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The best solar driveway lights will illuminate your drive and front yard with energy efficient and convenient lighting with virtually no installation or running costs. Solar powered driveway lighting has come on a long way and chosen well will last all evening day after day, year after year.
As lighting experts we know if a lighting product will deliver for you, so follow our guide to choosing the best solar driveway lighting to avoid inferior solutions that will only disappoint.
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This landscape and driveway light cleverly combines the solar panel and rechargeable battery into the top of the product, so each spotlight is free to be positioned at will in the ground and comes with a wall mount bracket option.
Lighting in the front of a house is inviting and adds security but is often overlooked as installing lighting can be expensive when cabled and switched inside the house. Solar driveway lights introduce illumination to the front of your property without the fuss of a qualified installer as they are a DIY install and recharge themselves every day.
The term driveway encompasses the general front garden area where cars and people need to be waymarked from the street to the property and this can be done in various ways.
Overhead wall or fence mounted solar wall lights that can cover large areas to spread a general bright light widely acting more as a floodlight. This will need to be done as a group to create a uniform spread along a drive or pathway of more than 20’.
Small light fixtures that mount to the ground or push into the lawn or dirt with a spiked base.
Check out our roundup of the very best solar lighting we can recommend.
Our easy to read buying guide will help you quickly head for the important terms to understand so you can find your perfect choice of driveway lighting.
Driveway lights are installed to waymark the path and drive from the street to your garage and front doors. It helps to walk and drive onto your driveway so consider where you would most benefit from the illumination. Do not worry about where the light will be positioned at first, but where you want the light to shine as it can be delivered in a variety of ways.
Remember that you are choosing lighting that does not require electrical installation, the power it needs comes from the sun during the day. You do not need an electrical power source to run solar lighting but the solar panel will need to have a clear view of the tracking sun for a good charge.
The amount of light a product produces is measured in the unit called lumens. The higher the lumen level, the more light that is created from the LED source. Strictly speaking in lighting terms, brightness is actually the level of light delivered onto a surface but generally speaking most people understand brightness to correlate to how much light will the product deliver.
LED light sources are the only light source that is efficient enough to last for hours from a small battery. The white light from LED can be selected in various hues of white according to the intended purpose of the light
Driveway lights will be individually charging their own integral batteries rather than be connected to a shared one. The size of battery will determine the amount of DC current that can be stored ready for the night time. The average capacity will allow for 6 to 8 hours and better ones longer up to around 10-12 hours.
The size of solar panel will influence how much light will pass through and convert to energy, so largely the bigger the better. New materials are emerging for better conversion rates so size inside everything.
The longer the daylight lasts and the brighter the day, the quicker the time it takes for a full charge. Every day will give some form of charge and if the panel is position facing the sun it is likely to get a full charge each day and enough for at least a motion sensed illumination.
Almost all solar lighting includes a photocell built into the panel to sense when darkness is falling and to allow the battery to start powering the lighting is called for. However, it is at the discretion of each manufacturer so make sure this has been included. By leaving the driveway lights always on with this functionality, they will always turn on when the evening comes in.
A clever way of saving precious energy from the rechargeable battery is to only allow the lighting to come fully on when someone is near. The PIR motion sensing functionality tells the light when to either turn on or to increase the light to full from a partially dimmed standby state.
Not all products offer the option to be on and stay on all the time but rather come on fully when motion is detected as someone walks up the drive or a call pulls in. If you want the light to come on and stay on when dark then look for a dusk to dawn option with a stay on functionality.
The lens of the LED light sources will have been designed to spread the light according to the intention of the product but mostly very wide as a general illumination. Be aware that all light starts from a small source so it will start small and widen the further it travels.
The approximate distance required between driveway lights is recommended at 10 feet apart.
Driveway lights are subjected to all weathers so head for the UL certification for wet and damp conditions and preferably with an IP65 rating which means the product has been designed to be jettable with water.
No wires to worry about, ground spiked driveway lights are simply pushed into place into the ground as long as dirt or grass is near enough. Some may need mounting to an adjacent fence or wall.
For more options to illumination the front of your property check out our best solar wall lights
This landscape and driveway light cleverly combines the solar panel and rechargeable battery into the top of the product, so each spotlight is free to be positioned at will in the ground with the spike or wall mounted using the optional bracket. 12 bright LEDs per spotlight provide an impressive option for either a 12 hr lasting ambient light or a high powered mode lasting 6 hours.
An upgrade to the Litcom 12 landscape and driveway light that improves on the design with a larger solar panel and rechargeable battery built into the top of the product. Each spotlight is free to be positioned at will in the ground with the spike or wall mounted using the optional bracket. 30 bright LEDs per spotlight provide an impressive option for either a 12 hr lasting ambient light or a high powered mode lasting 6 hours.
This landscape and driveway 4 pack combines the solar panel and rechargeable battery into the top of the product but allows each to be adjusted individually for a better positioning. Each spotlight is free to be positioned at will in the ground with the spike or wall mounted without the spike. 4 bright LEDs per spotlight provide an impressive option for either a 12 hr lasting ambient light or a high powered mode lasting 6 hours.
This clever design lasts incredibly for 5 days on a single charge, delivering a bright ground light seen up to approx 800 yards away. We like this for the ingenious design to line up along the side of a driveway and ability to take up to 20 tonnes of pressure from even trucks.
Another clever design that lasts incredibly for days on a single charge from it’s 800mAh rechargeable battery. Delivering a universal 360 degree light, perfect for around the edges of decks and pathways to demark the boundaries and provide some reassuring lighting. Able to take the weight of a car or truck up to 10 tonnes.
Imagine a line of these along your pathway will be so beguiling, inviting and welcoming. Rechargeable battery operated candles inside their own hanging lantern mounted into the ground on a spike will glow with an ambient warm white light. Such a romantic solution.
The shallowest and neatest solution we have found to demark edges of paths and driveways. We like the halo 360 degree illumination in a warm white that cleverly uses all the top of the product as the panel for daytime charging which becomes a silhouette at night. Nice design.
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