I would like a bit of light along my driveway, and next to my front steps. I was wondering if those solar powered things work. Any recommendations? And experiences to share?
Yes they do work. They probably will not last a long time (think years ) depending on the climate, and the amount of care you put in. It will not be a lot of light, but enough to see where things are in the dark. Also dont expect them to be on in the morning.
I set a few of these up around my front porch when I first bought this house. They worked well enough, but more as decoration than as serious lighting. You want to pay attention to the light output which is usually very low. I see that Home Depot has a 10-pack with an output of 10 lumens each (a little less than the light output of a typical candle). On the high side they have a solar-powered in-ground spotlight that emits 75 lumens. In contrast, a humble 40-watt incandescent or LED equivalent emits around 450 lumens. And, as said by @SoToasty, they’ll probably eventually break down. I haven’t had mine in years. Don’t think of it as a long-term installation.
I’ve got a set of these things around my deck and porch. Will probably have to replace them every couple of years but they’re cheap enough. They do what I want them to do. Decently bright. Motion sensors so they come on after dark but at low brightness, then switch to full brightness for a couple of minutes when they detect movement.
I like that they mount with screws. Had a bunch of nice stick-in-the-ground lights long ago that got stolen almost immediately.
What do you screw them to?
I have a stone retaining wall/stone staircase and lawn.
I bought a couple of these lights to place along the driveway to illuminate a couple of irregular places that are tripping hazards. It’s an eastern exposure. I set them to activate on motion detection only.
The lights are quite bright, considerably more so than others I’ve had in the past. I can’t speak to how long they’d stay on if set to activate at dark in regular illumination mode.
It’s been a few years since I had any such lights, but in my (possibly now obsolete) experience it’s best to treat them as seasonal and not quite disposable. Most are not real rugged and are quickly damaged by weed wackers, lawn mowers, etc. The plastic embrittles in the sun after a season or so. They’re plenty bright for dark-adapted eyes to alleviate tripping hazards on steps and such.
Mine are screwed in to my wood deck and the wood around the porch. You could still attach them to stone, but you’d need a hammer drill.
Those probably won’t work for you if you don’t want to drill into your stone or install some wood somewhere somehow to screw them into.
But in any case, such things do work as advertised. Even the stake-in-the-ground ones were good enough to last at least 8-12 hours after dark if not all night long depending on how sunny it had been that day.
I’ll add another pro/con point to the various solar LED lights you can buy. Most of them come with most absolute garbage rechargeable batteries you can imagine. Minimal storage capacity, and on the verge of failure (or past in one case). If you do buy a unit, consider buying a pack of appropriate consumer rechargeables and replace the default ones.
Especially if you pre-charge them, you’ll get a lot better performance, as you may see 2-3 times the base power storage.
It’s disappointing how short a lifespan they have in Arizona, but we have them all over. They’re nice.
Think, too, about whether you can adjust the aim of the motion-sensor. There are some houses nearby with motion-sensor driveway lights that get tripped every time a car on the street goes by.
A single spotlight with motion detection does a far better job of lighting an area. As others have said, the cute little solar setups last a couple of years at best and are more decorative than light emitting.
A friend of mine has many spotlights that all come on when you leave their house. On my most recent visit, I repeatedly yelled, “JAILBREAK” when the lights turned on. The neighbors did not appreciate this, possibly because it was 2 am.
Those little ground hugging spike lights are like crack to my dogs, they’ve murdalized every one I’ve put out there. On the other hand, I bought a motion sensor solar light at Home Despot circa like 2009 or so but didn’t ever get around to installing it until 2015 or so and that thing simply refuses to die. It’s not as bright as the newer ones but it does have some fairly impressive longevity. I’m actually a total sucker for solar string LED lights and I have some built into Mason jar lids and those are all over the place along with some that fit into wine bottles like corks and some string fairy lights and a couple of strings of colored ball lights. My front porch area is quite the sight when the sun shone during the day. Oh yeah, I did solar fence post cappers and some post mounted lights as well. They all pretty much work, my only quarrel with the solar lights is they can’t power a whole lot of lumens but on the other hand if you put enough of them out there they’ll do the job.
I’m not trying to light an area, i just want a little light so you can see the ground as you approach my house.
I’ll second this. My wife bought a pack of fairy lights for her planters out on the back deck. They worked OK, but were nothing spectacular. The solar cells are inside a plastic globe and not very big.
Performance improved immediately when I replaced the batteries (one each) with better ones I bought on Amazon. I also cleaned the battery contacts and applied DeOxit. They probably run twice as long as they used to.
We have a few solar, motion lights attached to the top of the dogs’ fenced in area. The lights are nice and bright and we’ve had them through a winter and summer. So far, so good. The dogs don’t care either way, but I like to be able to see what they’re up to when I let them out in the dark. I especially like to make sure they’ve all actually gone potty during their last trip out at night. Half the time they’re just ramming around.
Well then, assuming you do not have toy maniac dogs, the spike lights should do just what you’re wanting. Before they became ad hoc dog toys, the ones in my yard did the job just fine. They come on by themselves when it get dark enough and in winter don’t expect them to have enough juice to go much past midnight but they do well letting you see where you’re stepping.