Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C Review: Flexible utility lighting

Design and installation

• Large solar panels
• Wall or stake installation
• Connects via Bluetooth

Outdoor lighting is a great way to change the mood and ambience of a space, or just add utility lighting so that you can see where you’re going. While mains-powered lights, such as the Philips Hue Outdoor range, are a way to have constant light when you need it, it’s not always possible or practical to get power where you need it, which is where the idea of solar lights comes in.

Down in Cornwall, I have a long path that runs from the street to the front door. As it’s Cornwall, it’s properly dark, so outside lights are a must. I’ve tried every variation of standard solar lights, but they all fail quickly: the stake lights aren’t very bright, get knocked over and barely work when the nights draw in, and motion lights work for a bit longer, but the fixed, small solar panels don’t quite get enough sunlight where I need them.

I was keen to try out the Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C to see what they could do. They come in packs of two (£4), four (£47) or six (£60), depending on how many you need.

Each light looks a bit like Wall-E, with their double-LED lightsources looking like eyes. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of personality.

On top is a large solar panel (12.27 x 8.75cm), which is bigger than the panels you get on most solar lights. That’s important, as a larger surface areas means more power, so you can top the batteries up fewer hours of daylight.

Linkind has used MPPT panels for these lights, which it says are 89.9% efficient, compared to the 60% efficiency of regular panels. Higher efficiency means more power making it to the batteries for charging, so better performance even when there’s relatively little sunlight around.

Of course, there are still limitations with solar-powered lights, and the panels do need to be placed in an area where they get full sunlight, and aren’t in shade from a tree or similar. That does limit light placement in some areas, but this limitation is inherent to all solar lights.

You do at least get options for installing the Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C. Each light has the option of being mounted on a stake and pushed into the ground, or you can use the wall mount, screwing the lights into place.

I mounted my lights on the top of the fence posts that run down the path, using the rotate and tilt options to get the right balance between lighting the path and having the solar panel pointing in the correct direction.

This level of flexibility is good. The previous solar lights that I’ve tried are fixed in position, with no option to tilt or adjust the lights.

Once in position, the lights can be turned on and connected to the AIDot app (AIDot is Linkind’s parent company). For power reasons, the lights don’t have Wi-Fi built in, relying on low-power Bluetooth for control.

It’s very quick and easy to get the lights detected and connected to the app, with the option to organise lights into rooms. It took me less than 30 minutes to screw six lights into place and get them connected to the app.

Features and performance

• Brilliant scheduling options
• Bright and reliable
• Lots of colour options

It’s worth renaming the lights in the app so that you know which one is which, such as numbering them in order from top to bottom of a path. That makes it easy to control each one.

I found that the app can be a little slow to connect to the lights when it’s first opened, as the Bluetooth connection has to be made. Range is good, though. Sat in my front room, I could connect to all of the lights, running down a ~25m path.

Lights can be controlled individually or grouped together. The latter doesn’t serve much purpose for these lights, as each room in the app also has a control for all lights, which I found easier to use.

As with most smart lights, the Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C have the same kind of options. Lights appear on the home page, and I could quickly turn them on and off, adjust brightness, and even pick colours.

There’s the full choice of colour temperatures (warm 2700K to cold 6500K), preset scenes that take on different colours, and then all of the colours you could want from a colour wheel.

In terms of intensity and colour brightness, the Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C lights are impressive. Colours work well if you want to light up a tree or plants, but they’re a bit off-putting if you want lights for a pathway, as I do; in that case, as warmer colour temperature works best.

While I could control these lights like regular smart lights, for the most part you’re likely to want them to come on and off automatically. By default, they work from when it’s dark to when it’s light, using a light sensor. That makes the Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C similar to regular solar lights.

Here, there are more and better options. First, there’s an Energy Saving option, which automatically reduces light brightness to increase battery life. And, I could go further and dim the lights using the slider.

There’s then a choice to add a schedule to the Luminance Detection mode, so the lights will only be on if it’s dark and within the scheduled time. I set my lights to come on when it’s dark and between 7pm and 12am, the times that I’d typically go out or come back.

By doing this, my lights aren’t on in the early hours of the morning, draining the battery life.

Alternatively, I could set a hard schedule, and have the lights come on and off at set times, but I think it’s best to combine with the light sensor, so that the Linkind Smart Solar Spotlight SL5C lamps only turn on when required.

These options have meant that my lights perfectly light up the path, making it easier to get in and out of the house, and that I only use the level of battery required. Should I need the lights on later, I could just open the app and manually turn the lights on.

Having installed the lights at Easter, I’ve found that they’ve worked consistently and properly since then, outdoing every other type of standard solar light that I’ve been through. And, battery life has remained constant.

Should you buy it?