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.
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.
Indoor Solar Lighting with Flexible Solar Tube Lights
Here’s a quick tip if you need a little bit of extra light indoors – flexible solar tube lights. These handy little solar gadgets come with a clip and a gooseneck with a light on the end.
Just attach the clip to a solid surface – the edge of a table, window ledge or the side of a display frame and you’ve got yourself a little extra indoor solar light for very little hassle.
They’re ideal for lighting display cabinets at exhibitions or other venues where you may not have total control over the indoor lighting. Not enough daylight to solar charge? Just recharge the batteries in the normal way.
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.
Solar Flashlight – Buy One, Donate One
BoGoLight is a solar flashlight with a difference. When you purchase one for yourself you can choose to give a second solar flashlight to someone in need. You can even choose the organization you’d like to donate to – whether emergency / humanitarian relief, troop support, healthcare, schools, women’s safety, environment and more.
Each flash light is made to a rugged, durable and waterproof design with a large solar panel down the side of the light for recharging. Prices from $17.99 and up.
Solar Tube Skylights
A relatively recent innovation, solar tube skylights prove that not every type of solar lighting needs to work by converting sunlight into electricity for use later.
As with a normal skylight, the idea is not provide light at night but to provide as much bright light in the day time as possible. With regular skylights you basically get the light that comes in through the window and can illuminate the room space immediately below it. You can’t, for example, have have the light from the skylight on the roof illuminate your kitchen.
The clever thing about solar skylights is they include a mirrored tube – so the light can be carried away from the roof down into your home. Because the tube is flexible you don’t need an absolutely straight path between your roof and the room you want to send the light to. That said, the straighter the tube part of the solar skylight is the more efficient it will be.
The part that fits into the ceiling looks just like a normal light – only no wires and no electricity. Tubular solar skylights are great way to cut down your artificial lighting costs – both power bills and the cost of light bulbs – and work and live in as much natural light as possible.
Solar LED Address Numbers
House guests will never get lost again once you’ve installed a set of solar powered address lights. As soon as the sun goes down, these Solar LED Address Numbers automatically switch on two large white LED lights. This gives a backlighting effect to the cutout numbers – allowing your house number to be clearly seen from some distance.
The LED lights will run for eight to ten hours on a full solar charge.
Are Indoor Solar Lights Right for you?
While many people have heard of solar garden lights for drives and pathways, fewer people consider buying indoor solar lighting. There many areas around the house where it can be difficult or expensive to install traditional, mains powered light systems – garden sheds, garages, gazebos and so on – but these are all ideal locations for a little bit of solar powered magic.
Because there aren’t any mains wires or cables to deal with indoor solar lighting is very easy to install. The most important thing to remember is that your solar panel will need to be at least approximately south facing so that it can capture the most amount of sunlight.
Make sure the spot you choose is free of shade caused by buildings or trees for most if not all of the day.
Kits for indoors are often more expensive than outdoor solar lights – but remember the extra cost will be offset by the reduction in electricity bills and over a relatively short time period will pay for itself.
New Jersey’s Solar Street Lights
Drive across New Jersey and you’re likely to see more than a few solar powered traffic signs.
The solar powered signage looks just like a normal sign, except it has flashing lights powered by a small solar panel. The flashing lights make the signs more effective than normal because they can be seen from a greater distance – plus the signs are low maintenance.
Police in Lyndhurst, one of the towns using the new signs, say the new eco-friendly stop and yield signs have reduced accidents caused by driver inattention.
Quoted in the Boston Herald, Timothy Collins, Wayne’s superintendent of roads seems greatly impressed. “You are not paying an electric bill to operate these lights. … These things function 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in all weather conditions and haven’t failed once in three years, and they have shown no signs of any issues.”