SANSI Grow Lights – LED Grow Light Testing and Review

Here at Pepper Geek, we’re big on highly functional, affordable indoor grow lights. When we saw some fellow pepper growers using SANSI grow lights for starting pepper seeds indoors, we were intrigued…

SANSI was kind enough to provide the two lights in this article for our review. Product links in this article are affiliate links.

Our main goal with these SANSI LED lights is to test their ability to grow healthy, strong pepper plants. The two lights we are testing are the 60W foldable LED light, and the 70W hanging LED light. These two lights come in very different designs, but offer similar light output and power usage.

We like that SANSI offers a generous 5-year warranty for their products (US and Canada only). They also have a dedicated customer service team available should you encounter any issues with your lights. We appreciate a company that stands behind their products.

In this post, we’ll share our experience with both of these SANSI lights, adding progress updates over time.

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60W LED Grow Light

We’ll start with the 60W collapsible unit. This unique design is foldable for convenient storage. It also plugs directly into a traditional lightbulb socket, which may be convenient for some. However, it does not come with a ready-to-use power cable.

If you don’t have one already, you will have to buy a separate lightbulb socket to power this unit (like this on Amazon).

About:

• Dimensions: 17″x17″x3.5″ (opened) or 6″x6″x7″ (collapsed)
• Power consumption: 55W
• Power source: 120V lightbulb socket
• Lifespan: 50,000 hours (claimed)

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Form Factor

The 60W SANSI grow light has a unique form factor. The foldable design makes it easy to store when not in use. The ability to fold the arms also offers the advantage of being able to manipulate the direction the light is pointing.

Each arm contains 3 circles of LEDs for a total of 12 units. There is no LED in the center of the grow light. This shouldn’t be an issue for lighting a large tray of seedlings from a higher distance as the light is spread pretty evenly. However, you may want to avoid placing a single plant directly in the center.

Another interesting choice in this design is the Edison Screw base. This light does not come with a power cable, but instead must be plugged into a standard lightbulb socket. This means that the light is not ready for use out of the box unless you have the necessary power cable or connection on hand.

Price

Pricing is a major benefit of the SANSI LED brand. High quality LED grow lights are notoriously expensive. At around $50-60 for the 60W light depending on the source, the price is mid-range.

Power Rating

As with many affordable LED grow lights, the light’s wattage is slightly misleading. The light claims to use 60 watts of power, but only draws around 55 watts from the wall. This could have something to do with the onboard driver being powered through a lightbulb socket.

Our reading of the 60W light’s intensity at 12″ is significantly lower than that of the 70W light. We don’t have the expensive equipment needed to properly test the PAR value of these grow lights. However, our basic foot-candle readings can at least show comparative brightness.

Using the same light intensity reader at 12″ from the light source, here are the results:

• SANSI 60W: ~ 200 foot-candles
• SANSI 70W: ~ 500 foot-candles
• HLG 100 V2: ~ 2,300 foot-candles (for comparison, our primary 100W grow light)

Since the light actually draws more power than the 70W, it may simply be scattering more light away from the grow area. In other words, the 70W light casts more concentrated light.

With this level of light output, this 60W light is perfectly capable of starting pepper or tomato seeds indoors in the spring. It may also be enough to grow medium-sized plants through to fruiting indoors.

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70W LED Grow Light

SANSI’s 70W grow light comes in a more standard shape and size that indoor growers are more accustomed to. The light is easy to hang with the included hook and wire, and plugs directly into a 120V outlet. For added value, this light is water resistant, which means you won’t have to worry about misting your plants and short-circuiting your grow light.

About:

• Dimensions: 7″x7″x1.5″
• Power consumption: 49W
• Power source: Built in
• Lifespan: 50,000 hours (claimed)

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Form Factor

The 70W SANSI LED has a significantly smaller size at just 7″x7″. This makes it more convenient for smaller grow spaces. The light also comes with a simple hook and wire mechanism, making it super easy to set up and hang the light at the desired height above your plants.

The light can be mounted a few ways, but we found that hanging from the center hole was best for our setup. It can also be mounted directly to the wall and tightened to remain at any angle.

Most importantly, this light comes with a built-in power supply and power cord. For these reasons, we prefer this light over the folding unit.

Price

The price is only slightly more than the 60W option, but the 70W will likely be more appealing for most setups. When you consider that the 60W requires a light socket to function, the 70W LED is almost a no brainer.

At around $60, the 70W light from SANSI is a reasonable price, even considering actual power draw is only around 50W.

Power Rating

As with the 60W light, the 70W light is not true to actual power consumption. This light actually draws less power from the wall at around 49W.

With this level of power, the light is perfectly capable of growing strong seedlings for transplanting outdoors. It should also be perfectly suitable for growing herbs or leafy greens.

We haven’t tested this light for growing bigger fruiting plants, but we’re excited to see the results. Check back on this page for our growing progress through the season.

This light puts out a noticeably warmer light than the 60W model. Warmer light (more red-shifted) is typically better for flowering stage while cooler light is best for vegetative (leafy) growth.

If you plan to grow plants through to fruiting, the 70W light will likely be a better choice.

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Overall Thoughts on SANSI LED Lights

These two lights offer similar performance, but have some major differences. The 70W light has slightly less power, but has a much more appealing form factor. The 60W light has a cool look, but doesn’t serve much practical purpose for our use.

We also really like the bright, full spectrum white light that both of the SANSI lights produce. We can only tolerate those groovy purple and blue lights for so long. We would be happy using this for other purposes when we’re not using it for growing.

SANSI also has a huge selection of other grow light options. They come in a wide range of both power and form factors. From the relatively dim 10W Edison Screw bulbs all the way to the beefy 400W grow light.

Our only concern with SANSI grow lights is the incorrectly advertised power output and consumption. This trend of misleading wattage is concerning for growers. We want to know exactly how much energy a light generates for both our electric bills and for our plants!

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Grow Updates

Check back here for updates on our experience with our 2 SANSI grow lights.

In this section, we will provide updates on our experience with our two SANSI lights. We are starting by using these lights to grow small pepper plants indoors over the winter. As the plants grow, we will give our thoughts on how well the lights are performing.

• Update 11/4: Set up SANSI 70W light on our 2-week-old pepper seedlings. Hung at 15″ height above plant foliage. Light is set to on for 13 hours per day.

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• Best grow lights for peppers
• Recommended growing supplies for peppers