What is being referred to as "Xenon" here is really incandescent bulbs. Smaller incandescent bulbs (like the type found in old-style flashlights for example) have a much lower color temperature, and as a consequence the light typically feels very orange-colored and dull. Bulb designs filled with Xenon gas help compensate for this, to some extent. I can get much more into the technical details if you want, but that is the basics of it.

In general though, Xenon will still give off a lower color temperature than halogen, so if you really want a brighter whiter color of light, Xenon is probably not the best option.

LED is probably the best option for undercabinet lighting, but can oftentimes be overly pricey. If color rendering is an important consideration, you might want to look into high CRI LED lighting, because under regular LED lighting colors can appear just a little grey-washed or yellowish. This is likely to be even more pricey though. Incandescent bulbs (which includes Xenon and halogen) are just not particularly well suited to undercabinet strip lighting. For one thing, when there are multiple bulbs each with a lower wattage, the color of light is confined to the very warm white color territory. Then there are always bulbs burning out that need to be replaced. There are many different options, and they all carry their own subtle advantages and trade-offs. All undercabinet lighting is kind of overpriced, in my opinion, so unless you are really looking to create a dream kitchen, you might want to consider going without it.

Thank you, parker, for your comments and information. The color of the lighting isn't THAT important. I will have to weigh all issues - particularly around heat. Silly me, was in a store and wanted to feel the heat generated by a halogen bulb. The lens cover had been popped off and I touched the bulb, thinking it was the lens, and got a nice burn on my finger.

Under cabinet lighting is very important to us. We have it on one side of our kitchen but not the other and find that we really need the additional light on the work surface. Plus, we're at that age when our eyes need extra light.

Thanks again.

Direct wire LED UCL lighting from reputable manufacturers have a significant amount of heat sinking that would handle the heat output.

LED lighting is typically rated for > 30,000 hrs even for A lamp bulbs with smaller heat sinks than UCL.

Typically the kitchen heat is at the cooktop, which is lit by the range hood. The cabinets tend to be far enough that under cabinet lights wouldn't get hot.

The led strips we have are connected with a couple wire nuts to the house wiring - no big deal for you to replace.

LED they say it consumes lesser energy too.

Thanks everybody for your replies. We've decided to move forward with LED.

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I have xenon and want to replace with LED. Those little xenon bulbs get hot. You can get good color from LEDS, but at the time we installed the xenon, the LEDs availbale all tended to be too cool and look blue-white. There are better options now.

If you already spent the money on the xenon undercabinet lighting, it's probably not worth it to spend the money to convert to something else. The only exception might be if you live in a hot climate and spend a lot of money on air conditioning, and the kitchen lighting gets left on for long periods of time throughout the day.

The one good thing about xenon (or any other form of incandescent) is that they have good color rendering. The color of food and other objects under xenon lighting will not look sickly. If you switched to LED you would likely be paying substantially more if you wanted to go with "high CRI" LED.

Generally I only recommend high CRI if there are deep brown wood colors you want to accentuate, because standard LED lighting can often make these wood hues appear unattractively yellowish and grey. Unless you don't care about appearances and just want more light.

Also, if you do go with LED strip lighting, make sure the product does not have flicker. Because many lower-quality LED strip lights do have flicker issues. Most stores have a display where you can observe the light being on. Wave a pencil really fast back and forth between your fingers in front of the light source to see if you observe any strobe effect.