A framework, not a ranking
Permanent lighting brands compared: the seven questions that actually separate them
Nearly every comparison of these systems online is written by one of the manufacturers or by somebody who sells one of them. This one is written by an installer who sells none of them, and it does not pick a winner.
Quick Answer
How do you compare permanent lighting brands?
Buzz Lighting compares permanent lighting brands on seven checkable things: Ontario certification, the lifespan claim, warranty scope, who honours it, fixing method, cold rating and app control. Brand names are the weakest signal here, because Gemstone Lights, Trimlight and JellyFish Lighting all sell through authorised dealer networks according to their own websites — so the contract, the ladder and the phone call in year six belong to a local installer, not to the manufacturer. Buzz Lighting installs none of those systems and is not a dealer for any of them, which is why this page hands you a checklist rather than a ranking. The same checklist works on our quote.
What you should know before you read a word of this
Buzz Lighting does not install Gemstone, Trimlight, JellyFish or EverLights. We are not an authorised dealer for any of them, we earn nothing if you choose one, and we have not held their hardware or read their warranty documents.
That is precisely why there is no specification table below: setting four brands’ marketing figures side by side would look like research and be nothing of the kind. Every figure here belongs to a named regulator or a named company’s own website, is linked, and was checked on 11 August 2026. What follows is the framework we would use ourselves, written so it points at our quote as easily as anyone else’s.
The framework
Seven questions, and what a real answer looks like
Take these to every quote you collect. A company that can answer all seven in writing is telling you more about itself than any brochure will.
Question 1
Who makes it, and who are you actually signing with?
Almost every well-known brand here sells through an authorised dealer network rather than direct. Gemstone Lights says on its own About page it was founded in Calgary, Alberta in 2016 and that an Authorized Dealer arranges the measure and the quote. Trimlight states it is based in West Jordan, Utah, founded 2010, with more than 300 authorised dealers across the U.S. and Canada. JellyFish Lighting states it began in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2016, with over 300 Authorized Dealers across the U.S. The brand on the sticker is one company; the one climbing your ladder in year six is another.
Ask for this, in writing: The legal name of the entity on the contract and the manufacturer name, written separately. Every question below has two possible answers because of it.
Question 2
Is it approved for use in Ontario?
A jurisdiction question, not a quality one, and Ontario has a hard rule about it. The Electrical Safety Authority states that before an electrical product is used, sold, displayed or advertised for sale in Ontario it must be approved by an accredited certification or evaluation agency, and it publishes the marks it recognises. A system warehoused outside Canada is not automatically inside that rule.
Ask for this, in writing: The certification mark on the product and the accredited agency behind it. Not the sentence "it is certified" — the mark, and who issued it.
Question 3
What is the lifespan number based on?
Every brand publishes an hours figure or a lifetime claim and invites you to compare them as though they were measured the same way. In Canada these are not only marketing. Section 74.01(1)(b) of the Competition Act covers a representation about the performance, efficacy or length of life of a product not based on an adequate and proper test, and the Competition Bureau is explicit that the test must come before the claim and the proof lies on whoever makes it.
Ask for this, in writing: What the test was, and whether the diode, the fixture or the whole assembly carries the number. You are asking for something the law already requires them to hold.
Question 4
What does the warranty cover, and who performs it?
Where two near-identical brochures separate hardest, and it is almost never one number. Parts, labour and the callout are three commitments with three terms. A lifetime part that needs a paid truck roll and a ladder to swap is not the same product as one where the visit is included. On a dealer model, two companies can also fail independently.
Ask for this, in writing: Parts, labour and callout listed separately with a term against each, who physically performs the repair, and what happens if either company stops trading.
Question 5
How does it fix to your fascia — not to a diagram?
The question that ends the brand comparison, because the same channel fixed two ways gives you two different houses in year eight. GTA rooflines are mostly aluminium fascia over a wood sub-fascia, and a fastener gripping only the aluminium skin works loose. Vinyl trim ovals its own hole over a couple of winters, and older Etobicoke and North York wood fascia can be soft where water has sat.
Ask for this, in writing: The fixing detail for your elevation rather than the brochure: what the fastener is, what it lands in, the spacing, and how penetrations are sealed.
Question 6
What is the cold rating, and which document holds it?
An ingress rating describes dust and water. It says nothing about how a sealed channel behaves at minus twenty-five with an ice dam building at the eave, or after a hundred freeze-thaw cycles between December and March. That number exists somewhere. Read it rather than assume it.
Ask for this, in writing: The manufacturer-stated operating temperature range, and separately what the warranty says about ice, snow load and water at the eave. Two documents, and they do not always agree.
Question 7
What do you still own if the app goes away?
These are app-controlled systems, and some route scheduling or scenes through a manufacturer's cloud account. That is a dependency on somebody else's future commercial decisions, bolted to your house. It may be an acceptable trade. It is only a bad one if nobody told you it existed.
Ask for this, in writing: Whether the controller keeps a schedule with no internet connection, whether any subscription exists or is contemplated, and where the controller physically lives.
The part no manufacturer writes about
What differs at install time
Read these brands against each other for an afternoon and you come away thinking the product decides the outcome. On a GTA house it mostly does not. The fixing does.
The long straight eaves of newer Brampton and Churchill Meadows elevations are half the labour of a Lorne Park roofline with four gables and a dormer, and the second is where a channel either follows the architecture or fights it. That is not on a spec sheet, because it is not a property of the product. Nor is the seam a dealer model creates: the manufacturer warrants the hardware, the local installer warrants the workmanship, and most of what goes wrong in year three is workmanship. See how the track fixes to a fascia for what that detail should contain, and how the install runs for the order it happens in.
Three things we will not tell you
Which brand is best. An installer who has not tested them and ranks them anyway is telling you which one pays the best margin, whether they mean to or not.
What their warranties say. Warranty documents change, differ by market, and differ between the manufacturer’s paper and the dealer’s. Get theirs from them, in the version that applies in Ontario, dated.
What any of it costs. Buzz Lighting has not published a rate card yet and will not invent a range to fill the gap. Price is driven by covered roofline in linear feet, storeys, peak access and how many separate runs an elevation needs, which is why the number comes after an on-site measure. What drives it is set out on the pricing page.
Show your working
Where every claim on this page came from
Six sources, linked, checked on 11 August 2026. Anything above not covered by one of these is a description of our own method rather than a fact about a product.
- Electrical Safety Authority — recognised certification marks
That an electrical product must be approved by an accredited agency before it is used, sold, displayed or advertised for sale in Ontario.
- Competition Bureau Canada — Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest, Volume 2
Section 74.01(1)(b) of the Competition Act on statements of performance, efficacy or length of life; that the test must come before the claim; that the proof lies on whoever makes it.
- Government of Ontario — signing or cancelling a contract
That a contract signed at your home can be cancelled for any reason within 10 days of receiving a written copy.
- Gemstone Lights — About
Founded in Calgary, Alberta in 2016; an Authorized Dealer arranges the measure and the quote.
- Trimlight — About Us
West Jordan, Utah, founded 2010; more than 300 authorised dealers across the U.S. and Canada.
- JellyFish Lighting — About
Began in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2016; over 300 Authorized Dealers across the U.S.
The three brand sources are cited for corporate facts only — headquarters, founding year and dealer structure. No product performance claim on this page is taken from them. Gemstone Lights, Trimlight, JellyFish Lighting and EverLights are the trade marks of their respective owners, and nothing here is endorsed by or affiliated with any of them.
Questions & answers
On choosing a system
For what the product category actually is, start at permanent outdoor lighting.
Which permanent lighting brand is best?
We are not going to answer that, and be careful with anyone who does. Nearly every ranking online is written by one of the manufacturers or by a dealer who sells one of them. Buzz Lighting installs none of them and has not tested their hardware, so a ranking from us would be an opinion dressed as a finding. The seven questions above work on any quote, including ours.
Do you install Gemstone, Trimlight, JellyFish or EverLights?
No, and we are not an authorised dealer for any of them. They are named because they are what GTA homeowners search before they search for an installer, and because their own websites describe the authorised-dealer structure this page asks you to understand before signing anything.
Why will you not publish a comparison table of specs?
Because it would mean copying numbers off marketing pages and setting them side by side as though we had verified them. We have not. Under Canadian law a length-of-life claim rests on an adequate and proper test held by whoever makes it, which is a good reason to get those figures from the party who owns them.
What does Buzz Lighting install, then?
Ask, and your quote names the manufacturer and the product line and carries their published figures for rated life, ingress protection, cold-weather range, power draw and warranty term, attributed to them as their numbers. That is the standard this page asks you to hold every other quote to.
The quote will be signed at my house. Does that matter?
It can work in your favour. The Government of Ontario states that a contract signed at your home can be cancelled for any reason within 10 days of receiving a written copy of the agreement. That is a real window to read the warranty document properly rather than at the kitchen table.