my opinion–much closer to daylight. So my advice is to realize that there are trade-offs with LED at this stage in their development and to “try before you buy”!.

You can find much cheaper options elsewhere. This is a fine cable, does its job, but do your due diligence in looking around for something more economical.

I bought these to work with my Lutron Caseta dimmer switches. My previous LED trims hummed when they were on but these were listed as being compatible with the switches – and they are! No more humming.

I give them four stars because they don’t grip the ceiling as tight as my previous LEDs and it’s difficult to get them nice and flush against the ceiling.

Great upgrade to our 1969 recessed incandescent high hats. LED offers much more light with much energy and cost savings.

Everything was as expected EXCEPT 2 of the lights had bent flanges one of them bent 45 degrees, fortunately I was able to straighten them enough so the flanges sit flush with. the ceiling. Just happy they all worked and I didn’t have to send them back.

Work great. Bright and dimmable.

Turned to be exactly what I wanted

As far as retrofits go, these are the best. Pull out the old bulb and valance/retaining springs, screw in the Cree bulb, spin out the tabs and slide it up – done. Takes literally 30 seconds to swap one out, and the light output is far greater than an incandescent bulb.

Dimming will get you down to probably 20-30% of brightness, but is still far from that warm super low glow that you get from an incandescent bulb. ROI on these will be between 8 months to 1. 4 years depending on how often my kids leave the lights on! 🙂 I have the similar/older Cree replacements in the kitchen and they’ve been faultless for the past 3 years.

Worth every penny!.

I upgraded from “soft” light to “day” light in my kitchen. The light is much whiter and my kitchen no longer has a yellowish appearance. I can see much better especially when working towards the corners of my kitchen.

Preparing food is easier and safer with brighter light.

I’ve looked for trim kits with the correct retention clips for my cans that have no internal brackets for the standard spring clips, these work great. An added plus, they are noticeably brighter than the previously purchased lights of the same watt equivalent.

I have more than 20 of these lights installed because of a house renovation a few years ago. Now I have a few that would start blinking after about 10 minutes. I ordered replacements and 2 of the 3 new ones worked fine.

The last one had the same blinking problem. I have ordered more and they they all begin to flash after running for about 10 minutes. I have tried the replacement bulb in other fixtures and the problem follows the new bulb, so it’s not likely to be a wiring or voltage issue.

I even purchased one from a different supplier and it had the same problem! Sure looks to me like the factory has a quality issue!! The Home Depot has been great with issuing a refund for the bulbs that are a problem.

On paper, this is a great light. The power efficiency is outstanding. CRI is high. The trim lip covers slight can protrusions from the ceiling. It is dimmable, and the dimming seemed to work as expected.

The problem with this light is that it has pronounced intensity flicker at the line AC frequency. What this means is that, when nothing is moving, everything looks fine. But if something is moving, welcome to the disco.

This is called stroboscopic artifacting, and it can be a problem with LED lights. As far as I can tell there is no way to determine from the specifications how bad it will be. I had a different set from GreenCreative that I returned for other reasons, and it did not have this problem.

I suspect that the cheaper the lights, the worse the flicker. Now that I’ve noticed it, I can’t unnotice it and it drives me crazy!.

My HALO was a gift. My car battery died on the coldest day of the year. My son-in-law went to my house to pick it up and get us going. That little dude turned over my car and we had heat again. What a gift it was.

I highly recommend it.

Easy to install, beautiful finish (bronze) and dimmer feature works much better compared to prior incandescents.

Easy to install but the retainer for the spring needs to be made where the spring doesn’t pop off when you pinch it to push it into the slot of the recessed can.

I LOVE THESE LIGHTS. THEY ARE SO BRIGHT AND I LOVE THE WAY THEY ARE FITTING AND WILL NOT ALLOW THOSE PESTY WASP TO GET INSIDE AND BUILD A NEST. THANKS. VIVIAN AUTRY

If you are like me, my existing recessed downlight was a direct wire LED. So, I had to cut the screw in socket plug off and direct wire it. Then, because of its larger depth size, I had to take out the existing light housing for it to fit.

The width was also larger than the preexisting hole cut out in the vinyl soffet. So, I cut the hole in the vinyl out larger. I was affraid the adjustable wings were not going to hold the light tight enough against the vinyl because the wings are not that close to the outer frame that sits flush with the ceiling.

I installed the light on the front porch outside, so I wanted it to not be too loose to reduce mosture entry. Luckily after turning the light in the direction indicated on the instruction sheet, it locked into place.

Even with the effort, I am very happy with the product. I already am a Hue user. I especially like the ability to set colors to match my holiday decorations outside based on app automation and geofensing so the light comes on when I pull up to the house, making it easier to see when walking up to the front door.

I am also a Nest doorbell user, so I wished that they communicated with one another so when the Nest video doorbell picks someone up, the Hue light would come on and make the area more visible. As a work around, I just set up automation, so the light is on for a period of time after dark to help delivery personel see when dropping off packages at the door.

I have read most of the low-star reviews on here and basically, the reviews are coming from inexperienced people. I have installed over 40 of these without one problem. For starters, yes you do need cans per electrical code, especially around the insulated attics.

The can should be IC-rated if you do have insulation. I have even installed these outdoors without any issues. I have managed to install these in a stucco soffit without cans cutting a 4-inch hole. But be warned this is not the proper way and good luck removing them after.

Without the can, you have to then buy an electrical box and cover for the connections. Most cans run 10 to 15 dollars which then requires extra work annnnddddd you risk a fire caused by a spark. In regards to removing them from the can after install, it clearly says in the included manual that you need to spin the light clockwise.

This folds the tabs in and the light comes out. Why wouldn’t you want your light to be tightly secured? I have used many brands and different bulbs. I have even bought cheaper bulbs that connect to hue and $25 dollars a pop, but then you have to buy the cover at anywhere from $15 to $25 dollars totaling at least $50 bucks.

Ok, you saved 5 bucks, but remember that with the Philips entertainment center feature those bulbs will not work. Also with the aftermarket bulbs, there are no updates, or after power settings, etc. In the end, I’ll give it 4 stars because of the price, but of all the ones I have installed, I have not had one fail yet in over a year.

If it did fail, so what! it’s not like Philips is not going to replace it. After all, nothing in life is perfect, just inconvenient.

I can’t give it 5* rating, as I think the Wiz sister light is better build physically. The Hue version use the 3 clip support system that may or may not give you troubles getting a snug held to the ceiling flat install.

I’ve installed the 3 clip system many time is the past, however my cans aren’t installed 100% right and the clips just won’t work well with them. I could have caulked them in place, but these are smart lights that you may need access to the inside at any given moment.

I cannibalized any old set of halogen retro fit to remove the spring system and made a makeshift system to support them on the Hue bulbs without damaging/modifying the light in anyway. The Wiz light uses the spring system and holds tight (if you cans have the spring bracket inside.

). That said I replaced 2 Wiz lights with the Hue ones as I needed a smart light proper switch to make these two lights ( 4 total but others where A19 types) compatible with a sleeping partner and not wanting to wake them talking to Alexa.

Wiz still lacks 3rd party support for seamless smart lighting when you in a generation that doesn’t want to carry a phone with you all the time to bypass talking to your voice assistant. Or if teaching visitors how to use your lights.

we invited them to visit, not hold a class on smart lighting :/ Anyway, beyond the mounting system which may not be an issue for you, the lights are great in every other way. The addition of 2 Aurora Smart-light Dimmers the system is now user friendly, be it visitors or us two old farts that live here rofl.

Cons: -Not particularly happy. The 6 packs of lights are shipped with the lights facing each other with no protection between, causing all sorts of rub marks. The single packed versions don’t have these rub marks.

Glad I ordered extra fixtures. -Plastic electrical box is cheesy. Picture is a steel box, but after I ordered I read the reviews about the box now being plastic. -Wire nuts (as pictured) while most other competitors are supplying WAGO style connectors.

After installing a bunch of these types of fixtures with WAGOs, wire nuts on these seem so antique. Pros: -Gimbals work pretty well. -Bezels are sufficiently large to not look overly big, but are able to cover any hole imperfections.

-Color temps are all pretty decent for LED. As always, avoid buying too high a lumen rating for a situation or they get hard to look at. -Snap in spring levers work well.

I think Sunco lighting is a very great concept. They are slim and easy to install in tight fitting ceilings. The build seems nice. The one bummer is that when a unit goes out you have to replace the whole thing, not just a bulb.

And so far Ive had to replace 6. and of those 6, 3 of them are dim, they will flick bright for a while and then go dull again. No matter how many brand new lights i install in it’s place they seem to do the same thing.

All that being said I really don’t know if it’s the lights, the wiring, or a combination of things in between. What i do know is that for the almost 2 years i’ve been in my home they were working like a dream.

Then 1 or two went out completely (these, when replaced, fired up and work like normal. no complaints) But the ones that flickered dim to bright, when replaced, are hit and miss. 1 replacement worked perfectly.

a few other ports still flick with multiple brand new lights installed. Not sure what to do.

This recessed LED seems to fit more snuggly against my ceiling than others I’ve purchased. Disadvantages include a small junction box that uses wire nuts instead of “push-in” connectors. That makes closing the box lid impossible if there are more than two cables going into it.

One of five LED colors has to be chosen at time of purchase so the color isn’t switchable. Still I prefer this recessed LED to others I’ve purchased because of the much lower cost. Dims to 5% of max range.

Good light.

Most people seem to want warm white lighting, but I like the more natural color balance of 4000 deg. K or even 5000, and the color balance of this product really looks great. Bright and natural! Easy retrofit for ceiling cans lights.

I only wish that 1000bulbs. com used a recyclable packing material instead of foam peanuts.

Purchased for use in a bathroom. Replaced a standard PAR 20 LED bulb as I wanted more light. Works pretty well, very bright. I typically prefer bulbs with a 2700K temperature, but I found this one a bit too yellow than other 2700K bulbs and fixtures I’ve purchased.

I might have gone with 3000K if I had it to do over.

Bought replacements for Home Depot owned fixtures installed by my builder. The originals failed early and often after installation. I wanted to upgrade and customer service quickly identified a better quality fixture at a reasonable price.

Product arrived as promised and is noticeably superior in build quality. I will shop at 1000bulbs again.

This LED trim is metal and of good quality. Looks great as a replacement of the open trims around the old incandescent lamps and saves electricity while emitting very little heat, therefore they are much safer when installed in an insulated ceiling.

The 3500K bright white changed the white cabinetry from dingy to looking like freshly painted.

these are easy to “retrofit” into existing can lights, they are supposed to last up to 20 years so you have get the right light “color”! first of all, if the bulb goes out you need to replace the whole unit, secondly, LEDs can emit a very white light if not careful, I put these in my kitchen so I opted for 2700K which is a bit “warmer” than is commonly found.

I prefer this color of light, I also put them on a dimmer which allows us to moderate the lights except when cooking for instance. The look basically like the lights before so don’t expect a big change in appearance unless your old bezels have turned beige with age as some of my had done.

Waste of money as they wont work with new can lights. These old ones have a different attachment method than the new ones sold now. These old ones do not include a spring-type latch and the new cans do not have slots for friction type attachment intended for placement to attach.

I’m out $54. 00.

Thee light is very good for output and the range of dimming. However, the trim ring should be a little larger in diameter, then it would hide the can hole better. I used old work can receptacles. They have a narrow lip that holds the assembly to the ceiling.

The light isn’t big enough to hide the flange. Also, the clips that hold the light on the inside of the can let the light assembly come down a little after shoving the light up tight to the ceiling. I tried twisting the light as I pushed it up, I tried changing the tension on the spring clips – nothing worked.

So, unless you know a trick that I don’t know, you mioght have trouble getting these lights up tight to the ceiling.

They had to be installed sideways so instead of square lights I have diamond-shape lights. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not quite what I imagined. Other than that, they look great.

Bought it and spent a good 3 hours trying to unscrew the plastic cover. I used rubber gloves, made a jig with two screws to try and use the mounting holes to open it up. Asked 3 people to help, in the end, I never managed to open the thing up.

Only thing I got out of this is slicing my thumb opened on the sharp stainless trimming.

To start, these were purchased for a home we are building. We did not install them. They were used in a standard Juno recessed light housing and I didn’t hear any negative feedback from the electricians so I am assuming they installed easily.

The color choice, 2700K, was our preference from the start, however, when looking at lighting stores and even in houses on our city’s home tour, we felt like there was a large amount of VERY bright light and even a halo effect emanating from many we viewed.

Through a fairly extensive search of data, I began to notice that many lights of the same temperature have lumens varying from roughly 500 up to 1000 and higher. The basis for our decision and what we were seeking in a recessed light came down to the temperature, 2700K, lumens quantity (we chose 600) and CRI (these are 90+).

Thus far, they are halo free, appear warm and inviting without the sharpness some of the higher lumen 2700K & 3000K lights have, and look good aesthetically. They are both wet and dry UL rated so we were able to use the same light throughout our house (including bathrooms and showers) and for our covered porch.

It was worth paying more than the hardware store and lighting store pricing to get the right combination of temperature, lumens, and CRI. Please note, PROLighting. com does offer a volume discount, just request a quote.

Shipping was free and when filing a tax return one only has to claim local tax, thus saving a little more money over paying full sales tax.

Ordered eight of these to replace existing incandescents as part of a kitchen reno. They were super easy to install, although my grumbly, slow electrician made it seem more difficult than it was. I would have put them in myself if the installation wasn’t already part of my contract payment.

One more is coming today for a different area of the house and I expect my installation time to be 5-10 minutes at most. Great, clean light for my kitchen.

We remodeled our entire house, taking it down to the studs and replacing everything, very much like you see on the home improvement shows on HGTV. All of our lighting in every room was installed with these Juno LED units.

I have most of the rooms set with Lutron WiFi controlled dimmers that can be controlled from anywhere I have cellular service. These are fantastic!!.

The replacement lights I bought were exactly what I wanted and a competitive price. They arrived on time and in perfect shape. Install for each down light took less than a minute each, and they have changed the feeling of the rooms completely.

Good product from a good company.

Gave 3 stars cause for my application wasn’t exact was I expected. They still work great but understand it’s more downlight then recessed light. Installed in my kitchen x4 and it really doesn’t project outwards to well.

2-3feet is sitting countertop and light is about 50%. Not what ud expect. Fortunately I installed cause a tankless water heater draws much power so Multiple LED light groups tend to flicker but Phillips Daylight 5k are only LED bulbs that don’t flicker when heater is running.

Before anyone comments yes this is normal depending on watt draw and cheaper LED’s. In any case if Phillips would drop bulb down even just 1/2-1 inch it would spread light out better, it sits almost 3 inches up in light can.

Just my thoughts but if direct daylight downlight is what u want then easy install and works fine go for it.

These lights are great. They look good, work great, and are easy to install. If you are thinking of replacing your current recessed lights with these, purchase these and you will not be disappointed.

Fits inside the old incandescent housing so that saves a lot on the install however the wires that hold it in place are so long they won’t fully extend thru the old housing brackets. After I bent about 1″ of the wire ends away from the side of the old housing they would extend enough to hold the light up properly.

Way brighter than the old style bulbs.

I purchased these to replace some 4 recessed can lights that were installed almost six years ago. They are almost the exact same model as the original lights. The old lights were easy to remove and replace with this model.

They appear to be an exact replacement with changeable trim and the same color spectrum as the original. Once installed no one can tell which were the originals and which were replaced.

Needed to replace two ceiling lights that were about to stop working. Constantly flashing. Their price was the best and shipped promptly. Lights were easy to replace and the led light is bright.

This is a great replacement for incandescent bulbs. They are easy to install, on can adjust the warmth, and it has a nightlight function. I keep a stock of these to replace the incandescents when they fail.

Did a big parking lot. Spent a lot of money with rab and found out after six months when a light went bad there was only a limited warranty for a fixture that was almost 1000 dollars. Now I got to replace it and eat the labor and lift cost.

What a shame and the company doesn’t care. I’ve used rab for a few projects over 50000 dollars. Not going to use rab anymore.

Great quality professional product. Power factor. 95 rab is not over driving the VA of the led chips like several budget and name brands. So the energy is mostly light not cooking the chips with heat.

Thermal management if good. Highest temp observed was about 45c (113f) the only things i see that could use improvement is the driver cutting off at about 10% limiting the dimming. Also the clips needed to be bent to allow the fitting to sit flush with the celings.

These lights are not the same size of most lights that were installed originally. If you look at the diameter size 7. 375 it is smaller than most of the lights out there. Most are around 7. 500 or bigger and this means after you install the light you will have make sure it fills the hole perfectly or you may have a gap or a color ring on ceiling where the old lamp housing used to be.

I rate the unit 5 star but my bad judgment did not notice the diameter size until now. Hope this helps others in making a good decision.

I recently moved into my new home and loved these lights at my last residence. It was an easy choice to go with the same lights at my new house. I wasn’t sure how many I would need so I bought a couple extra.

It was a good idea because one didn’t work. When i called to report this I was told that a resolution would be made and I would be contacted. I never received another call, instead there was a replacement sent and no further effort required from me.

This is best customer service experience ever. It’s nice to see that a customer gets treated with respect and not made to jump through hoops to receive what was agreed and paid for. I will definitely stay a loyal customer and a fan!.

Bought these to update standard 6″ cans to LEDs. Looked super easy, and for the most part was easy until I slid the new lights into the existing cans. The “fingers” that are designed to hold the inside of the light fixture were about a millimeter short, and they wouldn’t grip the inside of the fixture.

Bent the fingers up a little and they fit better, but they weren’t snug — they just didn’t fit right. Emailed customer support, got nothing back. Still haven’t heard anything beyond the request for this review.

Decided to wing it, and drilled holes in the “fingers,” attached trim springs and hooked them into the existing cans. Good enough, much better than they were even if a little janky. I like the adjustability of the light temps, and the nightlight mode — nice lights.

I just wish they fit more snugly, or had been able to get some advice from the vendor on making that happen. In short, nice lights, but be prepared to have to wing it if your fixtures are slightly larger than these lights can properly fit.

You’ll be on your own at that point.

Quite bright for some areas indoors, so I used dimmers and they work well. I did find for some existing recessed cans, depending on the original manufacturer of the can, I had to bend the spring mount bars a bit (outward, as it turns out) to get them to seat properly.

Probably professional electricians already know that, but it took me a few tries to get it right.

I contacted 1000Bulbs. com with photos of a burned out LED recessed ceiling light bulb and they recommended these which are perfect! These come in different color temperatures (Kelvin) so you can choose warm or cool bulbs.

They were easy to install and they look great!.

Order arrived fine. Used to replace identical bulb installed during an upgrade project. Working fine. Great for recessed ceiling lighting.