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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program This lighting system provides a functional, but very basic purpose: If the power goes out in your home or workplace, designated, wirelessly linked lights come on. Keep in mind that the lights will be activated whether it is dark or daylight.
How does it do this? The "kit" comes with three ceiling lights, which mount just like smoke detectors, and three "path," or side lights. The ceiling lights require four C batteries each, and the path lights require four AA batteries each (none of these are included).
The controller for these lights, which looks like a small television remote, takes rechargeable batteries, which are included. The controller plugs into an outlet, and when the power goes off, it triggers the six lights to come on throughout the house.
To test the system, the remote can be pulled from the outlet to simulate a power outage. Note that the remote also lights up when a power outage occurs, and can act as a flashlight. Once the remote gets power again (the power comes back on, or you plug it back in after your test), all the lights go back off. You can also turn the lights on and off from the remote itself
Keep in mind that although Mr. Beams makes motion sensor lights, these do not have an option to be activated by motion and, as stated earlier, they do not have light sensors that keep them from coming on when the room is already well lit. The power goes off and the lights come on....period.
A few other things to note:
1) Quality-wise they are okay, but don't expect much. They are hard plastic and will undoubtedly break if dropped. The ceiling lights have a barely noticeable thin rubber ring around the inside, and with my set, when inserting the batteries I noticed that this was coming off of one of them and I could not get it properly re-seated.
2) As far as range goes, they are excellent. I have a two-story house with a concrete second floor. I placed one light at the far end, upstairs, well away from the remote, which was downstairs, and it triggered the light without any problem.
3) They are plenty bright for their purpose. If you place them properly (I turned off all the lights in my house and made it pitch dark to do this), they will give off more than enough light for you to make your way around the house to seek a more powerful flashlight, a camping lantern, etc., allowing you to avoid stubbing your toe or falling across furniture. No, your house will not be lit up just like the power came back on, and don't expect the remote to act as a 200 lumen flashlight....but then again, that is not really their intended purpose.
Overall, this system serves a very useful and practical solution for power outages. I live in South Florida, and as hurricane season comes back around I may get to test them out for real.....but I hope not!
If things change in any way I will update the review, but from my experience with them so far I do recommend them if you are looking for a low-cost emergency lighting system for your home.
Also...if you decide to vote this review down for whatever reason, would you please leave a note as to why? I try to be as complete and objective as I can, and feedback would be helpful.
Thanks!
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Just installed the product so I cannot rate durability, but I can say that I am impressed by the design and construction. Yes, you will pay a little more for this system, but it provides you with the ability to service the batteries in every piece of equipment. Many other products have sealed internal batteries which, once they fail, cannot be easily replaced if they can even be replaced. Solid construction and a nice feel to the switches on the control unit. I am not a person easily impressed, but this is a good American built product at a fair price.Best Deals for Mr. Beams MB280 ReadyBright Wireless Power Outage LED Whole House
I bought this as a gift to myself on my birthday last August much to my husbands annoyance.I installed it in September while he laughed at me for being paranoid....and in October superstorm sandy hit. Our home was damaged but we could still live there. The fact that we had no power for 22 days did not bother us too much because we had plenty of light!!!! My neighbors were a little confused because when the sun went down....we were lit. Now...I will say you'll need a little more than a full set (2 rounds in a large living room) and a good supply of c batteries for long outages. Also we found that even though they are bright you got more light when you hang them high on a wall so the light bounces as opposed to the ceiling. The funny thing is in the flood my husband lost all of the flashlights he had stored away due to the flooding. We never had to look for the Mr beams....they w.ere there when we needed them mostHonest reviews on Mr. Beams MB280 ReadyBright Wireless Power Outage LED Whole House
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program A couple months ago, my power was out for 28 hours due to a single tree falling a mile and a half, and two subdivisions away. It gets real dark when there isn't even the indirect glow of street lights in the house! So when I got a chance to review this product, I jumped-up (and shouted, "Why could you have brought this to me three months ago!")The kit I got included three ceiling lights, three path lights and one control unit. The control unit comes with a rechargeable battery similar to a cordless phone, but the lights use regular alkaline batteries.
(Don't use rechargeables in the lights. They need the full amperage of the alkaline batteries. Treat these lights as you would a smoke detector in that regard.)
The ceiling lights each use four C batteries, and the path lights each use four AA batteries. So right off the bat, that's another $20-25 you'll need to spend.
The ceiling lights are similar in design to many smoke detectors. You mount a plastic plate on the wall or ceiling, and then twist the unit onto the mounting plate. But with four C batteries in them, they're on the heavy side, and those screws and anchors are pretty small! I'd advise mounting high on the wall rather than the ceiling. If you do put them on the ceiling, make sure it's someplace where they won't do much damage if they fall.
The path lights have small plastic plates that you can mount to the wall, and the units essentially then hang from two small hooks. They also include a piece of double-sided tape for indoor installations where you don't want to permanently mount them, but even though the path lights are very light, I wouldn't trust double-sided tape.
The ceiling lights put out considerably more light than the path lights do, but that's to be expected since the C batteries are bigger than the AA batteries. The light from the path lights is very directional, too. Neither are bright enough that reading a book is going to be comfortable, but they will help you get around the house, and read the phone book to get the power company's phone number.
The remote control also doubles as a flashlight, and it lights immediately upon loosing power, too. You can turn off the flashlight independently of the rest of the lights, and technically you could light just the flashlight, and turn off the other lights, but that doesn't seem practical to me.
It took a long time to install the batteries in all the lights because the all have screws holding them closed. The ceiling lights each have one screw, and for some unknown reason, the smaller path light each have two screws. On the plus side, they're big-headed screws that you could use a coin on.
The remote control comes with the rechargeable battery not yet installed. One electronics-type screw holds the battery compartment, so a full-sized screwdriver is too big. Now... here's where I ran into the biggest problem. The socket that the pig-tail of the battery plugs into is mounted on a circuit board, and on the unit I got, it was mounted askew, and partially under the frame. That meant I needed to disassemble the entire remote, and break it all apart just to plug in the battery. And in the future, when it needs to be replaced (my guess is five or six years from now), I'll have to do the same.
So after installing all the batteries, I decided to test them. I had them all sitting on the counter while I plugged the remote control into the wall, and then removed it. Five of the six lights came on immediately. Using the buttons on the control, I was able to turn them off, and then back on. All six worked then, and all six have worked on each test I've performed after that, including those done after deploying the lights around the house.
So essentially, everything performs as expected.
The downsides are: 1) Questionable ceiling mounts for the weight of the units, 2) The additional cost of all the batteries, 3) The inconvenience of all the screws to get into the battery compartments, and 4) The askew mounting of the battery socket on the remote control, requiring complete dis assembly to install the battery.
I considered giving a rating of four stars, but frankly, none of those reasons, even together, is enough to outweigh the fact that the kit works exactly as it is supposed to work. So five stars it is.
Also, if you need extra ceiling or path lights, you can add as many as you want. There's no limit.
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By chance I purchased this before Hurricane Sandy hit. The power thankfully only went out for about 30 seconds, but the lights kicked on immediately around the house. Easy to setup and use. While it worked out, I sort of wished that the stair illuminating (vice the ceiling)units would plug into the wall and charge like the remote. But that said I was able to put one in a very creative spot that wouldn't have worked if it was a plug in unit.
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