Ring Smart Lighting Solar Floodlight MSRP $89.99 Score Details DT Editors’ Choice “You won’t be able to find a smarter, more useful solar security light on the market.” Pros Adjustable brightness No need to worry about batteries or wiring, and installation takes an amazingly quick 5 to 10 minutes.
This writer’s backyard gets as dark as a mine shaft at night, so I need a floodlight that can really put out the light.
But when I tried out the Ring Smart Lighting Solar Floodlight on a cloudy night, it lit up most of the quarter-acre lot behind my home.
I set the light up to medium sensitivity and then left my dogs in the backyard for a few hours. For example, every time your floodlight detects motion it can be set up to turn on your video doorbell’s camera automatically. This ensures that if someone tries sneaking around your property, you have a better chance of catching some video footage of the person — plus it’s a wonderful deterrent. As long as you put the 2W solar panel in a sunny spot, you’re pretty much good to go.
The Ring Bridge is $50 and is about the size of half a deck of cards, so it will take up very little room in your home. The Ring Smart Lighting Solar Floodlight ($90) is affordable, easy to install, and has zero upkeep.
There are quite a few solar powered floodlights on the market at a range of prices from $35 to $600, but there are very few that can be controlled with an app, and likely none that can be connected to other lights in your home.
Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight Wired review: A terrific supplement to the Ring Floodlight Cam
Ring’s acquisition of Mr. Beams in 2018 enabled it to significantly expand its smart lighting offerings, with mostly positive results. Ring’s floodlight isn’t pretty, consisting of two independently articulated stalks with LEDs and a bulbous motion sensor dangling beneath them. As usual, Ring provides all the tools and accessories you’ll need to accomplish the task (just be sure to cut the power at your breaker box).
The lights themselves connect to the Bridge over a separate network using a lower-frequency unlicensed spectrum that delivers longer range).
As far as your router is concerned, the Bridge is the only client in the Ring Smart Lighting product line that it needs to service. Philips Hue products operate on the same basis, and I can attest that the two ecosystems can coexist in the same home without any problems.
IDG If you’ve already installed another Ring Smart Lighting product, such as the battery-powered Pathliight pictured here, you don’t need to buy another Bridge. The different means of communication are an important distinction to be aware of, but it’s one that Ring tries very hard to render irrelevant.
Since the two devices are mounted on opposite sides (widthwise) of my three-car garage, this not only lights up my entire driveway, it also enables the camera to begin capturing video much earlier than it would if it relied only on its own motion sensor. By the same token, I could have linked the motion sensors on any of these three devices to turn on the lights in the Front Door group. The Floodlight Cam’s light settings, on the other hand, are based solely on clock time: You can program them to turn at 7:00 p.m. and off at 6:00 a.m., for example. Shop around and you’ll find more than a few other low-cost products promising similar features to what Ring has to offer.
I suppose it should go without saying that all of the Ring Smart Lighting products can be turned on and off with Alexa voice commands, but I was surprised that Alexa couldn’t answer the question “Is the Driveway Floodlight Wired turned on?” Her response: “Driveway Floodlight Wired motion detection is off.” That’s not what I wanted to know.
Ring Smart Lighting System Review
The Ring Smart Lighting System joins the company’s impressive roster of security devices and is designed to help keep your home safe and well lit. You Can Trust Our Reviews Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. It measures 2.3 by 2.4 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and has a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio to connect to your home network and Wi-Fi-enabled Ring cameras. There are two signal strength LED indicators on the front and a mini USB power port on the bottom.
It uses a dimmable 400-lumen LED bulb with a 3,500K white color temperature and its motion sensor has a 120-degree field of view and a 30-foot range. A dimmable 80-lumen LED bulb with a 3,500K white color temperature sits inside a 4.1-by-4.1-inch fixture and is affixed to a pole that holds the four D-cell batteries needed to power the light.
The Pathlight has a motion sensor with a 140-degree field of view and a 15-foot range and has a dusk-to-dawn glow setting that will keep the light on at reduced brightness at night. It uses two LED bulbs to provide 2,000 lumens of 3,500K white light and its motion sensor has a 180-degree field of view and a 70-foot range.
The small Steplight Battery is designed to light up stairways, walkways, and decks when it detects motion.
The Motion Sensor doesn’t illuminate anything but it provides an early trigger mechanism for smart lights and other Ring devices. The sensor is powered by three AAA batteries and comes with installation tools and screws, a user manual, and a security sticker. I plugged in the Bridge and waited a few seconds for the LED to blink blue, then selected my home Wi-Fi SSID when prompted.
I attached the Spotlight to the side of my house using the included mounting screws and repeated the setup process for the Pathlight and the motion sensor. Whether you want to illuminate driveways, stairways, or patio areas, there’s an option designed to light your way, and with most of these DIY devices, you don’t have to run any wires.
You can also link these lights to Ring doorbells and cameras to trigger video recordings when motion is detected. It would be nice if Ring added support for IFTTT applets so you can do things like have lights turn on when a lock is opened or when an alarm is sounded, and rechargeable battery packs would be a welcome upgrade, but neither gripe prevents the Smart Lighting System from earning our Editors’ Choice. Ring Smart Lighting System 4.0 Editors’ Choice See It $24.99 at Amazon MSRP $24.99 Pros Easy to install.
Customer Reviews: Ring Smart Lighting Wired Floodlight White 5W21S8-WEN0
PROS – Install Anywhere – Easily Expandable – Uses Batteries – Motion Sensor triggers Ring Cameras to start recording early !
Customer Reviews: Ring Smart Lighting Solar Floodlight White 5AT1S5-WEN0
We understand the importance of having your Ring Smart Floodlights withstand the outdoor elements and perform well for you in wet or dry conditions. Leaking water, on the other hand, is the result of some sort of defect or damage in the body of the light. This type of water may present a threat to the operation of your light and you should immediately take steps to prevent damage.
At-Home Review: Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Pro
Ring makes the process as easy as possible by including a variety of different-sized screws for the electrical box (other models include a single set of screws that might not fit the holes of your electrical box) as well as both printed instructions and in-app instructions with animated GIFs to show you each step. You also have to angle the camera between 45 and 60 degrees off the wall and input its approximate height off the ground.
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