Solar Motion Sensor Lights
Although solar motion sensor lights are more expensive than normal solar lights, they have a number of advantages. The main one is security.
The great thing about solar motion lights is they automatically switch on as soon as motion is detected – anyone trying to make their way into your garden or yard area uninvited will cause the lights to switch on.
Fortunately, motion sensitivity can be adjusted so that the lights don’t come on with every passing car or cat. The top brands of solar motion sensor lights can detect movement from 25 feet away and can use a regular electrical supply in the event of a run of cloudy days where a full solar charge isn’t available.
Solar String LED Lights To Brighten Up Your Garden
Solar Star LED Lights
They come with their own small solar panel that can be driven into the ground a little way from where you want to hang the outdoor lights. Then, after a day of solar charging, when the light fades they automatically turn themselves on.
Each solar star light string measures 23ft / 7m in length and you can even buy a double pack if you feel like going a little crazy. Each engery saving LED light will provide up to six hours of solar powered light per night. In winter, when a full solar charge might not be possible, regular rechargeable batteries can be used as a power supply for up to fifteen night without needing a recharge.
Get Romantic with Solar Lanterns
If the phrase solar lantern has a Far East feel about it then no wonder – lanterns originate from Asia. Although many solar lanterns retain an Asian design theme, they’re also available in many other styles of design – including modern contemporary.
A wide variety of shapes – like round, elongated or teardrop – are available and the choice of colors is pretty much endless.
Just find a good spot for your solar lantern, somewhere that gets a fair amount of sunlight in the day will be ideal, and wait for the romantic glowing light to appear after sunset. You’d be surprised how much more fun it is entertaining friends with the soft light of solar lanterns above you.
Portable Indoor Solar Lights That Go Anywhere
As solar lights & lighting become more commonplace, so product designers are getting more innovative in the way they design solar lights.
Take Lucet Lamps designed by Rui Palma. These small solar lamps are actually three LED lights grouped together with a couple of rubber suckers attached to the base. You can position them wherever you like on a window and they’ll recharge their two AA batteries during the day and give out free solar powered light in the evening.
Just one catch – at the moment these solar lights are a concept design only.
Seven Reasons To Love Solar Landscape Lights
There are lots of reasons to love the idea of putting solar landscape lights in your garden, yard or patio. But here are seven to get you thinking.
1 – Let’s start with the obvious: Solar power cuts your power bills.
2 – Solar landscape lights are 100% safe for the environment.
3 – Absolutely no wires. Most solar landscape light kits are made of self-contained units, so they can work independently of each other without needing to dig up your yard or garden to install connecting wires.
4 – You don’t need to be a solar lighting expert. If you can use a screwdriver, you can install solar landscape lights. In fact, some types don’t even use a screw mount – they just sit in place or have a clip connector.
5 – Great warranty and guarantees. Good brands come with lengthy product warranty and are built to last for years, no matter what the weather does.
6 – No maintenance required. Enough said.
7 – Brighter light than traditional landscape lights. Modern solar lighting uses LED bulbs to provide a more powerful, brighter light.
Solar Powered Courtesy Light
If you need some extra lights in a dark front door entrance, garage or poorly lit area of the garden or the outside of your house you might want to consider this solar powered courtesy light.
This cute solar powered gadget senses when motion is detected nearby and powers up the light. It turns itself off again automatically after one minute.
Because it’s solar powered, no tricky electrical wiring is needed and it’ll work even in areas outside where non solar lights would be difficult or expensive to install. When fully charged, the LED light gives off almost as much light as a normal 60W light bulb and will light a similar sort of area.
Owls, Frogs, Gnomes – Fun Decorative Solar Lights
You have to hand it to PnR Solar Store, they really know how to add some fun to the whole solar garden light game. Not only do they have a huge of novelty lights, they’re all on different themes.
Favorites? Hard to choose. But it’s difficult to resist the Snowman Solar Light or the Ladybug Solar Light.
Prices are pretty good too, could be a great way to have some solar fun in the garden.
How to make Portable Solar Garden Lights
Here’s a quick tip to get a little more out of those inexpensive stake-style solar garden lights – the kind with a small solar panel and light on top of a stake that you drive in the garden earth or driveway.
Instead of putting the stake into the ground, put it into a plant pot filled with earth or stones. Now you’ve got a portable solar light – especially useful if you tend to get the most daylight in a different place in your garden, driveway or deck from where you want the solar light at night.
Even better, you can make each solar light look more decorative by using some colored stones inside the pot instead of plain stones or earth. Decorative stone cost more, so fill the pot with garden earth and just add a layer of decorative stones to the top.
Solar Street Lights Save $221,000
Most people know that swapping old style on-grid street lighting for solar powered versions will save money. But how much?
Managers at Lockheed Martin’s Orange County campus in Orlando found out when they changed their 25 year old street lights for solar street lighting.
Quoted in the Orlando Sentinel, the campus revealed the 35 new solar street lights will cost about $342,000 over 20 years. That includes purchase price and maintenance – of course there’s no ongoing lighting expense because they’re solar powered.
Sound like a lot? Not when you hear how much traditional street lights would cost. Including new wiring and ongoing electricity bills the cost would have been around $563,000.
The good news a similar savings ratio is available those of us in a residential setting. Even if the cost of a solar street lamp is beyond your budget, lower power solar landscape lights can be an inexpensive ‘in’ to outdoor solar lighting.
Spotlight on Solar LED Lights
One of the biggest trends in solar lights these days is the use of LED lights. Yes, LED is like the lights in those early calculators – but thankfully the light from LEDs these days is a lot brighter.
LED lighting technology is still relatively new and therefore still quite expensive. No doubt the price will come down as they become more commonplace but for the now when you come to buy them you may well find solar LED lights to be twice the price of normal outdoor & garden lights.
What’s up with that? Is that a rip-off?
No. Bear in mind that led bulbs can last 15 years or longer that normal light bulbs. Better still, they typically use 60 -70% less electricity. If you have solar LED lights, of course, your electricity cost savings will go up to a pleasant 100%.