Expert Rating

90

Path lights not only add some fresh value to the aesthetic of your home, but can be helpful in guiding you to your home. More importantly, it’s a good deterrent against would-be burglaries. The best smart light bulbs in our book for such an occasion are Ring Solar Pathlights. These smart lighting devices are solar powered, light your path, and are motion activated.

Related: If you also want a quality bulb for your room, read the Lumini Tl100 App Enabled LED Color Mood Light Bulb review

Why We Like It – Ring Solar Pathlight Review

Light up your path with these outdoor, solar-powered lights. They’re motion-activated, can integrate with smart home devices, and can become part of a larger smart home ecosystem.

Pros
  • Integrates with Alexa and Google Assistant
  • Motion activated outdoor lighting devices
  • Solar powered smart bulbs
Cons
  • A bit expensive
  • Ring Bridge is sold separately

Related: Also check the Sengled Smart WiFi LED Multicolor review

Performance

The Ring Solar Pathlights aren’t the brightest light bulbs out there, not as bright as, say, Philips Hue White 4-Pack, but they shouldn’t be. These Ring pathlights produce 80 lumens, which is plenty to light your path without blinding the neighborhood. They’re motion activated, so you’ll need to come within 15 feet to set them off.

The battery life for the Ring Smart Lighting Solar Pathlights is entirely dependent on how much sun it got that day. But since they turn off by themselves, they can conserve energy from another day, provided they aren’t used frequently. To make any kind of changes to their behavior, you’ll need the Ring app and a single Ring Bridge. You can then set schedules, timers, mobile notifications, and more. It does lack colors, unlike the Peteme 4-Pack 60W.

Design

Everything the Ring Solar Pathlight offers is tucked into a dimension of 16.8 in x 4.33 in x 4.33 inches. It should only take you five minutes to install one, with the help of a mounting stake. The light can be inserted into dirt or gravel, which makes it versatile. Once installed, you can control it with select Alexa enabled devices (like Echo Dot) or Google Assistant (with a Ring Bridge).

Since the Ring Solar Pathlight is solar-powered, you never have to change any batteries or charge them. There’s a variation of the smart lighting pathlights that are battery powered, making use of 4 D batteries and are rechargeable.

Value

Where the Ring Solar Pathlight stumbles is with pricing. For only one light, you pay $35. That’s even steeper than the price of a single TP-Link Kasa Tunable. To make matters worse, most of the smart home features are only available if you link your Ring Smart Lights to a Ring Bridge, and that’s sold separately. Thankfully, you only need one Ring Bridge.

To get the most value, go with a Ring Bridge and Solar Pathlights bundle. From there, you can use your Ring Bridge to connect other Ring devices such as Ring doorbells, additional motion sensors, step lights, and Ring’s smart home security system. Through the Ring app, you can string your security system and lights together to create a “Ring of Security.”

Ring Solar Pathlight Review Wrap Up

Needing a hub to control the Ring Solar Pathlight is a real bummer—but it’s through the Ring Bridge that sets you up for Ring’s other smart devices, and voice assistant support. Without it, you just have really good solar-powered outdoor lights that activate with motion. It’s an investment that’s worth it, if you plan to integrate more than just outdoor lights.

Brady Meyers Avatar