Greg Cuellar
Character Illustration

Nathaniel Verlee
Engineering Consultant

Finn Tomco
Model

Richard Ruggiero
“Trust Tru-Tone” Jingle

The Tru-Tone Story

Tru-Tone Bulbs began as a passion project for designer David Andora. David, who lived and worked in Chicago in a variety of creative fields, often used vintage inspired design and atmospheric lighting in his projects. The practicality of LEDs was a natural fit for many of these, and as they became more versatile and affordable he kept hoping to see an updated version of the classic “big bulb” Christmas lights that defined his childhood holidays. What could be better than recapturing that warm comforting glow and leaving the burnt fingers, blown fuses, and smoldering trees in the past? Unfortunately, Christmas LED makers continually failed to meet those expectations, focusing instead on the saturated, electronic hues of colored diodes and the novelty of programmable and app controlled light sets. With his experience, a decent understanding of LED technology, and an awareness of new developments in components and processes, David knew that making these lights was possible, but no one had bothered to do it yet.

Taking matters into his own hands, he spent a year and a large chunk of his savings working with manufacturers to develop his ideal vintage-style LED Christmas bulbs. All aspects of the LED filament and bulb, including wattage, brightness, color-temperature, glass shape, and color coatings required multiple rounds of finicky fine-tuning before arriving at the result: an LED Christmas bulb nearly indistinguishable from vintage incandescent. In addition to product development, David has continued to work tirelessly and nearly single-handedly at all the other aspects of the business including marketing, customer service, social media content, all the graphics and the website.

Since their initial launch Tru-Tone bulbs have been immensely popular and have brought nostalgic Christmas joy to thousands of satisfied customers. David and Tru-Tone continue to improve upon their existing products and are always working to add new vintage inspired products to their roster, and to continue their mission of bringing old-fashioned charm to the holidays.