Yesterday, I went to my local Home Depot, & bought 2 solar powered outdoor lamps. You know, they’ve got solar cells on top that charge internal batteries. Free light, & no wiring to lay.
I bought the El-Cheapo brand.
2 in each box, so naturally one didn’t work.
The other was so dim it was utterly useless.
I’ve seen some more expensive ones, with extra light sources & more battery storage, but I’m wary.
Anybody have good experiences with these?
Any brands stand out as exceptionally good?
First hand knowledge, professional opinions from engineers & electricians, & wild-*ss guesses from Torgo are all welcome.
If these are the LED-lighted ones, I’d say don’t bother. This is based solely upon the observation of my wife and I, scouting out other households which have “landing lights for drunks”.
The wired lights with bulbs were much, much brighter than the solar-powered LED ones gave off a barely noticeable amber glow. It seemed like a waste to me. Granted, we live in a neightborhood with pretty good streetlight coverage so YMMV, especially with the advantages you cited (free light, no massive amounts of underground wiring).
We have some as accent lights on our fence, and now when the days are so short they only stay on for about an hour after sunset. They are on the North side of the house though. In summer when the days are longer they stay on until 4 or 5 in the AM. We don’t use them for lighting a walkway or anything, they aren’t bright enough for that, but as an accent they’re fine. We’ve only had them since July so I don’t know about the long-term life of the bulbs.
I bought one of the LED models a few months back, just to see how they worked. As others have said, they are accent lights and that’s about it. It needs to be pretty dark, and your eyes adapted, for the illumination to be helpful.