Another for my solar collection, to try out. Yes, I was traumatized by years of the local power company hitting us with unexpected blackouts, and even one week after a hurricane with only spotty electricity, while the next block down got it on full the day after because they were on the grid with a hospital.Then there's the cost of the monthly electrical bill. Thank you, I'll move what I can to our abundant sunshine.This has what I consider the best configuration. The solar cell is not right on the lights, because sometimes the dark spot you want to light up doesn't get good sun, like under an overhang or on the north side of something. You may need to illuminate a closed space. This has a full ten feet of cord between cell and lights, so you can probably get a better charge at that distance. As well, you can use a USB connection to charge the cell when the weather is gloomy. If you had to use that option most of the time, just getting a unit that runs off a wire would seem sensible, unless having it installed is too expensive.Of course, when the power goes out, at night we will want to floodlight the front gate and stairs to see what's happening, and get around safely. We'll also do our cooking on the lanai out by the top of the stairs. Hot water for coffee is required for brain function, after all. This system will let us adjust the lighting for what's happening, whether a bright worklight or only needed to pop up when someone comes around.It adequately lights the stairs from the top, but not brilliantly. From up on the lanai, you can see who is outside the gate. Certainly, it will illuminate the hibachi area well enough. It will do nicely as an emergency light, but I might want to augment it if I were using it full time.The charging time of 8-10 hours of sunlight could make this less than useful in the temperate zones in the winter half of the year. Here in the tropics, we can probably pull that much even in January, unless it's raining. If we know a power outage is likely (like a hurricane on track), we can use the USB connection to charge this up before the clouds move in. That probably helps in other sun zones: spend most of the day on solar, then top it up off the grid.Packaging was good foam inside the cardboard box, and everything went back in easily. The button on the back is covered by a rubber button, part of the cover for the USB port. It can come off, but doesn't need to. It clicks you through four modes, in case you can't find the remote. Now we just need to decide where to put the bracket that will sit empty most of the time.
