7 Best Landscape Lighting in 2018 – Top Choices Based on Analysis
If you are looking to impress neighbors and passersby, the best landscape lighting would be a great way to get one’s attention at night. Whether you have masterfully crafted hedges, or just want your driveway to be more visible, landscape lighting has never been more affordable or easier to accomplish.
In this review, we will be taking a look at seven incredible sets of lights from companies such as InnoGear, URPower and Moonrays. We will look at what makes each light very attractive and not-so-attractive to consumers. After our review, we will determine which light is the best of the best and worth your investment.
Quick Comparison of Top 7 Best Landscape Light 2018 and Recommendation
Product Name | Quantity | Cool Or Warm? | Lumens | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
URPOWER 2-in-1 Waterproof | 2 | Both | 200 | |
URPOWER Solar Lights | 4 | Cool | N/A | |
ZUCKEO LED Landscape Lights (Editors Choice) | 8 | Warm | 500 | |
LITOM Wireless LED Solar Motion Sensor Lights | 4 | Cool | N/A | |
Moonrays 95557 LED Outdoor Landscape Light | 2 | Cool | 45 | |
GardenBliss Best Solar Lights For Outdoor Pathway | 10 | Cool | N/A | |
InnoGear Upgraded Solar Lights | 2 | Both | 200 |
The 7 Best Landscape Lighting in 2018 - A Run-Down Unbiased Review
1. Solar Lights,URPOWER 2-in-1 Waterproof
The first landscape lights that we will be reviewing come from URPower. You would buy two lights for the price of one. Each bulb inside the light gives off 50 Lumens each, and there are four bulbs in each light. You can buy one of three versions of these lights: Cool, warm and multicolored. The multicolored lights change color over time.
These are “3rd generation” outdoor lights, meaning that URPower has made two prior version of this light. These solar lights are new and improved. There are two modes in each light: Normal and dimmed.
These lights can be easily placed into the ground, and that is practically all you need to do for landscape lighting, as the sun give energy to the light every day. These lights will automatically turn off at night and go off at sunrise. If you need to mount these lights on a wall, there is also a mount and a set of screws that are included to help you achieve this goal.
URPower’s landscape lights are powered by lithium ion rechargeable batteries that get their power from the sun via miniature PV panels. These lights will never run out of energy at night, which is why solar-powered lights are very appealing to homeowners.
These lights can be adjusted up and down in a span of 90 degrees. If you need to rotate the light for any reason, you will have to take the light out of the ground and place it in the position that you desire.
This is also a waterproof light that is rated IP64. There is no known warranty information given, unfortunately.
The one obvious flaw that we notice is their irregular design. They look like lights that perhaps belong to a neighbor that was heavily into science experiments. The solar panels are what make this light look rather ugly, and I cannot imagine who would want to buy lights that look like this, unless they were to best lights in the whole world and their performance incredibly make up for their appearance. Unfortunately, it does not.
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2. URPOWER Solar Lights
URPower has also manufactured solar-powered landscape lights of a far different design. Rather than the irregular shaped design, these lights are compact, and more resemble pop up headlights from a vintage car. These lights come in packs of four.
These are LED lights, guaranteed to last 50,000 hours. They are also solar-powered lights that recharge during the day, so they are guaranteed to always be working at night and only at night.
These lights have motions sensors, however, so they will not turn on when it detects movement from up to three meters away. These lights are heat and waterproof, rated IP64.
Like the first set of landscaping lights, these lights also include mounts and screws for installation on walls, so you can set them up to hang on walls in addition to placing them on the ground. Their design makes it so that they can be used great either vertically or horizontally.
These are amazing lights, however, we wish they could turn on automatically at night. They will only turn on when it is night time and when it senses motion from nearby. Essentially, these are lights designed to help people navigate towards a home or building at night. These lights do NOT have a feature that will allow you to leave them on all night. This is a shame, because that is all they need in order to be perfect for landscape lighting.
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3. ZUCKEO Best LED Landscape Lights
Zuckeo’s landscape lights come in a pack of eight. They provide adequate lighting at 500 lumens each. They are designed like spotlights, and they are meant to be planted into the ground with thin rods. They give off a warm and comforting light. Overall, they have a nice design.
These lights are all meant to be set up in a parallel connection. All lights will be powered by an LED power supply included in the set. There is no transformer, low voltage wires or wire connectors included, however, so that is something to keep in mind if these are the lights that you are going for.
These are waterproof lights that are rated IP65. These lights all have thick and aluminum bodies that are highly resistant to snowy and rainy weather. They can work in temperatures as warm as 104 degrees and as cold as -4 degrees.
You can rotate these landscape lights at 90 degrees, so you can position them to face completely upwards, completely outwards or somewhere in between. Their round rods also make it easy for you to turn them while they are still in the ground.
These are not solar-powered lights; they must get their power from an electrical source. Because they are LEDs that do not require a lot of power, they will cost homeowners next to nothing to keep on at night, and they are sure to last for 30,000 hours in the time that they stay on. Not have solar power in most cases is not a big deal, but it would be a nice bonus.
Secondly, these lights do not turn on automatically, you will need a switch or another means of turning them on.
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4. LITOM, Wireless LED Solar Motion Sensor Lights Review
Litom’s outdoor lights assume the compact style, with a light on one slop and a solar panel on the opposite end. These bulbs give off a pure white light. You will get a pack of 4 lights with your purchase.
Litom’s landscaping lights gain power during the day. At night, they will give off a dim light until the morning. This light also has a motion sensor, and when it can detect somebody approaching, it will change from a dim light into a brighter one.
This is more designed to be a security light. It is mostly recommended to be mounted on walls outside your home, and not so much on the ground for landscape lighting. These lights also are rated IP65 for water and heat proof capabilities.
These lights each have a span of 24 months, or two years. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. However, you can get up to 8 years of use with your purchase if you just decide to replace one after the previous one dies.
Unlike the other lights in this review so far, Litom will give you not just a warranty, but a 1.5-month money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with these lights, you could get a refund. The warranty also lasts for three years.
The flaw with these landscaping lights is that you would have to be extremely lucky to have all four of the lights in the pack that you buy last two years. The quality of each light that is made is either a hit or miss, and in weeks, you can have some lights still running while others never work again. They will honor the warranty, but it can still be an inconvenience just to not have any lighting for a long stretch of time.
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5. Moonrays 95557 LED Outdoor Landscape Light
Moonrays has a pair of landscaping lights that look like spotlights. These light are highly affordable and are to be placed into the ground so that only their heads are sticking up. They shine light at 45 lumens each, and shine a pure and white light onto your property. These are very simple looking lights.
Like the other landscaping lights from Zuckeo, these are not solar-powered lights that can turn on and off automatically or get their power from sunlight. They require a control box in order to run, and thankfully, each bulb only requires one watt in order to run. That sounds pretty insane to us. The control box and low voltage cable are sold separately.
Moonrays’ landscaping lights are fully adjustable. You can point them directly upward or directly outward and you can turn them horizontally in any direction.
Many LED lights all uncoincidentally claim to last for 50,000 hours; that is just their nature. These lights, however are said to last double that; at 100,000 hours. It is also made of a diecast aluminum shell that is finished in a sleek, matte black.
Furthermore, these lights are backed with a one-year manufacturer's warranty. If these lights fail within your first year of owning them, you could be eligible for a replacement with no strings attached.
These lights, however, are not all that waterproof. They do not have an IPX rating, and they may stop working after just a heavy rainstorm. Unfortunately, the warranty will not cover acts of nature. You will have to protect these lights, like cover them, in order to reduce their risk of dying out in rain.
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6. GardenBliss Lighting - Best Solar Lights For Outdoor Pathway
This next pack of lights is from GardenBliss. They have a modern, mushroom design and are planted right into the ground. They all give off a pure, white light. They are best used to light up driveways, pathways and landscaping.
These are LED lights, billed to last over 30,000 hours. At night, they automatically turn on, and will turn back off when the sun comes up. These are all solar powered lights with no electrical sources required. They run on rechargeable lithium ion batteries, instead.
Furthermore, these batteries can be replaced, so that you can still use the lights after their first batteries are dead for good. The solar panel is located on the tops of these lights, and are hardly noticeable.
These are also highly waterproof lights that are double sealed to withstand rain, snow and other events of extreme moisture.
While these lights are sealed, they are rather brittle. They can easily snap and get knocked over from wind, wild animals or the occasional neighbor’s clumsy son. Their design do not make them all stable, and these light are more for show instead of durability. We say that if these lights do not survive, you could use the batteries for other applications.
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7. InnoGear Upgraded Solar Lights
The final landscape light comes to us from Innogear. This light nearly duplicates the blueprint used to make URPower’s first landscape light, even the unappealing design of it. These lights come in packs of two, and are available in warm, cool and multicolored versions.
There are two modes in each light: Normal and dimmed. When they are dimmed, the lumens go down to 50.
These lights are easy to install, which are placed directly into the ground via a plastic spike. Because these lights are solar-powered, you are not required to turn them on; they do that on their own. They will activate at night and turn right off in the morning.
If you need to mount these lights on a wall, there is also a mount and a set of screws that are included to help you achieve this goal.
InnoGear’s landscape lights have rechargeable lithium ion batteries that get their power from the solar panels attached. There is very minimal that you must do on your end to provide the power to them.
These lights can be adjusted up and down in a span of 90 degrees. You can adjust the light head as well as the solar panel, so that you can receive the most sunlight possible during the day. You will, however, need to take the light out of the ground in order to turn them, because the spike is cross-shaped, and not round.
This is also a waterproof light that is rated IP65. It will last out in the heaviest of rainstorms, and come with durable exteriors that properly seal out water and moisture. They will also not slow down because of exposure to gradual heat.
Once again, we are rather turned off by how this light is designed. The large bulky solar panel combined with a cone-shaped set of lights does not really look appealing or designer friendly.
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Buying Guide: What to Look Before Choosing the Right Landscape Lighting and Which One Will Be Best For You?
Why Do I Need Landscape Lighting?
There are many different reasons to buy lights for your home exterior. Knowing which reason is the most important to your will determine which type of lights that you need the most, in addition to where to put them around your home. Here are the three biggest reasons why landscape lighting is sought after by homeowners.
To Improve The Look Of Your Home
Landscape lights are used to make your house’s exterior look more appealing. Light can be used to add more depth to your curb appeal by including something that you can use to decorate your home or yard.
At night, landscape lights can help anybody nearby see your yard better so that it looks like a professionally landscaped piece of property. Landscape lighting can also help add resale value to a home by showing off same appealing photos with the lighting in use during clear evenings.
[You may like these article: LED Flood Lights And Pendant Lights Buying Guide ]
To Add Security And Safety
Lights are also great at night to help guide family members home and keep away those unwanted guests.
With landscape lighting, you can easily see your driveway at night, and know where to drive to get your car parked next to your home or in the driveway. Nobody likes having to be welcome to a pitch black environment, and lights help to add a sense of safety.
As for keeping away possible intruders, landscape lights can also be used to intimidate strangers who are up to no good, even if nobody is home. Landscape lights that turn on automatically means that there will be lights on all night.
Lights with motion sensors are also great, as they will not turn on until a person or thing moves in front of it. They can help a welcome guest by lighting up a pathway at night time, and they can also scare off intruders who are led to believe that a house had been emptied.
There are not that many homeowners that would not benefit from buying best landscape lighting. Whether you are looking for an easy and affordable way to add security to your lawn, or you want to have the best looking lawn on the block, landscape lighting is something you will want to buy, sooner or later.
Final Verdict
The landscape lights that we most recommend to you are ZUCKEO’s 5W LED Landscape Lights.
The first reason being that in this set, you get eight lights in one. There are enough lights here to light your whole yard up, and from there, you can just use as many as you need to. For other sets of lights, you would have to buy two to four packs to get as many.
Secondly, while these are not solar-powered lights, like most of the other ones in this review, you will find them to be more reliable, coming from an electrical power source. Solar power is just in its early phases of becoming super-reliable with its affordability. While traditional lights take longer to install, you will simply feel more confident with a source that you know will always work. Plus, LED lights are not expensive to have on at all.
While these are not automatic lights, you can however modify them to become automatic. There are tutorials that you can follow for how to use a photocell to convert lights that will activate when it is dark outside. We realize that this might be a lot of effort to do on your end, but a little can go a very long way. That is why these lights from Zuckeo are the best landscaping lights that you can buy.
