Amazon: Faulty Twinkly Lights, Consumer Rights Act 2015

Grumpy_chap

A_Geordie said:

Deduction for use would need to be accounted for.

So, these Christmas lights were purchased 2022 and used / available for use for 2022, 2023, 2024 but failed for 2025.  That is at least 3 years' use.  Ultimately, whatever extra tricks are added, Christmas lights are low-value proposition items with a limited life expectancy.  The OP has been offered 25% discount off replacement. 

What life expectancy would typically be assigned to a set of Christmas lights?

Arguably, the 25% should be a refund but, assuming the OP wants the same type of lights for the future, the discount of a new purchase might be a reasonable way forward.  Especially if the OP can take that discount off the January sale prices currently on the Twinkly Lights site.

dodgy

Thanks for everyone's thoughts. My thinking was that the light have only been "used" for about 40 days, which doesn't seem a particularly long time for Christmas lights to last, although granted these 40 days were over the past three years. 

They were stored inside the house in a cupboard, but I suppose I'd have a hard time proving that. Equally, I guess I'd have a hard time "proving" I haven't left them outside turned on for the past three years, even though I haven't.

Guess it's time to throw in the towel on this. Thanks for everyone's thoughts.

A_Geordie

Grumpy_chap said:

A_Geordie said:

Deduction for use would need to be accounted for.

So, these Christmas lights were purchased 2022 and used / available for use for 2022, 2023, 2024 but failed for 2025.  That is at least 3 years' use.  Ultimately, whatever extra tricks are added, Christmas lights are low-value proposition items with a limited life expectancy.  The OP has been offered 25% discount off replacement. 

What life expectancy would typically be assigned to a set of Christmas lights?

Arguably, the 25% should be a refund but, assuming the OP wants the same type of lights for the future, the discount of a new purchase might be a reasonable way forward.  Especially if the OP can take that discount off the January sale prices currently on the Twinkly Lights site.

I have no concept of the quality or brand of Christmas lights but I would have thought that similar to a TV or smart lightbulbs, the life expectancy would be based on the number of hours that the lights are capable of being powered on. I'm sure it's not the only methodology or the best one, but it's just an example as to how I would look at it. 

It's the age old question of whether someone wants to spend the time and effort pursuing the matter, which in this case is likely going to be for a nominal amount of compensation. However, 25% discount does seem like a good offer from the retailer if the OP wants to repurchase the same or similar lights.

TELLIT01

The most likely cause of failure is probably the cable being kinked and damaged when putting back into the box or stringing them back out.  That doesn't need to be rough handling.  I agree with others that the offer of 25% off a new set is a reasonable offer.

saajan_12

dodgy said:

Thanks for everyone's thoughts. My thinking was that the light have only been "used" for about 40 days, which doesn't seem a particularly long time for Christmas lights to last, although granted these 40 days were over the past three years. 

They were stored inside the house in a cupboard, but I suppose I'd have a hard time proving that. Equally, I guess I'd have a hard time "proving" I haven't left them outside turned on for the past three years, even though I haven't.

Guess it's time to throw in the towel on this. Thanks for everyone's thoughts.

Well the point is its not just about being switched on, they can degrade during storage (even in a cupboard, they may be bent into an awkward shape). Using twinkly lights seasonally is the expectation not something unusual, so this would be ~ 3 years of normal use, not 40 days. 
There is still a question of how long they would be expected to last, but then having established that it still has to be shown it was a defect not something inadvertent in storage. 

Ergates

The normal lifespan of led lights is measured in thousands of hours.   Christmas lights *almost* always fail whilst in storage (i.e. they were working before you took them down in January, then then don't work when they're put back up in December (or whenever you put up your lights).

This is usually down to damage to the wiriing/connections that happens when they're put away.

However, this doesn't mean you don't have a case for the lights being insufficiently durable - a badly soldered connection and/or bad quality wiring is more likely to break.   For £168 is quite expensive for Christmas lights (unless it's a huge set) so I'd expect something quite robust for that much.