Solar Christmas lights are a great alternative to traditional Christmas lights, as they are eco-friendly, bright and colorful. As a bonus, they are extremely durable as well, and can handle most outdoor conditions. They can decorate any all-season bushes in your garden, and can also be placed around the house or in a string along the roof to provide a classic holiday look.Solar powered Christmas lights are a great option for warm climates, as they generally receive plenty of sunshine throughout the holiday season. Solar holiday lights also can work in blizzard-like conditions in the Northern States and Canada. The best solar powered Christmas lights are those that are versatile to be left up across every season, acting as both a holiday tradition and backyard mood lighting. We also have a How-To Guide towards setting up Solar lights in your yard, a buyer’s guide to help inform your purchasing decision, and there are some bonus tips at the end of the article to help you further with the installation and operation of your new solar Christmas lights.
Best Solar Christmas Lights – Buyers Guide
Christmas is fast approaching, and you might be thinking about the lights you will use to decorate your Christmas tree and around the house. Solar Christmas lights are a great option because they are reliable and they save energy and money. Below is a list of the best solar Christmas lights to help you enhance the Christmas mood in your home.
Why you Need Solar Christmas Lights
Solar powered Christmas lights come in all kinds of shapes, colors and styles. This means that they can fit with any style or occasion, modern or old fashioned. Solar outdoor Christmas lights are safe to operate, do not get hot to touch, and provide a soft glow or a bright shine to match the look that you’re going for. Solar holiday lights can also be installed indoors around a Christmas tree, or to set the holiday mood around the fireplace. Best of all, they are a durable, eco-friendly product that will last for years with limited amounts of maintenance, giving you the peace of mind to enjoy the holiday season. Solar Christmas lights reduce the demand from the local electrical grid, which in many areas still use coal (which should only go to the naughty children) to power traditional Christmas lights. Using lights that are powered by the sun eliminates the need to produce more electricity that produces damaging greenhouse gases, so we can all breathe a little bit easier. Typical Christmas lights can increase your electric bill significantly, with some displays increasing your bill by up to 20%. Solar Christmas lights on the other hand limit any increase in your electric bill by drawing on natural sunlight. In areas that have time-of-use billing, solar Christmas lights are able to decrease your costs further, as holiday lights typically operate during periods of high energy demand, and therefore high electricity rates.Winter is also prone to having severe and damaging weather, which can lead to extended periods of blackouts. Instead of using candles indoors to provide light, which increases the risk of starting a fire, bringing your solar Christmas lights indoors can provide light in a safer way. Using solar lights indoors can be helpful to give the appearance that you are still home, even if you have travelled out of town to see relatives. Running your lights indoors on a timer is a great way to give the illusion that there are people still inside the house. Try to place them on different floors to have the greatest potential to throw off any potential thieves from stealing anything. Electricity prices have never decreased, and will continue to increase. This will make it more expensive to continue to use Christmas lights that are not powered by solar energy, and why solar powered Christmas lights are a great alternative.Solar Christmas light decorations also eliminate the need to run extension cords, as they do not need to be plugged into an outlet. This makes setting them up easier, and also eliminates any additional cords that would reduce the impact of your beautiful Christmas displays. It also makes it possible to have a Christmas light display if you don’t have access to an outdoor electrical outlet. This makes solar Christmas lights a great option for those living in an apartment or a townhome, which might not have an outdoor outlet available for each person living in the building.Solar powered Christmas lights are also a great way to add security to your yard. If you leave your car outside, the light from your solar Christmas lights can help to deter a would be vandal, especially if you have surveillance cameras. They can also be placed along pathways in order to prevent people from walking off the path, and can be used to illuminate hazards to prevent injury. This can be especially helpful for areas around the pool, and can help to prevent people and especially children from falling in. The added benefit of this is that your pool space looks more inviting, even after the sun has set.
Things to Consider when Buying Solar Christmas Lights
Not all solar outdoor Christmas lights are designed to be all-weather in every climate. Some are better suited to dry and sunny locations, while others are designed for colder weather. Areas that get less sunshine during the day might need greater energy storage, while areas that are more sunny can benefit from solar outdoor Christmas lights with smaller batteries. Most importantly, some solar lights are made with plastic that is not resistant to intense sunlight, and may crack if installed in a climate that receives plenty of sunshine.For areas where it is colder, make sure to check the battery temperature range, which is the temperature range that the solar Christmas lights will work most efficiently. If the battery temperature range is not within the temperatures that are present at nighttime, your solar Christmas lights will not be able to be producing light for very long. The colder it gets, the more energy is needed from the battery in order to produce light. Temperature also has an impact on the ability of the battery to receive a charge from the solar panel, with colder temperatures making the charging of the battery less efficient.
Rectified Solar Christmas Lights
In addition, look for solar powered Christmas lights that include a solar panel that is able to provide enough power for 200 or more LEDs. This will enable enough lights in order to fully complete your holiday display, with limited impact to the amount of light that you require. On the subject of LEDs, make sure that any solar lights that you buy are “rectified”. Lights that are not “rectified” flicker at a rate that people notice, and gives the effect of a strobe light. “Rectified” flicker at a rate that is much faster than people will perceive, giving a more pleasant viewing experience that isn’t as distracting. “Rectified” solar powered Christmas lights also provide a crisper appearance, making your holiday display stand out.
Replaceable and Anti-Corrosion
LEDs are the most common lighting option for solar powered Christmas lights, as they are the most energy efficient style of lights on the market. LEDs generally also last much longer than regular incandescent lightbulbs, but there are some factors to consider. Buying replaceable solar Christmas lights allows for the replacement of any LEDs that may malfunction, something which can happen for every LED bulb, solar or not. Replaceable bulbs should have anti-corrosion components, in order to minimize the risk of any potential damage from the elements.
How Much Light Will You Get?
Christmas solar lights can produce soft light to produce a more subdued holiday atmosphere, while other types of solar power Christmas lights can shine brightly and be seen from far away. In order to ensure that the solar power Christmas lights you choose work the way that you intend them to, ensure that not only choose Christmas solar lights that are designed for where you live, but also purchase high quality solar holiday lights. The best solar powered Christmas lights are described further on this page.In order to get the most out of your solar lights, make sure that you choose a high-quality, durable, and high-capacity option. Many top performers include a power preservation mechanism to conserve energy when there is limited sunlight, usually during the winter months.
How Durable Are They?
Depending on the quality of the solar Christmas lights that you purchase, some lights will work better than others. Over time, poor quality solar lights will not hold as long of a charge, and will not produce continuous light, even when they are fully charged. Some cheaper solar powered Christmas decorations have a cheap plastic cover that protects the solar panel. Over time, this plastic will break down, and become impossible to clear. Generally, these solar powered Christmas lights become unusable, and new ones have to be purchased. Higher quality solar Christmas lights have a solar panel that is covered in a layer of tempered glass, which does not deteriorate like that of cheaper and lower quality solar Christmas lights. Weather-proof solar Christmas lights are also important, and moisture is the most common reason for any damage to solar Christmas lights. Weatherproofing features of solar lights include anything that is gasketed and air-tight, features which low-quality solar holiday lights do not have.In general, higher quality solar Christmas lights will be cheaper over their lifetime compared to low quality solar powered Christmas lights. The number of times cheap solar lights would have to be replaced causes them to be more expensive, as they generally last only about two years.
How Solar Christmas Lights Will Look in Your Yard
Solar Christmas lights and Solar Christmas decorations come in a variety of shapes and sizes, making them easy to match to the décor and style of display you are looking to create. Some of the favorite styles of solar Christmas lights are icicles, orbs, moons, stars, and decorative balls. Solar Christmas lights will look different than what is found on the websites and displays at stores, as the pictures are altered to show an optimal case. Each solar powered Christmas light will look different compared to the other, as different manufacturers produce different colors and styles. While some people will choose to remove their solar Chirstmas lights at the end of the holiday season, some solar powered Christmas lights are able to work year-round for a variety of occasions. White and yellow LED solar Christmas lights can be used for backyard barbecues, wedding parties, birthday parties, family reunions, pool lighting, and for general lighting for decoration to make your house look more appealing. The solar panels are best placed on the ground or strapped to a surface where they will receive direct sunlight. Most panel come with small stakes that make it easy to stick these in a garden or along a pathway. Other options can be to place the panel on a balcony that faces the sun most directly. Generally, this is facing south for those living in North America or Europe.If you live in a cold climate where you receive lots of snow, it is important to move the solar panel so that it is exposed to sunlight after you receive a day of heavy snow. Snow will cover the solar panels on your solar Christmas lights, and your solar powered Christmas lights will not be able to receive any power.
