Blue Headlights

Blue Headlights

You’ve likely been in the situation before.  You’re driving down the highway at night, and all of a sudden a vehicle passes by that has intensely blue headlights that just seem to stand out from all the other cars.  After it’s passed by you look and notice that the owner of the blue headlights is driving one of the latest sports cars on the market.  Envious, you contemplate buying a new sports car (well maybe dream about it anyways), but did you know you can get these same blue headlights for your vehicle?

The light that these blue headlights put off is actually generated by a bulb known as a High Intensity Discharge, or HID for short. The HID technology is much more efficient then the filament bulbs of yesteryears, and produces a much brighter and intense light. The technology behind HID has been used in commercial lighting for some time, but until recently it was just too expensive and the components were too large to convert it in to the blue headlights you know and love today.

One of the largest barriers for this technology was always the fact that start-up time took a very long time.  Modern xenon blue headlights have overcome this by adding a special controller.  This special controller significantly raises the voltage that your vehicle normally puts out in order to jump start the headlights.  This, unfortunately, makes getting the real blue headlights an expensive endeavor, because you can’t just buy the bulbs, you have to make sure you have the special controller for them as well.

Blue headlights are blue for the simple reason that this is just the wavelength that the gas puts off when it’s excited in the bulb.  It’s made by a very high voltage arc and discharge of internal gases. Most blue headlights comply with all federal regulations for road glare and brightness.  While it may seem brighter when you’re driving down the road, reality is they still fall within federal guidelines.

While there are a lot of different models available, you won’t find any that are bluer than other.  The ECE regulates the level of blue tint in the bulb, so most blue headlights are usually pretty similar in their outputs because they all want to provide the maximum benefit for the consumer as possible.

However, you can get blue bulbs that have much darker blues and more intense higher wattage.  These bulbs are reserved for offroad use only, and are commonly found on things like rally cars and off-road vehicles.

As previously indicated if you want to install traditional blue headlights in your vehicle you will need an HID conversion kit at a usually princely price.  However, if you’re not willing to bear the expense of a full HID conversion, you can still get your blue headlights by purchasing regular bulbs that have a blue xenon light effect.  This is done by just replacing your existing halogen bulbs with an upgraded xenon tinted blue headlights bulb.