LED Light Bar Buying Guide: 20-Inch vs 50-Inch, and How to Choose

There is a moment on every night run when the trail opens up, the trees fall away, and your headlights simply run out of road. The ruts keep going. The wash keeps dropping. Your lights just stop telling you about it in time. That is the moment a light bar exists for. One switch, and the whole world in front of your rig turns back on, wide and white and honest, far enough ahead that you can actually drive the speed the trail deserves.

A light bar is the heavyweight of your lighting setup: a single housing carrying a row of driving LEDs that throws a broad, long beam no pair of headlights can match. But the modern bar does double duty. Parked at camp, lined up at a show, or rolling through town on cruise night, the same bar carries an RGBIC position light that turns your front end into the most recognizable rig in the lot. One bar, two personalities: work light when you need to see, show light when you want to be seen.

Here is how to pick the right one.

What to look for when you buy a light bar

Size decides placement, and placement decides everything. A 20 inch bar tucks into bumpers, sits on hoods, and fits the front of smaller rigs without taking over the build. A 50 inch bar owns the roofline, spans the windshield, and turns night into a floodlit field. Measure your mount first, then shop. Buying the bar before you know where it lives is how garages fill up with returns.

Output is watts and LED count, not adjectives. Ignore any bar sold on adjectives alone. Real output comes from real hardware: total wattage and the number of LEDs producing it. A serious 20 inch bar should be running well past 150 watts, and a full width 50 inch bar should be in another league entirely. The beam pattern matters just as much: look for a driving pattern that reaches down the trail, paired with a position light for visibility and style.

The color system should never cost you the white beam. Plenty of cheap bars make you choose between color and an actual driving light. The right design keeps both in one housing: a true bright white driving beam for the trail, and an RGBIC position light for color, running on its own wire and its own switch so each does its job independently.

Control and build close the deal. App control means your color scenes live on your phone, ready for the show field. And because a bar lives on the front line of weather and gravel, it should be built like it: aluminum housing, stainless steel brackets that will not rust out, and a tough polycarbonate lens. A slim body profile keeps the bar tucked close instead of perched like luggage.

The Shoreline options

The all-rounder: Pro Series 20 inch RGBIC Lightbar, $249.99. This is the bar for bumpers, hoods, and rigs that still daily drive. It pushes 180 watts from 36 high-performance 5W LEDs, with a beam pattern that combines the driving light and the position light. The body is just 63mm thick, so it mounts tight and clean. Wiring is color coded: red for the bright white beam, yellow for the RGB effects, black for ground. The RGBIC color runs through the LotusLamp X app.

The statement: Pro Series 50 inch RGBIC Lightbar, $599.99. Built for the roofline of a serious build. Actual length is 49.2 inches, and inside that housing sit 96 LEDs at 5 watts each for 480 watts total, behind a straight reflector design with a driving pattern and an RGB position light. Aluminum housing, stainless steel brackets, polycarbonate lens, and the same slim 63mm body as its little brother. Land the RGB wire on its own switch, separate from the white beam, and you have a trail weapon and a show piece sharing one mount. Both bars live in the Pro Series Light Bars collection.

Fits your rig

Light bars are universal. If your rig has a bumper, a hood line, or a roofline, there is a bar and a mount for it, and you will see our bars on Wranglers, Gladiators, Broncos, Tacomas, and full size trucks alike. To see how a bar fits into a complete setup for your machine, visit the rig pages for the Wrangler JL, Wrangler JK, Bronco, Tacoma, and trucks, or check your build with Find Lights for Your Rig.

Install and support

Full installation instructions, including the color-coded wiring, live on each bar's product page. Every Shoreline light bar is backed by our 2-year warranty, and our authorized dealers and installers can handle the mount and wiring if you would rather hand it off.

From Coast 2 Krawl we light it all.

Q: Should I buy the 20 inch or the 50 inch bar?
A: Start with placement. The 20 inch suits bumpers, hoods, and daily driven rigs. The 50 inch is a roofline bar with 480 watts for builds that want maximum output and presence. Measure your mount, then decide.

Q: Is the RGB color the driving light?
A: No. The bright white beam is the driving light. The RGBIC is a position light woven into the same housing, wired on its own circuit so you run color and beam independently.

Q: What app controls the light bars?
A: The RGBIC color runs through the LotusLamp X app, while the white driving beam works off your switch like any work light.