Solar powered motion sensing lights?

"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich)
11/27/2015 at 11:01 • Filed to: None

Mrs. BaconSandwich and I are house-sitting for her aunt and uncle for the next year and a bit. As we’ve discovered, the front entrance to the house is quite dark, and it seems quite wasteful to leave a light on all the time. (We’ll often head out while it is still light out, but won’t be home until after dark). Since we are just house-sitting, I’m not really wanting to drill into the walls or run extra wiring around to put in a proper motion sensing light, so I’ve been trying to find something that is solar powered, or something that I could run off an extension cord. That, and when we move, we can take it with us to where ever we end up next. So far, I’m not having a lot of luck finding something decent that won’t break the bank.

Newegg has a few things like this one:

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but reviews seem a bit spotty, and given that the area doesn’t get a ton of sunlight (it’s north facing), I’m not sure it’d be able to fully recharge before night - especially in winter.

This unit seems interesting, but it doesn’t mention much about the power source. Does it take DC or AC? If I could rig up something like that to run off an extension cord, that’d be ideal, but again, not a lot of info on it...

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Anyone else have any ideas here? I suppose if it really does come down to it, I could buy a proper motion sensing light, and have an old roommate who is an electrician install it for me, but I suspect that could get pretty pricey pretty quick.

DISCUSSION (9)

jariten1781 > BaconSandwich is tasty.
11/27/2015 at 11:13

I’ve had good luck with these guys:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B015RK…

Not solar powered, D-cells. Not sure that’s the ‘brand’ I have but they’re all the same cheap Chinese items probably made on the same line.

Just have the batteries in my recharge rotation...last 3 or 4 months usually.

davedave1111 > BaconSandwich is tasty.
11/27/2015 at 11:17

They must still make time-switches, surely? Rig up a light on a time-switch to come on after dark, or when you’re going to get home, or some such.

Otherwise, there appear to be many crappy battery-powered motion-sensing LED lights on the market for very little money. I’d try one of them, because you’re not going to be changing the batteries more often than you’d normally change a lightbulb.

If you want to do a bodge job, you could buy a regular mains-voltage motion-sensing floodlight and wire it up to a plug to go into a wall socket (with a circuit breaker, since it’s going outside), but it’ll be on a spur where it really ought to be on a ring-main. It’s not a lot more work to wire it up properly, if you have somewhere unobtrusive to run the cables - easily DIYable.

I’d say the middle option is the easiest, and cheap enough to be worth trying first. That said, it’s going to be cheaper over 18 months to leave the light on 24/7 than to do anything at all, so...

BaconSandwich is tasty. > jariten1781
11/27/2015 at 11:17

Interesting. Any idea how they would hold up in the cold?

EDIT: Hmm, looks like they don’t ship to Canada. I’ll have to see if I can find the equivalent on Amazon.ca.

jariten1781 > BaconSandwich is tasty.
11/27/2015 at 11:30

They hold up fine in sub-freezing temps, not sure how they’d do in sub-0 (Fahrenheit) since we rarely hit that. I imagine it’d kill battery capacity more than the actual light.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > jariten1781
11/27/2015 at 11:34

Thanks for the Amazon link nonetheless. I’ve found a few other promising looking things there.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > davedave1111
11/27/2015 at 11:35

Very valid points. I’ll have to do some more thinking about the situation. I also just came across this guy, which sounds promising: http://www.amazon.ca/Sunforce-82080…

davedave1111 > BaconSandwich is tasty.
11/27/2015 at 11:43

Give it a year and there’ll probably be cheap clones of that on the market. The battery-powered motion-sensing LED light seems the way to go. Unless it’s spectacularly crappy, it’ll do the job, and it’s hardly worth thinking about at all at that price.

vicali > BaconSandwich is tasty.
11/27/2015 at 12:19

My neighbour mounted these on the front of his garage;

http://www.costco.ca/Sunforce-Solar…

They are rediculously bright.. I keep thinking either the Police are out front or the mothership has landed..

BaconSandwich is tasty. > vicali
11/27/2015 at 15:38

I saw a review for those as well. I think I’m going to order one from Amazon (just one. I don’t need a two-pack).