Richarm Solar Flood Lights Outdoor - Dual 42 LED 6500K Dusk to Dawn Security Lights with 16.4ft Separated Cables, IP65 Waterproof for Barn, Pool, Garage

I’ve had these up for about two months, and so far everything works well.I’m using the lamps as landscape lighting- I have a hedge of bamboo and a small tree at the back of my property slightly raised above a deck, and I placed these at ground level aimed up into the foliage. It does a fantastic job of both creating a landscape accent and as illumination for my back yard and deck area. They are perfect in this capacity.The lights are bright, leaning towards the white end of the warm spectrum. Very pleasing to the eye and appear to be as bright as rated.Due to tree shading I had to add their brand specific extension cables, and contrary to expectations as well as their own suggestion, I used two 16’ extension cables on one of the lamps and it seems to work just as well as one of the lamps that has only one extension cable (there’s always a concern about voltage drops on longer lengths of DC voltage cables).When I set the first kit up I checked open circuit voltage and short circuit amperage, and right when I was surprised to see that the cable with two extension cords (total length 48’) was getting 5.5v /.78a while the cable with a single extension cord (total length 32’) was more like 4v/.5a, I looked up and saw a hazy cloud had just passed in front of the sun. This caused me to realize how dramatically direct sun affects the output, and that the 48’ cable was able to charge the lamp more than adequately.This encouraged me to buy a second kit, and about when I got everything set up I realized it was dead of winter and clouds and rain set in. The newer set with the shorter cable lengths don’t charge as well as the older set so don’t last as long, but they are mounted in slightly different locations so may not get the same light. But both kits still work well, even on a cloudy day.On a fully cloudy day with trees in the way in the dead of winter the lamps only illuminate for two to three hours, where in late fall with direct sun they would last about six hours. And yet, I have never seen the system in operation in the eight warmest/sunniest months of the year.Come warmer weather I plan to do a proper open circuit voltage/short circuit amperage test on all four cable lengths and look more carefully at physical panel placement to determine more accurately just what the individual panels, cable lengths, and lamp heads themselves are doing. The reason for posting this review now is to encourage anyone curious about the product to check it out. Even if seasonal sunlight or current performance was maxed out right now, I would say these lamp kits are pretty awesome, especially considering the low cost. If they perform better as seasonal sunlight improves I will give a ravingly positive review, and if they last at least two years I will check in again to actively promote the product.Final thoughts:1. It’s easy to check open circuit coltage and short circuit amperage with a basic DVOM. This gives you an exact idea of what your lamp heads can get from the panel and cabling.2. The battery and most of control electronics appear isolated in the lamp heads. If you have good charging voltage and amperage at the cable ends but there are performance concerns, most likely it’ll be in the lamp head.3. I use my setup in auto mode and it works perfectly. Comes on at night and stays on until battery voltage drains, then repeats daily.4. The remote is necessary to operate the system, but in auto mode you never need them after turning them on. I could easily see myself forgetting where I left it. Better keep track of it!Fingers crossed. This is the best low cost solar illumination product I have come across so far.

Item has two LED light units and one solar charging panel. The panel has two attached, fixed cords that plug into the two light units. There are no controls on either the lights or the charging panel. A remote control manages the functions of the light units. You do not have to have both light units plugged into the charging panel; i.e. if you only want to charge one light, you can. The LED units contain a battery that is charged by the panel. As the LED units are charging, a small orange light flashes on each unit. As long as the panel is receiving light from some source, the LED units will have a flashing light (when not turned on). There is no indication on the panel whether it is functional or not, charging or not, but this is fairly standard. The charging panel is well constructed with a glass face. The cords attaching the panel to the light units are about 16 feet long, so you could position the LED units about 32 feet apart, with the charging panel in the middle. Once charged, you can leave the panel attached, or detach the lights from the panel to use them somewhere else. The LED units are also well made; both the panel and lights are water-resistant, if not water-tight. Each light unit has 42 LEDs each, the small orange light, and an infrared receiver that accepts the commands from the remote control. If you lose the remote control, nothing works - almost. If you had set the LEDs to come on automatically when the environment goes dark, I believe that they will continue to function in that manner. The remote control has a number of functions: ON, OFF, 30%, 60%, 80%, intensity down, intensity up, 1H through 8H, and AUTO. The % buttons turn the LEDS on to that intensity. From ON or one of the % buttons, you can dim the LEDS down to a minimum that I would judge to be about 20%, or take it up to the maximum 100%. Once the LEDs are on, selecting one of the eight H buttons will turn the lights off after 1 hour, 2 hours, or up to 8 hours later. This depends however, on how fully charged the LED batteries are. If they were not fully charged and you selected the lights to turn off after 6 hours, the LEDS may turn off well before then when the juice runs out. For all the previous functions, you must use the remote control, every time. AUTO turns the lights on at dark, and off when the environment gets brighter. In this mode however, you CANNOT set the intensity - it comes on at full blast, and once on, you cannot dim it, or have it turn off after a set number of hours. For the most part, I do not believe that you will get near the 8 hours of use at full blast, it is probably more like 4 hours, but I have not tested this out. I did test the lights at 30% from a near full charge and got 7 hours out of them. I will do more tests later. The systems is advertised as "dusk to dawn" I'm not sure that this will quite make it unless you manually turn it on and turn the intensity to minimum, but it should be close! When you send a command from the remote, all 42 LEDS flash to signal that the command was received. When the lights are on, the orange charging light is off. I do not know if the unit is still being charged or not when the LEDs are in use; they may be, but I have no way of determining this without a lot of timing tests. Normally, you turn both units on/off/whatever such that both units are at 30% or on AUTO or whatever. However, if you can shield the two light units such that the remote signal is only picked up by one light unit at a time, you could set one ON, and the other at 30%, or in general, have them operating independently. Overall, this seems to be a good system. I've had several other solar light systems for flag poles or simple one or two LED utility lights (like this system). This has the best construction and functionality for the price range. I have not put it into use yet (it will be going in a 16x8 foot greenhouse for late evening (not all night) lighting in order to put tools away without stumbling), but it will certainly be plenty bright for its intended use. I would wish that you could have the AUTO function come on at a lower intensity so it might last longer into the evening, but this will not affect the way that I plan on using it. If your plans are similar, I'd highly recommend this system.