Solar lighting comes in a wide assortment of brightness and style choices – almost as varied as traditional lighting solutions.
Solar lights, in their most impressive application, offer streetlight lamps on par to that of standard city street lighting, without the hassle and continual cost of a wired light post. They are also well suited to lighting parking lots and green spaces without the need for digging anything but the anchoring point. Pared down for home use, there are many yard lamps coming in styles ranging from modern to classic Victorian metal castings.
There are also more compact floodlight options, which are best suited to lighting doorways, patios, decks, and even garden sheds. They are also available in motion detecting varieties. LED versions tend to offer the best bang for your buck in terms of light output.
A recently developed subgenre of solar lighting is cleverly concealed sculptural items, such as simple statues, water fountains and even beautiful hand crafted stained glass fence post caps. Larger post caps also look great on decks or gates, and come in many styles and sensibilities. There are even models that you can mount directly to a wall, which work particularly well with masonry, making for a high class, yet low cost look.
Solar lighting also finds use as a safety feature for open pools and back yard ponds. Self contained floating lamps give you an idea of where the water is in the dark, preventing accidents. They come in many colors to provide atmosphere too.
A new idea in solar lighting is specialized path lighting. In place of a cobble stone, a sturdy light the same shape as the stone can be used to accent the pathways boundaries. They work very well so long as they are not placed in muddy areas where the solar collector can become blocked out.
