Are net lights worth it?

The direct answer: yes, on bushes and hedges, where a net is genuinely the best product available and not a compromise at all. No, almost anywhere else. A net is a grid with its spacing fixed at the factory, which is exactly what a shrub wants and exactly what a roofline, a tree trunk or a porch column does not. The reason net lights have a mixed reputation is that they get bought for the second group on the strength of how well they do the first.

What you are actually buying

A net light is a rectangular mesh of wire with bulbs at every intersection. The value is not the bulbs — they are ordinary mini LEDs — it is that somebody has already solved the spacing problem. On a bush, which has no logical path for a strand to follow, that is worth a great deal: you drape it and the light is already even.

The sizes on the market are narrower than people expect, and the size is what determines whether a net fits your job. Christmas Lights Etc publishes 4 x 6 ft as the standard, covering a shrub up to about three feet tall and wide; 4 x 8 ft in incandescent only; 2 x 6 ft and 2 x 8 ft as tree-wrap strips; and 6-inch spiral wraps at 12 and 15 feet for trunks and columns.

The case for: three things a strand cannot do

1. Time. Hand-wrapping a bush with a strand is a twenty-minute job per bush, and the result is uneven because the strand ends up wherever your arm could reach. A net is a thirty-second job: Christmas Lights Etc's guidance for a square bush is to start at a corner and drape it the way you would wrap a present.
2. Evenness. The spacing is fixed by the wire, so there are no dark patches and no bunching unless you drape a round bush horizontally — which is the one mistake to avoid, and the fix is to hang it vertically in overlapping panels instead.
3. Connection count. This is the underrated one. Christmas Lights Etc publishes 45 commercial LED net sets connectable end to end on a single outlet, against 6 for commercial incandescent and 3 for standard residential incandescent. On a ten-bush foundation bed, LED nets mean one cord run and incandescent nets mean four.

The case against: two real drawbacks

Both of these are genuine and neither gets mentioned on product pages.

• A net cannot be shortened. A strand can be run to the length you need and the excess tucked away or cut at a socket on some commercial lines. A net is a fixed rectangle: if your bush is 3 ft 6 in wide, the 4 x 6 ft net hangs over the edges, and the only remedy is to fold it, which doubles the light in the fold. Measure your shrubs before you buy, because the size steps are coarse.
• Nets are harder to store and easier to damage. A net has far more wire per bulb than a strand and no natural way to coil, so it goes back in the box as a tangle, and a snagged intersection is a break in the insulation that you will not find until next November. Fold it flat the way it arrived rather than balling it up — see the best storage bags and bins.

LED or incandescent, if you are buying nets

Buy LED. The connection limit above is the deciding reason — a foundation bed is the one application where you chain many sets off one receptacle, and the published limits differ by a factor of fifteen. The secondary reasons are the usual ones: less heat against living foliage, far lower draw so the bed does not eat a circuit, and no filament to break when a net is folded for storage.

The one thing incandescent nets still have is the 4 x 8 ft size, which has no LED equivalent. If you have genuinely large bushes, that size exists only in incandescent, and the alternative is two LED nets overlapped. The full comparison is in LED vs incandescent Christmas lights.

The verdict

If the question is whether to light your bushes with nets or with strands, buy nets and do not think about it further — this is one of the few places in outdoor Christmas lighting where the convenient option is also the better-looking one. If the question is whether nets can replace strands generally, the answer is no, and the pages that imply otherwise are selling convenience that does not survive contact with a roofline.

For the sizing and the draping method in full, see the best Christmas lights for bushes. For what to buy specifically, the best net lights covers the current sets and their published specifications.