Ring Solar Steplight — Motion-activated steplight, bright LEDs, works with Amazon Sidewalk, Black

Let me start by saying, that I don’t use these lights exactly as they were intended. They are mounted above my patio doors and camera on a 1st floor patio which is covered by a second floor patio which is covered by a roof. So I can’t speak to their rain proofing. Mine might get a little wet due to heavy and or sideways rain or perhaps scattered drops if I’m window washing, but just barely. But for the purpose that I use them, they are GREAT. I wanted lights above my patio doors and camera for the night time and I didn’t want to pay for an electrician to install a junction box. Or have to install outdoor plugs. So my options were battery power and that pretty much means not having those lights on all night. Enter RING with the solar lights that stay on a low “glow” all night and light up when they (or the camera) sense motion. The fact that I could link these to other ring lights and cameras was a huge plus and made the purchase of the $50 ring bridge worth it for me (particularly since I got them on PRIME DAY at a good discount.) The solar powered floodlight either was not on sale or wasn’t out yet so these were my best (cheapest) to see if my idea would work. At the time I had my indoor ring camera mounted on the inside of my patio door facing out the window. So twilight and early nighttime made it hard for the camera to see outside clearly due to indoor lights reflecting. I wanted to see if the constant “glow” of these lights and them turning on when the camera sensed motion would help and they did! I would need more of them or the solar powered flood light to get the amount of light on the “constant on, glow” setting needed to completely overcome the reflection issue, but that’s fine.So due to their location, my lights are certainly not as exposed as they would have to be in order to get full sun, all day. Which brings me to minor complaint #1: These lights use rechargeable CR123 lithium ion batteries. It’s easy and fairly inexpensive to buy some extras to switch them out. And you may want to do that. While I knew my lights couldn’t be recharged via sunlight exclusively, They get some direct sunlight from the south side on sunny days for maybe an hour or 2 but that’s not enough and I knew that. But I was a little surprised at how much direct sunlight they needed and for how long. If your goal is to run these guys totally on solar energy, you will need direct constant sunlight and a lot of it. Mine were at about 60% and I needed to have them pointed directly at the sun for about 6 hours (over a2 days time) to get them to the high 90s. Mine do hold a charge for a very long time which is good because it’s a PIA to disconnect them from their mounting (minor complaint #2:) You mount the “mounting “ of these lights before putting the lights themselves up. It quite easy with an electric screwdriver (but TINY screws) Then you slide the light into the mounting (very easy to do BEFORE you mount them, NOT as easy once you have screwed in the mount.) And if it’s not where and how you want it, shining at the angle you want, you will be starting all over. Also, unless you are installing this at night, you won’t know if the light is shining where you want until night falls, then you have start over the next day. My real (and only true complaint) is that the bracket (a tiny tiny tabs) that enable the light to slide into the bracket, are plastic. And not very strong plastic. So sliding the light in and out of the bracket (particularly if you’re reaching up, down, or sideways) is difficult. Mainly the sliding out. And it puts stress on those tabs which can break. THEN the light cannot connect properly with the bracket so it will not stay up. You may think that you can just mount the light it’s self to your stairs or wall with strong mounting tape or Velcro…. No. The light is shaped so that it slopes and angles and it’s very difficult to get enough surface area to mount the light. AND the only flat part of the light is the battery compartment which must be pinched to open to access the battery AND the charging port! Really this is so that they are sealed from moisture. STILL!! So mounting the light with the bracket is pretty much necessary. REMOVING the light from the bracket is awkward and difficult unless pretty much at eye level straight ahead so you look behind the light and make sure you are correctly and gently removing the light from the bracket. And removing the light from the bracket is necessary to open the back cover in order to charge the battery or switch it out. Strangely it’s pretty easy slide it back INTO the bracket. Sorry for the long dissertation but it’s difficult to describe and explain. And I will admit again that I am not using these lights as they were intended. However, I am a little skeptical that even when used exactly as they were intended, one would never have to remove the light from the bracket. Even Ring suggests that you plug in the lights to charge their batteries if there are a couple of cloudy days in a row. And unless you live in a very clear, sunny area and the steps or deck you intend to mount them to has unobstructed, constant sun, you WILL have to charge these. And you will definitely have to un mount them to do that. By the way, if you were wondering if you could just leave them plugged in, nope. They will not turn on while charging (a good thing because the battery and charging port are exposed when charging and if it rained… 😬) This is mostly not RING’S fault; the battery charging compartment must be water tight (they could have made that mounting/ un mounting part easier and made the bracket a little stronger at the stress points and maybe they will. As for the solar issues, it’s a small solar panel (it has to be, it’s a step/deck light), and the smaller the solar panel, the more sun it needs. And what I really DO like is that these little guys are pretty darn efficient with their power consumption. It’s been close to 2 months since I charged mine and they are still at low 30% with nightly use from dusk to dawn. At pretty high (over 1/2) brightness level.I should add, I don’t use their motion detection. Because of their height and angle they would be alerting CONSTANTLY. I have mine set to “wake up” only when the camera they are linked to detects motion. And I have them set to stay on for about 30 seconds with no movement. That conserves a lot of battery life.So despite the periodic inconvenience, these lights work well for me.

Beautiful. My fav of all my outdoor lights. They are bright too

I think the Solar Steplight is my favorite of all the new solar lights. It's around as bright as a conventional flashlight, but with a nice diffused light. I wish the color of the light was changeable to something warmer than the existing pale yellow light, but it's not a deal breaker.The integrated solar panel has kept my light fully charged since I installed it, and I haven't had any issues with the placement even though the location gets quite a bit of shade.I've got mine installed above an outside door about 7 feet (2.1 meters) above the ground and it works really well. It sees me walking about about around 8 feet (2.4 meters) away from the door and it lights up quickly making it easy to find the door handle. It also makes it easy to see if there's someone at the door at night.The smart light features (with the Ring Lighting Bridge) allow for the Steplight to send motion alerts. It can also be linked with other Ring devices to trigger events like having other lights turn on or have a camera start recording if the light detects motion. Triggering cameras is really handy if you have the issue with cameras waking too late and missing the event.Overall I'm glad I bought the Steplight. It has been a great addition to my other Ring lights and cameras.

It's a pretty solid 4, let's go with what I like and don't like:Don't like - the fact that you need a bridge. Despite the advertised range of LoRa radio (that the lights and bridge communicate with) it's not really that great. I get a better range on Z-wave devices. LoRa is non-meshing (unlike Zigbee and Z-wave) so the range is it, no way to extend it, and I don't have a huge property. One of my lights keeps dropping off, so I'll have to move the bridge.I'd appreciate including some manner of adhesive, as I'm not about to go drilling into bricks. At the same time, they're a little TOO easy to remove from the mounting plate - I'm wondering if/when one will get stolen. Even a release tab would be good... But if you just slide it UP, it's removed. That's disappointing.Given the above it's still a solid 4. The functionality is quite good, and the solar panels seem adequate to keep them charged. I've got these steplights plus four path lights (bought from Ring directly) that are performing admirably. They include a big fat lithium battery with each, so it'll hold up over time.Light levels - great, and adjustable.Motion sensitivity - easily adjusted, seems fairly reliable at 2, cars on the street don't set it off, but walking on the sidewalk does. Integration with Alexa is seamless - they show up as lights AND sensors. Thus, I can have an outdoor PIR (on Smartthings) trigger the lights to turn on as well as the carriage lights, but also have the step lights do the same (including the carriage lights I have on a Z-wave switch).Basically, I purchased these because they were the only option to do EXACTLY what I wanted them to do, and they do it.Update 6/13/2020 - Ring had someone reach out to me regarding the review and to discuss my concerns, so we spoke at length about it. Regarding LoRa range limitations - it's being addressed. Regarding possible theft, Ring insures these the same as their doorbells, so kudos to Ring.After running these (plus four path lights) for a few weeks, I'm still very happy with the performance. Solar panels keeping everything charged well, lithium batteries keeping them running, and I still show them off to my neighbors.Still the best solar lights you can get.