An LED lighting device includes an auxiliary power supply that supplies power to a control circuit of the LED lighting device that receives an input from a terminal of a light-emitting diode (LED) string of the lighting device that has a substantially lower voltage than the line voltage to which the lighting device is connected. The terminal may be within the LED string, or may be an end of the string. A linear regulator may be operated from the voltage drop across a number of the LEDs in the string so that the energy wasted by the auxiliary power supply is minimized. In other designs, the auxiliary power supply may be intermittently connected in series with the LED string only when needed. The intermittent connection can be used to forward bias a portion of the LED string when the voltage supplied to the LED string is low, increasing overall brightness.