X2 LED Grow Lights, which from Hydro Grow, makes a big show at this year's San Francisco Indoor Gardening Expo. In addition, it provides in a public setting to have higher photosynthetic output and 55% less power consumption compared to a 1000W HPS.

San Francisco has become a Mecca for indoor gardeners each July by hosting the largest show for hydroponics equipment in the US.

One of the newest products to the hydroponics industry is LED Grow Lights, with several well-known manufacturers in attendance at this year's show. The show is one of the only places consumers will see products from Hydro Grow, Kessil, Lumigrow, Apache Tech, California Lightworks, and others on display in one room for all to compare. After comparing all of the LED Grow Light companies at this year's show, one of them literally stood out above the rest.   

The largest of the booths for LED Grow Lights this year belonged to Hydro Grow, who also had the largest product showing of any LED Grow Light manufacturer. Their booth towered over all others located on the same floor, with "Extreme LED Grow Lights" displayed 10 feet in the air for all to see. The Hydro Grow booth was truly unique, with a Feng Shui design showcasing their round 21X-PRO and square 84X-PRO models over beautiful flowering plants. On top of this was the first ever public side-by-side comparison of a 1000W HPS and their latest 336X-PRO LED Grow Light.

"We're the only company in the world who can prove our LED Grow Lights beat HID grow lights", stated Donnie, a member of the Hydro Grow team. He then proceeded to demonstrate to attendants how at 48" the 336X-PRO at only 520W of power was producing 20% higher photosynthetic light output compared to the 1000W HPS at 1150W. "Better yet" he said "the 336X-PRO operates about four times cooler than the HPS," as he then grabbed an infrared temp gun and demonstrated this fact. This demonstration from Hydro Grow was the only one of its kind at the event, and a testament to the level of confidence the company has in their own products.   

The "X2" LED Grow Lights as they are called, are the latest incarnation of the Extreme LED product line manufactured by Hydro Grow. X2 replaced the X1 models developed in 2011, delivering 25% more intensity to consumers in a smaller overall form factor. "The secret to our intensity" stated Donnie, "is our patent-pending X-Lens technology which concentrates the output from the LEDs. The X-lens gives our products up to 6x more intensity vs. standard lenses used in competing LED Grow Lights." Aside from the lensing which was unique to Hydro Grow, was their modular build platform. The X2 lights were the only in attendance using a modular design wherein each part operated and was serviceable independent of the others.        

Browsing by competing LED Grow Light booths were many nice looking and colorful products, but none that stood out more than Hydro Grow. The sheer intensity of X2 left passers stunned that LEDs could produce such results and the modular build design displayed engineering intelligence that was simply unmatched.

Overall this year's Indoor Gardening Expo in San Francisco showed a lot of diversity in gardening equipment, and many impressive displays.