Seems to be two schools of thought out there at the moment.
A: You buy a budget-priced Chinese knockoff light and dispose of it in a couple years. Buy another new budget light when the old one becomes outdated.
B: You spend a high amount of money for the "best" light with the highest efficiency, etc. and hope that it doesn't get outmoded in a year or two.
I don't accept the premise that spending more equates to better quality or that cheap means my equipment will be outdated and/or broken in a couple (2?) years. For example, I still have working 2nd Gen Lumtek Ballasts - over 10 years old (before dimming and super lumens) - they'll still fire a DE. I also have cheapo Cali-ballasts (I think I paid <$100 - digital, dimmable fire DEs) that have never given me problems in ~5-6 years. Had some "high end" Galaxy ballasts, those died (along with everybody else's in my area) when we got hit with a power outage/surge, while my el-cheapo Cali's and ancient Lumteks survived that same power outage.
I wouldn't bother spending money on a Gravita LED (even though I've seen them produce excellent results), when you have the cheap China knock-offs at ~1/2 the price and are producing equally impressive results. I looked at the HLG stuff, I have no reason to believe they'll outlast the numerous knock-offs on Alibaba. Furthermore, since most of this stuff is made in China or from Chinese parts is Shenzen Meiju the knockoff or is Gravita the knockoff?
IMHO, alot of comes down to timing. IE, if bought the latest and greatest single-ended HPS hood right before the DE stuff started coming out, then that would have been a poor investment. Now that LED has caught up and surpassed DE HPS (in terms of umol/watt), investing in high end DE hoods and ballasts 1-2 years ago would have been a bad call.
If I were buying a light today, I'd go with an Alibaba light. If there is some sort of leap in technology that makes Shenzhen Meijiu lights outdated, then HLG's lights will also be outdated, so I may as well save some money in the meantime.
