If you are getting quotes for permanent outdoor lighting around Austin, Oelo will probably be one of the names you compare us against. Both companies publish a 100,000 hour rating on their LEDs, both sell through local dealers, and both quotes will land in a similar range of promises. I own the TruLight dealership here, so read this with that in mind. For the side by side specifications, see our TruLight vs. Oelo comparison page. Once the hour ratings match, compare white output, track appearance, run design, and warranty labor.

The 100,000 hour number does not decide anything

Oelo's 2025 residential brochure lists a 100,000 hour rating. TruLight publishes a 100,000 hour rating as well. When both spec sheets say the same thing, that spec has stopped being useful for choosing between them.

It is also worth understanding what the number describes. A rated life figure is a manufacturer's projection for the light emitting diodes under test conditions. It is not a promise about the driver, the connectors, the wire, the cover, or the fasteners holding all of it to your fascia. Those components have their own failure modes and may have different warranty coverage, and none of them are covered by the 100,000 hours on the brochure. What covers them is the written warranty, which I will get to.

Set that spec aside and compare what follows. Ask both bidders the same questions in the same words, and make them answer in writing.

How the system makes white light

Color scenes are what these systems get demonstrated with. Warm white is the other setting, and if it is the one you plan to run between holidays, it deserves the most scrutiny, because it is the color you will be looking at on a normal Thursday in April.

TruLight puts six LEDs in every node: three RGB and three dedicated warm white. Separate white diodes emit white directly rather than mixing red, green and blue to approximate it. Oelo's 2025 residential brochure advertises 16 million hues. That figure describes the color range, not the internal architecture, so it does not tell you by itself how the fixture produces white.

Ask the Oelo dealer directly: does this node have dedicated white LEDs, or is white mixed from the color channels? Then ask both of us the follow up that matters more: can I stand in front of a finished house at night and look at your warm white on a wall like mine? Product photography is lit, edited, and shot at the best moment of dusk. Twenty minutes in a car after dark will tell you more than either company's spec sheet, this article included.

The cover is the part you see every day

The lights are off during daylight hours. What stays visible is the channel running the length of your eaves, and on light colored elevations a mismatched channel reads as a dark stripe across the front of the house.

In Austin that question usually lands on the exterior material. If your elevation is limestone, light stucco, or light painted fascia, a channel that is one shade off shows from the street, and the brighter the surface the more it shows. Oelo's 2025 residential brochure lists metal and acrylic cover options, which means there is a material choice to make on that quote, not just a color choice.

Get these answers in writing from both companies before you sign:

Which cover material and color is on my quote, and what are the alternatives?
Can the cover be matched to my existing fascia or trim color, and does that cost extra?
How is the track fastened, and into what part of the roof edge?
What does the written warranty say about the cover and the fastener hardware, and what is excluded?

That last question is the one worth pushing hardest on. Sun exposure here is the local variable, and the coverage document is where you find out who pays if a finish or a fastener does not hold up on a wall that bakes every afternoon from May through September.

Power and zone planning before hardware

TruLight runs on 48V. Voltage is only one input. Run length and injection needs also depend on wire gauge, current, connected load, controller limits, conductor length, and the manufacturer's design rules for that specific product. That is why the plan on paper tells you more than the number on the spec sheet. If your house is long and low, sits on a slope, or has a garage wing set well away from the nearest usable circuit, that is where the real design decisions get made.

Zones are the other half of the plan. Oelo's 2025 residential brochure lists six signal outputs, which the brochure describes as zones. That number is a design constraint worth mapping before anyone quotes hardware. If you want the front elevation, the garage wing, a porch, and a back patio to run different scenes on the same night, the zone plan has to support it.

Ask both dealers to put a plan on paper: how many power injection points does my house need and where do they sit, where does the transformer mount, how many zones am I getting, and which sections of roofline belong to which zone. Require both bidders to measure the house and document that final design before you sign, and require it on the quote itself rather than in a text message.

Who does the labor, and for how long

Per Oelo's warranty page, the term depends on who installs the system. Effective January 1, 2024, Oelo lists seven years for installations performed by an Authorized, Preferred or Platinum dealer, and five years when the work is done by a contractor or by the customer as a do it yourself install. The same page states that the first year covers product along with direct repair labor, and that later years are component only.

Read that second sentence again, because it is the practical one. Under a component only term, a covered failure in year four means the part is covered and the visit is not. So the number to ask about is not the warranty length, it is what a service call costs you in year four and who performs it, the manufacturer or the local dealer. Our current terms are on our warranty page, and the system details are on our permanent lighting page. Put both warranty documents side by side and read the exclusions before you compare the headline years.

One caution on everything above: manufacturers revise specifications and warranty language, and the version that protects you is the written warranty your dealer hands you, not a web page or a blog post. Everything here reflects the sources listed below as they read on August 10, 2026.

Sources

Oelo warranty, accessed August 10, 2026: effective January 1, 2024, seven year term for Authorized, Preferred and Platinum dealer installations and five year term for contractor or customer do it yourself installations; first year covers product and direct repair labor, later years are component only; first transfer must be registered within 60 days.
Oelo 2025 residential brochure, accessed August 10, 2026: six signal outputs described as zones, 16 million hues, metal and acrylic cover options, scheduling, Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Control4 support, 100,000 hour rating.
TruLight vs. Oelo comparison and TruLight warranty terms: 48V system, six LEDs per node with three RGB and three warm white, 100,000 hour published rating.

Get a written quote

Send us your roofline and we will put the zone map, the injection points, the cover material and color, and the warranty terms in writing so you have something real to hold the other bid against.

Get your free TruLight Austin estimate

TruLight vs. Oelo: What Austin Homeowners Should Compare