A solar floodlight in your driveway or front yard may come in handier than you think. Whether you want to be able to get up to check on the dog at night, look out for your spouse or kids coming home or feel protected from intruders, the best solar flood lights will give you peace of mind without wasting your money or energy.
Here are three of the top solar-powered floodlights on the market, and why we love them.
Our Top Recommendation
Sunforce 82123 120-LED Triple Head Solar Motion Light
Versatile and affordable light with a wide range and responsive motion sensor. The Sunforce is our choice as the best overall option on the market right now in terms of price, durability, brightness, and features.
It is waterproof and has a long enough run time to stay on all night if need be.
The Upgrade Choice
Cyberdax 100W Solar Powered Street Flood Lights
An extremely bright light that can be set on a timer or schedule. The Cyberdax floodlight goes above and beyond what a standard floodlight normally does.
The extra performance and options come at a much higher price than the other options here, but for that, you get extreme brightness, a consistently long run time, and a variety of adjustable features.
The Value Choice
A-Zone Solar Motion Sensor Light Outdoor
A smaller, compact floodlight with a motion sensor and solid performance at a lower price, perfect for someone on a budget.
Before we get to our reviews of specific products, let’s talk about how to pick out the very best solar floodlight for your needs. While some systems will be better suited for your individual household, there are a few common features of solar floodlights that you will want to look out for.
What matters most in a floodlight? How bright it is, of course! For the best security, your floodlights need to be bright enough to completely fill an outdoor space and allow you to see clearly.
In floodlights, brightness is measured in lumens, which is a term to describe the visible light. In other words, the more lumens a floodlight has, the brighter it will be. We recommend a floodlight to have more lumens than an average household lightbulb.
For your reference, a light that you might put in your kitchen or bathroom generally has around 800 lumens, while the brightest floodlight on our list has 5,000. If you are looking for a floodlight for a large area, the more lumens the better.
Having solar-powered lights is great for your energy bill, but they can be a little annoying when it comes to their run time. The best solar-powered floodlights will hold their charge well and be able to run for a long time continuously before they need recharging.
To elaborate, most solar-powered lights require about 7 to 8 hours of full sunlight to charge up completely. The average runtime for a floodlight is around 5 or 6 hours – that means 5 or 6 uninterrupted hours of light. The longest runtime on our list of floodlights is up to 20 hours.
Floodlights with dimming settings or motion sensors will help to conserve energy and extend their runtime. If you are looking for a floodlight to stay on all night or for longer periods of time, keep an eye out for those energy-conserving features.
Another important factor in finding the best solar powered floodlights is how long they are going to last. Regardless of the cost of your lights, once you have installed them in your home, you are going to want to keep them there for a long time, without having to hassle with repairing or replacing them.
That’s why it is important to look for floodlights that will hold up well to wet or stormy weather. For the best reliability, look for floodlights that are waterproof and corrosion-resistant – especially if you live in an area that sees a lot of rain or snow.
Sometimes simpler is better for reliability. The less special features and modes a set of floodlights has, the more likely it will be to last for years without repair.
Even though simpler floodlights are often more reliable, you can benefit a lot from a light system that has dimming modes, automatic shutoff, and motion sensors.
A light with motion sensors is great for security. The sensors will automatically detect movement and turn on automatically – they can also be set to shut off again after a certain period of inactivity. This also helps to save energy in the lights so that they will be charged to run whenever they need to throughout the night.
If you don’t want your lights to shut off fully, a dimming mode is also helpful to help conserve energy.
In some lights, the solar panel is directly attached to the light itself. This makes installation a little easier, but it also means that you have to mount the light somewhere it will receive a lot of sunlight during the day.
Other lights come with a separate solar panel that can be mounted in another spot. That means a little more effort setting up the system, but you will be able to get the most charge by mounting the panel somewhere it will stay out of the shade and get the most sunlight possible.
If your light has a lower run time, detached panels would be the best choice, to help it get the most charge. Likewise, if the place you want to mount your light is in the shaded through much of the day (like on the side of a garage or under an awning) you should also look for a model with a detached solar panel so that you can properly charge it.
A versatile and affordable light with a wide range and motion sensor.
An extremely bright light that can be set on a timer or schedule.
A smaller, compact floodlight with a motion sensor, perfect for someone on a budget.
Pros
Cons
All three of these floodlights are some of the best in the business right now. There are plenty of reasons to like all of them, but we think one stands out above the other two.
The Sunforce Triple Headlight meets all of the features we discussed earlier in this post. It has a motion sensor with adjustable settings, a detached solar panel, and it is waterproof and reliable. On top of all that, it comes at a really reasonable price. The Sunforce light simply has all the requirements of a great solar powered floodlight.
That said, any of these options could work well in your home. Whether you are looking for an extra security measure or just a way to light up your driveway when you get home late, one of these solar-powered floodlights should do the trick.