Gemstone and Trimlight both sell a lifetime warranty, and the difference is in the fine print. Gemstone's warranty page gives its track lights a lifetime term and controllers and track for 10 years, if registered within 30 days. Trimlight's covers standard residential parts for their estimated lifespan, with ridge lights at 1 year. Trimlight sells 6, 9 or 12 inch spacing in protected territories from $5,499; Gemstone sells one 9 inch warm white node with no territories.
Written by the GlowBid founder; facts checked on each brand's site on October 25, 2026. Trimlight publishes its own Gemstone comparison; where I use it, the claim is credited to Trimlight. Neither company has a relationship with GlowBid.
Gemstone's lifetime is on the lights; Trimlight's is on the parts. That one word moves the controller, the track and the power supply into different columns.
Component
Gemstone
Trimlight
Roofline lights
Lifetime, on a manufacturer estimate of 50,000 hours
Lifetime, "for the manufacturers estimated lifespan of the parts"
Ridge lights
Not broken out
1 year
Controller
10 years
Control board under lifetime parts; software and Wi-Fi interference not covered
Track or channel
10 years
Under lifetime parts; the labour clause names channel finish
Power kits, cables, connectors
10 years
Under lifetime parts; the labour clause names power supply parts and connections
Floods, patio, landscape
Flood and patio lights 5 years
Landscape lights 10 years; globe lens 2 years
Registration
Within 30 days of install, or not honoured
Registration page linked; terms not stated on the warranty page
Transfer
Once, within 90 days of the new owner taking the house
Not stated on the warranty page
Fee if the part works
Not stated
Minimum $75
What "lifetime" means in years is worth doing on paper. Gemstone states 50,000 hours. A house that runs warm white 6 hours a night every night uses that up in about 23 years; at 12 hours a night, about 11. Trimlight's warranty page does not give an hour figure and says holiday-only use could reach 30 to 40 years and properly used components average 20 to 30. Either way, the homeowner who runs security white all night every night is the one to explain this to before they sign.
You do, on both, and on Gemstone you carry it from day one. Trimlight's page says labour comes from the local dealer for at least 1 full year, covering repairs of defective parts such as bulbs, power supply parts, controllers, connections and channel finish, and that some dealers offer longer. Gemstone's page says labour costs are not covered by Gemstone and your dealer may offer its own labour warranty.
That makes the Gemstone labour term entirely yours to write. Pick one, put it in the agreement, and price it into the install. On Trimlight the floor is set for you at one year.
Gemstone's spec sheet answers the white question more directly, with a dedicated warm white diode in every LED and whites from 2800K to 7000K; the full node build is on our JellyFish vs Gemstone page. For this pair, the useful number is power: up to 46 lumens and at most 1 W per Gemstone light at full white, against 0.6 W for Trimlight's single-LED Classic bulb.
Trimlight's own Gemstone comparison (accurate as of March 1, 2026, by its own date) describes Trimlight as RGB, with warm white, cool white and custom whites set in the app, and Gemstone as RGBWW. It also sells three bulb styles: the Classic with 1 LED, and the 3L and commercial bulbs with 3 LEDs. Trimlight's bulbs protrude from the channel and point down; Trimlight describes Gemstone's as puck-shaped.
What this means at the door: the customer who wants architectural white most nights of the year will ask about the warm white. The customer who wants the bulbs visible from the street, or a denser look, will ask about spacing and bulb style. Show both at night on the same fascia before you promise a colour temperature.
On Trimlight, spacing is the ladder; on Gemstone, scope is. Trimlight's 12, 9 and 6 inch options let you sell three packages on one roofline. On 150 lit feet that is 150, 200 or 300 nodes, so three product lines at three per-foot rates. Gemstone lists 9 inches only, which is 200 lights on the same 150 ft. Its good-better-best has to come from scope: front only, all sides, then floods, patio or deck lights, which Gemstone also sells.
Trimlight sells a map; Gemstone does not. Trimlight's territory starts at your zip code, runs a maximum one-hour commute edge to edge, and must cover every zip code in a city. The owner must live inside it. No dealer may market inside another's territory, though a neighbouring dealer can still sell a job in yours, and you do not have to hand over leads that fall in theirs. You must hit quota to grow it, and a year below 10 percent of quota with little contact can see it reopened to another dealer.
Gemstone's dealer page says there are no exclusive territories. The trade is plain: no territory fee, and no protection. If another Gemstone dealer opens across town, you are both selling the same brand to the same street.
Trimlight's door has a price on it; Gemstone's has a bar in front of it.
Trimlight: a one-time $5,499 (30 zip codes or fewer) or $10,499 (31 or more). Only the $499 demo kit and colour chips is spent; the rest comes back as product credit. No royalties. Training is two days in Salt Lake City on your own travel budget. The money buys the map.
Gemstone: no dealer fee, but starter inventory (its pages say up to $10,000, or roughly $10,000 to $15,000 excluding track), $2 million in liability insurance and a first job approved by a Gemstone rep, plus an unpublished annual minimum. The program page asks for 5 years in business and $2 million in annual revenue. The full onboarding list is on our JellyFish vs Gemstone page.
So Trimlight charges cash for protection, and Gemstone asks for a track record and offers no protection. For a Canadian installer, Gemstone is a Calgary company with ETL certification for Canada and the US; Trimlight is in Canada too: its dealer locator lists 330+ authorized dealers across the US and six provinces, Ontario among them, so check whether your area is already a territory before you plan on either.
Worked example: the install, then a year-three service call#
A two-storey with a front gable: 96 ft of roofline (40 ft on the upper storey), a 20 ft ridge line, 34 ft of peaks and one 8 ft jump. That is 150 lit feet, measured from one owned photo with the front door as the reference. You can price this house in the free tool and check the footage by run. GlowBid's default track line, US dollars before tax; installers set their own rates.
That is $29.61 per lit foot, inside Trimlight's published $18 to $35. On Gemstone it is 200 lights at 9 inches; on Trimlight it is 150, 200 or 300 nodes depending on the spacing sold.
Now year three. One node on the ridge line goes dark in December. Here is who pays what, using our $125 example call-out setting:
Year three, one dead node
Gemstone, registered
Gemstone, never registered
Trimlight, roofline node
Trimlight, ridge light
The part
$0, lifetime on track lights
Not honoured; part at your cost
$0, lifetime parts
Your cost; ridge lights are 1 year
The ladder
Yours, or the homeowner's per your agreement
Same
Same; the dealer labour floor was year one
Same
Example call-out
$125
$125
$125
$125
The install price did not change with the brand. The year-three bill did, and it depends on two things you control: registering the warranty, and what your agreement says about labour. Footage from a photo is an estimate; confirm it on site before track or channel is cut.
Pick Gemstone over Trimlight when the warranty paragraph is your strongest sales line: lifetime on the lights with no 1 year exception for a ridge light, and 10 years on controllers and track. It also suits a contractor who already meets the 5 year and $2 million bar and would rather not pay for a map. Accept that there is no territory, and that every labour promise is yours to write and price.
Pick Trimlight over Gemstone when you are newer than Gemstone's bar allows, when you want a dealer labour floor already set at one year, or when your packages are built on spacing rather than scope. The territory keeps other Trimlight dealers from marketing on your street. Note the ridge light term is 1 year, and price ridge lines knowing that.
Where Gemstone and Trimlight warranty promises go wrong#
Printing "lifetime" with no detail. Gemstone's covers the lights; Trimlight's covers parts but ridge lights get 1 year. Print the real terms in the scope block.
Charging nothing for a year-three call on an unregistered Gemstone job. The part is not covered and the ladder is yours. Registration is the cheapest step on install day.
Leaving Gemstone labour blank. Gemstone covers none, so you set it. Write the term and price it.
Selling a Trimlight territory as a guarantee. A neighbouring dealer can still sell a job inside it. Promise protection from marketing, not from every competitor.
Treating the ridge line like the roofline. On Trimlight the ridge light term is 1 year. Price the year-two part into the ridge run or the service fee.
Promising all-night security white on a lifetime warranty without the arithmetic. At 12 hours a night, 50,000 hours is about 11 years.
Homeowners: what does lifetime mean on your house?#
Ask the dealer what "lifetime" covers on the system you are buying, whether ridge lights or floods have shorter terms, who pays the labour after year one, and, on Gemstone, whether the warranty was registered within 30 days. On Trimlight, ask which spacing is on the quote. Trimlight publishes $18 to $35 per foot installed; Gemstone does not publish a price. Ask for footage by run either way.
Trimlight's territory and quota assume you sell Trimlight in your zip codes, and Gemstone's program is built for established dealers, so ask both in writing before you carry the pair. Whichever you carry, the warranty wording is where these two differ most, so it belongs on the quote the customer signs, not in a brochure.
In GlowBid, each brand and spacing is its own product line, drawn once on a photo you own; the footage, bill of materials and price come from the same runs, and the scope block on the quote PDF holds the brand's warranty terms and your labour term. The customer signs on their phone and pays a Stripe deposit, which carries Stripe processing plus a GlowBid platform margin under 1 percent, shown before you connect Stripe. When the year-three call comes, the signed scope block is the page you and the homeowner both read. Core is $69 a month or $299 a year, with a 7-day trial, no card, and a 30-day money-back on a first yearly payment. See the pricing. For the other side of each brand, read JellyFish vs Gemstone and Trimlight vs Oelo.
FAQ
Questions installers ask
Is Gemstone's or Trimlight's lifetime warranty better?
They cover different things. Gemstone's page gives the track lights a lifetime warranty on a 50,000 hour estimate and everything else, controllers and track included, 10 years. Trimlight's page covers all parts on standard residential lights for their estimated lifespan, with ridge lights at 1 year. Gemstone's is void if not registered within 30 days. Neither manufacturer pays labour; Trimlight requires its dealers to give at least one year.
Does Trimlight or Gemstone have a true warm white?
Gemstone says so on its spec sheet: a separate warm white diode in each LED, with whites from 2800K to 7000K. Trimlight's own Gemstone comparison describes Trimlight as RGB, with warm, cool and custom whites mixed in the app, and Gemstone as RGBWW. A mixed white and a diode white can look different on the same house, so run a night demo of both before you quote a colour temperature.
Do I get a protected territory with Trimlight or Gemstone?
With Trimlight, yes. The territory starts at your zip code, runs about one hour edge to edge, the owner must live in it, and no other dealer may market inside it, though a neighbouring dealer can still sell a job there. You must hit quota to keep it. Gemstone's dealer page says plainly there are no exclusive territories, so another Gemstone dealer can sell on your street.
How much does it cost to become a Gemstone or Trimlight dealer?
Trimlight: $5,000 plus $499 for 30 zip codes or fewer, or $10,000 plus $499 for more, with everything past the $499 demo kit credited to product, plus two days of training in Salt Lake City. Gemstone: no fee, but starter inventory (its pages say up to $10,000, or roughly $10,000 to $15,000 excluding track), $2 million in liability insurance and an approved first job.
What spacing should I quote on Trimlight versus Gemstone?
On Gemstone, 9 inches, because that is the only spacing it lists. On Trimlight, quote the spacing the customer saw in the mockup: 12, 9 or 6 inches. On 150 lit feet that is 150, 200 or 300 Trimlight nodes against 200 Gemstone lights. Give each spacing its own product line and per-foot rate, since the node count changes your cost.
Who pays for the ladder when a node fails in year three?
You do, unless your agreement says the homeowner does. Both manufacturers cover the part in year three: Trimlight for the part's estimated lifespan, Gemstone on its lifetime term for registered track lights. Neither manufacturer pays the labour, and Trimlight's one-year dealer minimum has run out by then. Write a service call fee into the agreement and price it so a December call is not a loss.