REVIEW – Solar outdoor lights are very easy to find. You can find small ones for a buck at the dollar store, even. The biggest problem I’ve seen with those, though, is that in general you’re lucky if they last a year and the plastic stakes and posts tend to break very easily. Not a huge loss when they’re super cheap, but the waste and lack of quality and options bother me. Last year I reviewed a set of XMcosy+ outdoor string lights that worked out great, and when XMcosy+ offered the XMcosy+ Smart Solar Pathlights for review, I had to give them a try. Read on to see how they did!
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $
Where to buy: XMcosy+
What is it?
The XMCOSY Smart Solar Pathlight set consists of a pack of six solar outdoor lights that are smart-enabled and externally controllable individually and in a group.
What’s included?
- Six lights with posts, stakes, and mounting hardware
- Smart bridge
- USB-C Charging cable
- User Guides for both lights and smart bridge
Tech specs
- Product Dimensions: 664.7×114.5mm / 26.2×4.5in
- Lighting Modes: Warm white, Cool white, Red, Green, Blue
- Brightness:150 Lumens
- Waterproof Rate: IP65
- Working Temperature: -4°F-113°F
- Item Weight: 0.4kg
- High Sensitivity Motion Detection: Advanced PIR sensor detection up to 32.8ft range & 150° coverage
- Solar Panel: 1.1W monocrystalline silicon solar panel
- Battery: 2600mAh battery
- APP Control and Group Control: Control your solar lights easily with the XMcosy app, offering customized scenes, music sync, countdown, etc. and the ability to manage multiple lights together in a group for easy operation.
- Voice Control: XMcosy smart bridge allows voice control via Alexa or Google Home
- 3 Lighting Modes:
- Sensor mode, adjustable sensor light duration from 5 seconds to 60 minutes;
- Sensor slight bright mode, adjustable brightness from 10% to 30% for 8 hours or keep the light state
- Manual mode with XMcosy app
Design and features
These lights are designed very similar to many other path or garden lights you have probably already seen in stores and your community. There are two different installation options with these lights. You can stake them into the ground or mount them directly onto a hard surface on your home or a patio, fence, or deck.
The design of the light itself has a relatively large solar panel on the top to charge the battery during the day.
The light separates into two pieces and twists apart easily. This allows you to access the USB-C charging port if solar charging during the day isn’t enough or if you want to turn them on for a longer period of time.
You can also access the rechargeable battery and replace it if it has issues. One of the batteries was a little loose because the spring holding it in was just a little too tight. I stretched it a little and it held just fine after that.
The stake is sturdy and is fairly easy to drive into the ground. (as long as it’s not frozen) The light post then just inserts on and locks in place with a twist.
Setup
Charge up each of the lights via USB-C.
Connecting each of the lights to the XMCOSY app and the smart bridge device is fairly straightforward. You follow the user guide and after pressing the power button the first time the light will start strobing. This indicates that it’s ready to connect.
The Smart Bridge also connects to the XMcosy+ app and allows you to group and control devices there as well.
Performance
These lights are quite bright and responsive via the app. The smart bridge connects even more quickly than through the app alone, so I recommend using one of those if you want additional connectivity options. They tout that it can control up to 120 different lights with the smart bridge.
The motion sensing function on these lights is very responsive. You can set different level of sensitivity in the app, but it works great. While the ground was still frozen, I set these all out on the deck in a row and they would each turn on in a row whenever someone walked by or the dog ran through.
Placing the stake in the ground once thawed was easy and you can see in the picture how the post threads on to the stake.
At night and on the white light setting, it is very bright and lights up quite a bit.
Other color settings aren’t as bright, but are still very fun and you can theme your lights for different things throughout the year!
Final thoughts
These are great lights so far. I look forward to moving them around the yard once the ground thaws a bit more. Reviewing lights like this in winter has been a little tricky, but I can say that it has been a good test of how they can handle cold weather, snow, and rain. So far they’ve passed with flying colors. The most difficult part of setup on these lights is connecting them to the app and figuring out the different functions on the app. You can set different schedules for when they turn on and off, motion sensing, and color/brightness. I think they’re very well made and if you already have XMcosy+ lights it’s nice that they are all in the same app. Definitely recommend.
What I like about the XMcosy+ Smart Solar Pathlights
- Connectivity is quick and easy, both direct and with the smart bridge
- Color range and brightness is great
- Sturdy stakes and posts
What needs to be improved?
- Nothing so far
Price: $79.99
Where to buy: XMcosy+
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by XMcosy+. XMcosy+ did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.