Here at Solight, we often hear from customers interested in solar garden lights to bring their patios and outdoors to life – but sceptical about how long they really last!

Solar lighting isn’t a new technology, but it has advanced significantly in recent years. Our solar garden lights are designed to be a streamlined, low-maintenance and beautiful addition to your property.  We appreciate that if you have purchased regular solar lights from your local garden centre, they might have left you feeling a little disappointed – and with good reason.

Here we’ll explain the contrast between high-spec Solight products, and what you should expect from great quality solar energy lighting!

The True Longevity of Solar Lighting

Solar lighting works by capturing the energy from the sun and storing that power in a battery.

Conventional quality solar energy batteries should last a year or two before being replaced – but the Solight team only offers exceptional quality products that last a good while longer!

Our garden lights are built to last between five and eight years. So you can expect a long lifespan, making sophisticated outdoor illuminations and high-powered, contemporary wireless lighting an easy option for fast installation, minimal maintenance, without any fiddling with wires or mains electricity.

Here are the factors that impact how long your solar garden lights will last:

  • Low-quality batteries will be less efficient and require replacing more often.
  • Placing artificial lights close to other light sources – such as house lighting or streetlights – can reduce their lifespan by impacting their sensors.
  • Outdoor solar lights without direct sunlight will not perform as well.
  • Dust or dirt obscuring the solar panels will diminish the efficiency of your garden lights.

Ideally, arrange your solar lighting away from other artificial light sources, in a sheltered space, and give them a wipe every couple of weeks to make sure that dirt and dust don’t accumulate.

Otherwise, they require zero maintenance or upkeep, and will keep shining brightly for years to come!

How Solar Garden Lights Work

The devil is in the detail; and with the intricacies of an autonomous lighting system, make a massive difference to how well your solar lights perform.

In most cases, your lights will take around eight hours to become fully charged – not a problem here, with the South African sun more than sufficient to give your illuminations plenty of solar energy! That energy is stored in the battery, which powers your LED lights, whether highlighting pathways, creating ambience and atmosphere or as a security asset to create safe passages and brighten entranceways.

When the sun goes down, the sensors on your solar lighting recognise the low-light conditions, and transmit energy to the bulbs, thereby conveniently springing into life just as the day turns into night. LED bulbs can last as long as ten or even fifteen years, so superior quality bulbs mean that one lighting system will last over a decade; with perhaps one battery change in that time!

We believe that this efficiency makes garden lighting a highly affordable option and one that will stand the test of time whatever the weather, or how extensively your lights are activated.

A Contrast of Quality – Why Professional Solar Lighting is Essential

One of the most common queries we hear is about why solar garden lights don’t perform as expected, and we know it is incredibly frustrating to spend money on a product that doesn’t live up to your expectations!

The main reasons are:

  • Lower quality materials such as sensors, weatherproofing sealants or batteries.
  • Less durable designs and construction with faster wear and tear.
  • Lack of proper waterproofing, meaning water ingress damages the LED bulbs.
  • Inferior quality LED bulbs that blow out quickly, or aren’t ideal for solar power energy.

It’s not entirely accurate to say you get what you pay for – because even premium garden centres will retail expensive outdoor lights that just aren’t good enough quality. Unfortunately, excellent packaging and a steep price tag isn’t necessarily a guarantee.

If you’re looking for high-performance lighting that is reliable, bright, and cost-effective, we’d highly recommend trying out a Solight product and seeing the difference for yourself! Every one of our products comes with advanced materials, extended life cycles and a warranty of between one and three years, and we are proud to offer a guarantee that promises our solar garden lights will perform.

The Solight Difference: What You Can Expect

To illustrate the exemplary performance we command of our products, here are some of the specifications of two of our top-selling Solight systems, to demonstrate what you should expect from a professional solar lighting installation!

If you are looking for enhanced security, faultless reliability and a system that will function even in less than optimal weather conditions, our Solar Street Light is a great option.

With a Li-ion battery with capacity of over 1,000 cycles, and each cycle lasting around three days, this product will provide powerful lighting for approximately eight years, and comes complete with a three-year warranty.

Each solar charge can last for ten days of continuous lighting, with TCS technology stabilising battery temperature, and offering a range of different lighting modes and remote management to meet your requirements.

  • Solight Solar Courtyard Light

For homeowners looking for brightly lit entertaining areas, safe parking bays, or a security floodlight, the Courtyard light is another outstanding product with smart security sensors and no less than 32 lighting modes to choose from!

Decide between wall mounting or pole mounting for overhead security, with the assurance of a two-year warranty and outstanding Polycrystalline solar cells for the ultimate reliability. Our Courtyard Lights run on an enhanced 1,500+ cycle Li-ion battery, which provides solar power for around 12 years.

Ingress Protection – and Why it Matters 

If you are comparing a few different solar lights, we’d recommend keeping a close eye out for an IP65 certification mark. ‘IP’ standard for Ingress Protection, and is a standard used to work out how robust your solar lighting source is – or not as the case may be!

Solar lights sold as ‘waterproof’, ‘weatherproof’ or ‘moisture resistant’ but without an IP rating are highly likely not to have been tested or authenticated. This means that a simple sealant may have a minimal lifespan, and render the most elegant of solar energy systems redundant after only a short time.

Every Solight product comes complete with IP65 certification, which means they are designed for the rigours of the outdoors. IP65 certified solar lights are tough enough to cope with those heavy downpours (we all know and love!) as well as splashes, sprays and irrigation.

 

For more information about the quality specification of our market-leading solar garden lights, or to compare our range of products and select the solar lighting that is right for your outdoor spaces, contact the Solight team today, or check out our full range online!