LED Lights for Kids

December 4, 2020 11:16 AM

Please give me all ideas for cool LED lights for a kid's bedroom that don't take a lot of complicated setup. Also, any ideas for small gifts for an almost-10 year old who likes reading, biking, acting, and puns/jokes. Thanks!
posted by bookworm4125 to Shopping (7 answers total)

Ooh, I love LED lights, especially the ones that change colors. You can get LED light bulbs that let you pick what color you want OR even fade or strobe between them -- I got mine at Five Below, but I've seen them all over the internet. I put them in cheap lamps from Goodwill.

I have this great wireless Bluetooth speaker that will fade rainbow LED colors, or you can set it to 3 levels of warm white or just red.

Five Below actually has a whole LED tech section on their site.

Right now is a great time to buy LED light strands, since they're all out for Christmas. Joann has tons of coupons every day and also puts their holiday stuff on sale often.

Since he likes biking, I have these wheel lights too that are pretty great and customizable.

I'll see if I can think of anything else!
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:45 AM on December 4, 2020

This (the Amazon best-seller) is a long strip of sticky tape with bulbs. It's ugly (to this adult's eye) when off, and it might ruin the paint (haven't tried taking it off yet), but it's cheap, simple to put up, and allows the kid to play with all sorts of colors and patterns.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:45 AM on December 4, 2020 [3 favorites]

A headlamp? I think Black Diamond and Petzl make kid-sized ones (and possibly also have colors too).
posted by stillmoving at 11:49 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

See this Ask.Me. I am now hankering after these. You can add silk flowers to any light string, or these are cute. Lights can be draped over a window or mirror. Or put up a string of tiny lights on metal wire, use binder clips to attach photos, postcards, etc. I posted that link from Oriental Trading because they have lots of cute things for a teen or tween room. LED light strings sometimes have programmables twinkle/ flash, etc., with a remote, would be fun.
posted by theora55 at 12:01 PM on December 4, 2020

I have a set of Monkeylights for my bike and they are the best! The one I have, M232, will make little pictures in your wheels as you ride, like rocketships, flowers, patterns, etc. I've got it set at a skull and crossbones right now in order to give drivers the message not to kill me.

The Adafruit Circuit Playground is a small programmable device which has LEDs on it and you can also connect more. You can program it using scratch and do things like change the lights or make them activate on certain triggers.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:11 PM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

IKEA has had some fun options- we have a strand of multicolor star LEDs (kilometer is the name, not the length) and it’s soft enough that it can stay on overnight in the bathroom so sleepy people can use it without turning on regular lights.

We also use LEDs for evening rides -not as cool as these, thanks for a great ask!
posted by childofTethys at 12:29 PM on December 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

My 9yo daughter has the lights Mr.Know-it-some links to, and she loves them. It's been months now and she never turns them off and changes the colors pretty frequently. For our household, they were a huge it.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:42 PM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]