Honestly I've spent $2000 on this and literally bought every single credible bulb solution on the market, the top 6 brands of LED angel eyes, both brands of HID angel eyes and seen OSS LS3, Orb, and Umnitza angel eyes in person.
ALL of the solutions are less than stellar except for one or two, which I will get to later.
LED angel eyes:
- These are all not very good because none of them are remotely bright enough, the outer ring is practically invisible unless you are looking at them head on. You will notice how most pictures will show LED angel eyes from perfectly head on.
Even though these are brighter than BMW's halogen angel eyes, BMW's angel eyes don't need to be bright because the yellow color instantly makes them stand out, you see the color not the brightness. Because our headlight housing is white and so is daylight all LED angel eyes just do not stand out very well.
My personal favorite out of all the countless LED angel eyes are the Lux H8 and Angel iBright ones, I preffer Lux over AiB personally, because they have a more blue hue that makes them stand out more against the housing or daylight light, the Angel iBright bulbs are invisible in the day if you're not looking head on because they are too close to the color of daylight. BMW's own bulbs have a bluish purplish hue for this reason. AiB's match the stock headlights better though. Avoid all other brands because if the best ones aren't bright enough then anything else will just be pointless.
Again though ALL led angel eyes don't look very good because the outer ring looks so dim.
Here's an example and the Angel iBright v3 bulbs on an overcast day at an angle. The image is taken at a carefully selected angle to maximize the brightness of the outer ring on the right side. In reality the angel eyes will look 99% of the time like the left most rings where you can barley see the outer ring and the inner ring is somewhat bright.
In short, not good.
HID Angel eyes:
Camaross / Alpine Angel Eyes are the big players both make similar kits for a similar price with the same performance. These are 3 times as bright as any LED angel eye solution. The key issue with HID angel eyes is that they are extremely uneven. There is no reflector at all so 80% of the light goes into the inner angel eyes. While they are bright enough to be used instead of headlights at night they just look silly. Especially at night where they are too bright making the angel eyes have zero definition. Your lights will just look like a big blinding blob. These have the output but not the control.
The other deal breaker for me was that they were instant on and instant off so you didn't get the gradual fade in and out when you unlock/locked the car.
The outer ring will be about as bright or slightly brighter than LED solutions so really you're just paying for a blinding inner ring.
This is what HID angel eyes really look like:
In short, not good.
LED replacement ring headlights:
These aren't actually as ridiculously bright as people make them out to seem (hid angel eyes have a brighter inner ring for example), but the outer ring is the bightest out there.
The key problem with these is LED seperation, and the fact they could be brighter.
This isn't the best example but this is what LED seperation is:
Simply put except for 2 exceptions LED angel eye rings have huge gaps between each LED. Usually the gap is at least the size of one LED itself. The reasons for this are technical and economic, most of these rings are cheaply made by overseas manufacturers.
In short, not good enough.
The Two Exceptions:
The two exceptions to the rule are the OneEightNYC Orb replacement rings and the Umnitza v4 rings.
The OneEightyNYC rings have been out for a while but they aren't well known in the BMW community for some ridiculous reason. They have tight LED spacing and strong diffusors infront of each LED to make the gap between them very small:
They are bright, white visible in the day and uniform if not a little overwhelming at night.
The only solution I find acceptable though is the brand new Umnitza Orion v4 rings. These are new as of maybe a month ago and aren't technically going to be released for a week.
There is almost zero led speration, they are perfectly white, and they have a dimmer so they dim at night so they are better defined and not blinding.
The tessellation between the dark and light areas around the ring are about the size of a sheet of paper. It's just a contiguous ring.
Umnitza Orion v4 (right) vs previous best versions (left):
Now the Orion v4 rings aren't perfect, they don't fade in and out when you unlock the car, which may be a feature included in the future. In some online photos I've found it looks like the inner ring has some seperation in it, this is actually not the case, there is no seperation between the LEDs. What is happening is that the LEDs have different refresh rates (all LEDs quickly turn off and on to emit light) and in some cases the camera catches the LED as it dims towards it's off cycle which results in the edges of each LED darkening making them look smaller. In real life there is no seperation.
I realize sending your headlights in is a big deal, but turn around times are very quick and you'd be without a car for only a few days. It's more than worth it.
Summary: Lux H8/AiB or Umnitza Orion v4
Hope that helps.