I think at this point, it has already been proven time and time again that LEDs are the best technology to light a boat. They have low amp draw and a very long life. When the dome light bulb in our head burned out, we thought maybe it was the time to try one.

There was only one LED option at West Marine, and it was not cheap. The Dr. LED replacement bulb was freaking $35! If we hadn’t had a gift card, I would have never spent the money on it, especially since a two-pack of halogen bulbs was less than $5.

Why are these things priced so high? The diodes themselves are pennies when you buy them alone. Does soldering them onto a bulb base really add so much cost?

We have six dome lights and four reading lights. If you do the quick math, it would be a whopping $350 to swap all of our lights using the West Marine Dr. LED solution. That’s not going to happen.

However, I can’t deny that the Dr. LED bulb worked very well.

All of the diodes lit up, which is not always the case with Chinese LED bulbs, and it did light the head well.

I decided to do some searching, and I did find a company out of New Jersey called HQRP with an eBay store selling almost identical LED bulbs for only $9.95 or a four-pack for $35.95. That still doesn’t seem as cheap as these bulbs should be, but I’ve got one on order to see how it will compare.