This is quite a recent trend from Christmas lights manufacturers. Not surprisingly, it’s probably in response to the current dire economic conditions. In this post, I’m going to start off by briefly give an overview on how solar Christmas lights work. Then I’ll discuss how they provide you with cost savings and end with some of the ways you can do your decorations with these lights. After reading through this, you would be more inclined to consider solar lights over the traditional forms of lighting for the coming holiday season.

Solar Christmas lights essentially function in the same manner as solar powered garden lights. They consist of a solar panel to absorb the sunlight, a controller board connected to a battery in which the converted electricity is stored, and an optical sensor that detects whether there is light or darkness in the surrounding. So straight away, you’ll already see some of the benefits. These lights won’t use power from your mains since their power source is the sun as they charge during day time. Also, you don’t have to be constantly vigilant to know when to turn the lights off when not needed – it’s pretty much automatic. Such efficient energy usage is definitely most welcomed especially nowadays.

The energy cost savings can be attributed to the type of bulbs used in these solar lights. Being LED bulbs, they use less energy than the traditional incandescent bulbs. Also, they last much longer with good quality LED solar lights possessing rated lifetimes of up to 100,000 hours. Thirdly, they tend to burn brighter than the old style bulbs. So you can now enjoy better lighting decoration for your home at a lower cost.

At the moment, you might find that the range of shapes and colors of solar Christmas lights to be limited. This can only improve over time as demand increases. This is more than offset by the cost savings they can achieve. There are other flexibilities offered by solar lights. Since they generally use a battery, they won’t need to be connected to a power outlet. For example, normally you place your Christmas tree in a particular corner of your house because it’s closest to an outlet. Otherwise, you might be running those annoying (and potentially dangerous) long extension cords across your room. If you used solar string lights, you wouldn’t face these issues. With this in mind, you can probably start to imagine some of the other possibilities on decorating your home – e.g. draping colored solar lights across your fence.

Remember, Christmas is a time of joy which doesn’t need to be costly to you and your family each year.

Once you have decided to buy solar lights, the next step of course is choosing the right one to suit your needs. The range of choices available nowadays is fairly huge. You can get solar lights in various shapes, sizes, material and with different fixtures. You’re almost practically only limited by your imagination.

In this post, I want to tackle a few main areas that would very likely form part of your selection criteria. I intend to go through lighting purposes, installation location and surrounding environment factors. If you get a handle on these basic points, you should be able to make a more informed decision or at least ask the right questions when approaching a solar lighting sales person.

Firstly, ask yourself the question, “Why do I want a solar garden lighting?” or “How am I going to use the solar garden lights?”. Understanding the reason behind it will allow you choose an appropriate type of lighting. With this question, I’m looking past the obvious benefits that solar lights offer over conventional lights. For example, if you intend to use it as part of the security to your home, then solar security lights would be better suited than simply generic purposed solar lights for garden. If you wish to provide lighting as a guide when you drive up to your home, then there are specific solar driveway lights. If you want to show off your beautiful garden design at night, then you can get solar powered landscape lighting. Knowing the lighting purpose is closely linked to the installation location.

Generally, when you install your LED solar lights, it would be preferable to avoid any areas where sunlight has difficulty reaching – that is, covered areas and low areas. If you could find a spot where the solar panels can have direct full exposure to sunlight, that would be ideal. Thus, doing some pre-planning and knowing the layout of your yard before shopping for your solar lights is important.

Apart from understanding the contours of the surroundings, there are the environmental factors. Yes, using solar lights would be good for the environment but this is not what I’m referring to. What you should take into consideration is the kind of weather conditions your solar lamp lights would be exposed to. If you expect proper operations in harsh wet weather then pay attention to solar lights containing water resistant components with switches that are well insulated. Also, ask yourself how the choice of your lights affect your neighbors. This is somewhat associated with the location of installation as well. If you bought wall mounted solar lights that used extremely bright bulbs which shines into your neighbor’s window, than this might pose a bit of a problem.

Now that you have an idea of the primary criteria to keep in mind when you shop for your next set of solar lights, you should be able to plan your purchase more carefully.

If you are looking to keep your home secure as well as enhancement then you might want to consider solar flood lights. They seem to be the strongest but used most often for security then for decoration. Solar outdoor lights are famous for the way they can illuminate a home at night. Some of these lights may not need to be too powerful but provide just enough lighting for people to enjoy their time outside. For those who want the strongest of lights to keep their house safe, they might opt for solar flood lights. Although they still wouldn’t be as reliable or as strong as electrical light bulbs, with proper maintenance and proper solar energy they should be sufficient and better. Two types of these lights are called the “protector” and the “Multipurpose”. Since you are using the sun as the source of energy a solar flood light will save you money on your utility bills. Put it somewhere it can get enough UV Rays. By doing this you allow the solar panel that is attached to the solar bulb to take in the sun’s energy and convert it to electricity. When the sun goes down it will light up automatically.

If you are wondering what these lights might look like you can just picture street lights or lights that you would see on a billboard. Solar powered flood lights have an adjustable motion sensor. So if you want the light to turn on only when someone steps onto your lawn you can by switching on the motion sensor. You can easily install solar flood lights even if they come with a separate panel. You can put the panel on the roof or anywhere else to give it good sunlight. The solar “protector “ security flood light is one of the more powerful solar flood lights will light up more than 900 square feet and will sense activity from 12 meters away. Many people use them for there homes but the majority of those who purchase them are for commercial purposes or business reasons.

There is another type called the Solar “Multi-Purpose” 45 LED Flood light. This has about the same qualities as the “protector” except it can be brighter. You can purchase separately a JC halogen 20 Watt light bulb for it. Solar flood lighting is a great choice for you if you want the most you can get from solar energy. The ones I have named above the most basic and most popular choices of solar flood lights and you can just about mount them anywhere on your property.