Nightowl Halo kit discontinued

[Rbriska]

So I tried to order a nightowl kit for my camaro today only to find There site has had everything removed. I emailed them and this is what they sent back.

The camaro halo kit was discontinued at the beginning of the year. We were not able to source the LEDs for the headlight, as the LED manufacturers have stopped making them. We also are focusing only on our controllers. Sorry.

This is highly disappointing to me, from reading around they had the best kit around hands down. Now I'm at a loss of what to do, as I did not wanna bake the lights.

[GVA 45TH 2SS]

I believe there are some people that still make them.
Though the quality may not be up to the NightOwl standards. I know they had checked many brands.

[Abelardoo_12]

Baking the headlight is not that big of a deal, i never got the oracle halos for the same reason but one day oracle had a sale and decided to get them and after doing it i can honestly say i was worrying for nothing, all you do is put it in there heat it up a little bit so that the seal softens up and you can pry the headlight open, i kept putting it in a couple of times to make it easier but there's nothing wrong with it, its just time consuming and when you put them back together just make sure you put enough sealant and hold it with vise grips over night and you'll be good, it really isn't as hard and complicated as it sounds

[Snoman]

While I believe "the response" he gave you was legit, he stopped selling because he was purchasing junk parts instead of spending the extra $10 and no longer wants to deal with the warranty issues. We had members replacing lights constantly and one member has replaced some portion of that kit over 6x. Regardless, we have a member that makes a far superior kit using much higher quality SMD 5V RGBWW.

[chef-beavis]

and would tomorrow. Sad to see them paring down the offering. I consider Joe a friend, of sorts, given the distance, but he has never shown me anything other than integrity. I know he and his family poured their heart and soul into NightOwl and nobody was getting rich. It was really about trying to offer something better and be the best; which they were (are ~ just shifting focus!), by far.

It's a killer product. Anyone will eventually have some warranty stuff to deal with if they are around long enough. There are lots of reasons LEDs can die or flake out. Most are not related to the LED, probably.

If you have a new resource, please share. If you have nothing but personal attacks, please spare us.

[Dmpsix]

Originally Posted by Snoman

While I believe "the response" he gave you was legit, he stopped selling because he was purchasing junk parts instead of spending the extra $10 and no longer wants to deal with the warranty issues. We had members replacing lights constantly and one member has replaced some portion of that kit over 6x. Regardless, we have a member that makes a far superior kit using much higher quality SMD 5V RGBWW.

Who? I want one of these kits.

[Snoman]

Originally Posted by chef-beavis

and would tomorrow. Sad to see them paring down the offering. I consider Joe a friend, of sorts, given the distance, but he has never shown me anything other than integrity. I know he and his family poured their heart and soul into NightOwl and nobody was getting rich. It was really about trying to offer something better and be the best; which they were (are ~ just shifting focus!), by far.

It's a killer product. Anyone will eventually have some warranty stuff to deal with if they are around long enough. There are lots of reasons LEDs can die or flake out. Most are not related to the LED, probably.

If you have a new resource, please share. If you have nothing but personal attacks, please spare us.

I believe he had well intentions and know he got the short end of a bad vendors. After installing and/or repairing more than a dozen of his systems and 50+ hours of needless rework, we no longer endorse his products. Our club will continue to support our own members 110% and ensure they have a quality solution so they don't feel like they were left out in the cold. We have numerous lighting options available for paid members.

[Snoman]

Originally Posted by Dmpsix

Who? I want one of these kits.

PM'd

[Joe@NightOwlLEDs]

Thanks Mike for pointing me to this thread. I have always been 100% transparent, and want to explain what happened. I encourage everyone wanting to bring a product to market, to do so. It is a very time-consuming commitment. As has always been stated, and still stated on our website, our control system started out as a hobby between me and my son, and grew into a business. After showing other fellow camaro members what we had done, and several of them wanting systems, we decided to make a business out of it. My son was 15 at the time. He is now 20, and no longer has interest in the company. I have always maintained my day job, so after working 50+ hours a week at that, I spent another 20 or more on NightOwl. I have personally put several thousands of hours into this company and have taken out very little in profit. I never did any of this to get rich. If I would have been interested in that, I would have simply purchased chinese products, marked them up 1000%, charged dealers $5k to offer our products at 25% discount, and rack in enough money to afford a company-branded semi-truck. Instead, we have provided the best control system out there, provided service the way I would expect to be treated, and provide a warranty...again what I would expect from any company.

The halo kit was meant to be a product that we could use to help sell our control system...but our intention was always to focus on our control system, which was designed to work in any vehicle. When I was notified from our LED supplier last fall that they were not going to be able to manufacture our LEDs due to the flat-style housings being discontinued from their supplier, we were forced to do something. Either we find another supplier, and go through the extensive testing required for a durable product that is supportable, or we do what we had planned on doing originally...to focus on our controllers, and not car-specific kits. The 5th-gen camaro was getting older, and the sales of the kit had definitely declined in the last year. Put on top of that, my son, now 20, no longer had time or interest in continuing, I had to cut the product.

We started having a lot of troubles showing up with some LEDs on the halo kit. The first issues started showing up around April or May last year. One of the first customers to have an issue was an h-town customer. We promptly sent a replacement LED. It took a little time to determine that the issue was with a single batch of LEDs that we received from our supplier. Vibration and heat contributed to the issue. The LEDs worked fine initially, so it took receiving a couple of LEDs back to figure out what was going on. With this customer, we replaced both of the LEDs again with those of a new batch. So this was a total of 3 replacement LEDs (because we sent out the first replacement from the same batch...due to not yet understanding the issue). We have never sent any customer more than 3 LEDs, so I'm not certain how the story of someone replacing 6 LEDs got started. It wasn't that we were buying cheap LEDs. We had sampled some LEDs that I could import for about $3 each, but they were crap. We had a supplier that used industry-standard LED die suppliers, and after import taxes and shipping, we paid close to $10 each. These replacement LEDs, we paid not only for the replacement LEDs, but also a couple of dollars for wiring, connectors, and labor for solder wires. We also had additional shipping charges. All without hassle from us. I hate getting an email about an issue. I hate it for our customer as well. I would have gladly paid twice the price for perfect-quality LEDs. All of this contributes to the cost of our kits, and we were already the most expensive option out there. Coupled with diminishing sales for a previous-generation camaro, other options on the market...Diode Dynamics, etc, it didn't make sense to go through the sourcing/testing process again.

We still sell quite a few control systems for all kinds of cars. We also sell modules to existing customers wanting to expand. We'll continue to support our products for as long as we can. My day job has recently demanded 60+ hours per week, but I'll continue to do my best.

I have very many friends that I have gained from customers of NightOwl. I started on Camaro5 long before going into business. The first CamaroFest in Indianapolis (2011 I think), we demoed the system. The next Spring we brought it to market. It is probably 20 times more work than most people think. I didn't do it to get rich...just hoped to make a few dollars as some compensation for the thousands of hours invested. We didn't discontinue the product because we didn't want to deal with warranty. It was all about losing our supplier, and it not making sense to spend a lot of time and money sourcing new LEDs. Even if we did source new LEDs, I don't have the time required to build the kits. When we first started making the kits, we had another company doing the assembly. I started building the kits personally after the first year, as the quality from this assembler was not consistent. I personally built several hundred power harnesses, LED cables, extension cables, etc. I don't have the time or desire to keep building the kits. If someone wants to build a kit using our controllers, I'll work with them. But so far, I have only found people wanting to resell products. Not actually produce them.

Joe

[chef-beavis]

You're welcome, Joe.

And now we have the rest of the story. Anyone looking for the most kick ass control system out there, along with the knowledge of how to do your halos, you need look nowhere else!

[llcamaroguy]

Being another halo/ LED supplier i totally understand where you are coming from Joe.
For those that do not know(i found this out the hard way) to make an LED board through your manufacturer you have to first get the original product, in this case the stock RS led board, you then have to pay someone to make a 3D model in cad of that piece(unless you can yourself). then after that you submit it to your supplier and go back and forth 10000 times on what they require to cool and ensure proper voltage on the system until you come to a conclusion. Next you can get a production model which is just a couple sets which are 1 offs. Then in order to make sure your LEDs work you have to torture test the shit out of them for like a year(i usually have one on a flasher and one on all the time and them at some point do a freeze test and a heat test). After all that and around $1500 spent at the least to make 2 measly pieces... you fit into headlight and sometimes you find out, that the LED you chose has clearance issues or that the tiniest clearances prevent it from working, or even better that your suppliers LEDs are not up to par. So then you go back and work one problem at a time until you get a finished product.
Choosing LED suppliers is hard as well because they are all made in china(no matter what they tell you) and they all look almost the exact same chip to chip, and alot of them even claim to use name brand chips like samsung and phillips.... and you go a long time until you find a good one.
For those camaro's i have seen the night owl kit (i even have a couple burnt ones in my tool box for examples), it was well made and just could not regulate heat well possibly due to the imperfect seating of factory heat sinks?, the LEDs it used were good quality and i used the same ones for a while but they also had heat issues due to the coating(oracle has these same issues with their demon eyes) and have been discontinued for a rounded dome LED.

Being the first and only on the market is damn hard and night owl was the first to have a drop in replacements that did not require splitting the lights and also was the first multizone controller that was linkable and expandable. I took the easy road and watched others fail before doing this style LED. The kit i use removes the stock LED and heat sinks and replaces it with 2 rgbw LEDs that are self regulating as they are not on a heat sink but on a standard LED board or surface mounted on ABD plastic and much smaller LEDs but still just as bright. They also are not encased in silicon or epoxy which helps cool them but also means you cannot sandwich them up to the acryllic. I have not nor will i release this kit to the public until i have had enough people try them to confirm they will last. There is no worse call than when someone calls you to tell you something is wrong with something you built.

With all this being said Halo's are still the safest easiest way to get what you are looking for as they are produced in standard sizes instead of vehicle specific. (thats right the "camaro" kit for your car is just a standard halo with a large markup for the knowledge of knowing what size) There are also many many halo manufacturers that are pushing the boundaries of halo capabilities to have RGB micro SMD, RGBW neoprism, RGBWA neoprism sequential turn, and so so much more.
I have only sold 2 of the RGBW drop ins for camaro's due to the fact that i talk every single person into using my halos instead for longevity and brightness.

As far as the controller goes... the night owl was ahead of its time when it was released and is still a kick ass controller. But unfortunately in this industry you gotta make updates and new products every year to keep up. XKGlow produces an RGB controller that is smartphone controlled, waterproof, supports up to 8 zones(that i know of) and also includes a feature where you can specify your startup color and a wired input that will automatically change the color to whatever you want when energized(like for your DRL).

Joe, i totally understand and am sorry you also had issues with products and hope whatever you are doing now makes you happy! the anxiety is so much lower i am sure

[Rbriska]

Originally Posted by Snoman

While I believe "the response" he gave you was legit, he stopped selling because he was purchasing junk parts instead of spending the extra $10 and no longer wants to deal with the warranty issues. We had members replacing lights constantly and one member has replaced some portion of that kit over 6x. Regardless, we have a member that makes a far superior kit using much higher quality SMD 5V RGBWW.

What kit is that? Thanks

Thanks for all the clarification, Joe I wish you well in your future endeavors. Hopefully I can find an alternative.

[Snoman]

Originally Posted by Rbriska

What kit is that? Thanks

Thanks for all the clarification, Joe I wish you well in your future endeavors. Hopefully I can find an alternative.

Join the club for more info.

[Chad's ZL1]

Thanks for all the work Joe. My halo kit is,still going strong. NOOOOOOO issues.