7 Best Solar Post Cap Lights in 2021 (Review)
Illuminating a garden or the outdoor space of your home may be a difficult task considering all the electrical work needed to install a single lightbulb. Solar post cap lights are a great option for easy-to-install lights that require no professional electrician. These lights come in a variety of different designs, so you will be sure to find the perfect light for your outdoor spaces.
Besides offering the best functionally, these solar cap lights and lamps are a great way to reduce the electric bill and have a great environmental impact by taking advantage of the sun’s energy. That is why we assembled a list of the best solar post cap lights in 2021. Read on for the best solar post cap lights review for the illumination of your garden, front or back entrance, and even your pool or boat dock.v
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The Best Solar Post Cap Lights
1. Davinci Flexfit Solar Post Cap Lights
Davinci Lighting is a Miami-based company that specializes in lighting solutions that offer both beauty and functionality, like solar yard lights. The Davinci Flexfit Solar Post Cap Lights are the perfect example of what attractive and useful designs looks like.
The solar cap lights don’t need electrical wiring. They are completely self-contained and sit on wooden posts of 4×4, 5×5, and 6×6 inches (10×10, ~13×13, 15×15 centimeters) in a simple and doable DIY installation process.
The internal light offers an appealing classic design capable of providing 25 lumens with an internal reflector for maximum brightness. Flexfit charges throughout the day and turns on automatically at night with its built-in photosensor.
Its 300mAh lithium-ion AA rechargeable battery offers a 6–8-hour nightlight from a full 8-hour charge of direct sunlight.
The unit’s housing is weatherproof for use in rain, sleet, and snow. It has an IP44 rating and industrial-grade plastic with UV fade protection. Built to last, the unit comes with LEDs that last 100,000 hours, so you won’t need to replace them very often.
2. Blue Yang Solar Post Lights
The Blue Yang Solar Post Lights feature a flickering flame light that can be used in the front, backyard, driveways, and walkways around your patio or porch.
This unit is made out of durable plastic with a resistant black coated finish. Its ingress protection level assures an IP55 rating, meaning its enclosure is waterproof grade and can resist rain, snow, and frosting, making it the perfect option for outdoor lighting.
The Blue Yang lamp lights feature four solar panels on top of the unit acting as the power source and harvesting solar energy to recharge the integrated lithium-ion batteries. It can power the light for up to 10 hours in summer after being fully charged for around 8 hours in full exposure sunlight.
The LED bulb and the superior tempered glass offer a realistic flickering flame effect to provide the perfect campfire atmosphere for any outdoor activity.
The base is designed to fit the standard 4×4-inch wooden post. Furthermore, it can be placed on a flat surface with its base adaptor, which attaches to wooden surfaces with the included stainless-steel screws and wall plugs.
3. Davinci Premium Solar LED Post Cap Lights
The Premium Solar LED Post Cap Light is another astonishing, classic, and easy-to-install design by Davinci Lighting, and is one of the best solar post lights on the market.
This solar cap is designed to fit both 4×4 and 6×6 inch wooden posts, and can be fixed onto any flat surface. Its weatherproof casing has a IP44 rating, is made from industrial grade die cast aluminum, and has beautifully textured glass made to resist variable weather conditions.
Its wide-angle 25 lumens LEDs offer a warm light (3000 kelvin) and last 100,000 hours. They are solar powered by an efficient monocrystalline solar panel that blends with the design on the top of the unit.
All Davinci Lighting designs are easy to install on posts, with no need to hire an electrician. The DIY installation process is as simple as screwing it to the post. As with the FlexFit, the Premium Solar LED Post Cap comes with a built-in light sensor for automatic lighting, so you will never be in the dark.
This unit comes with a pre-installed and replaceable 3.2v 300mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery that offers 6-8 hours of battery life after an 8-hour charge in direct sunlight.
4. Sunwind Solar Post Cap Lights
For more high-class and modern home designs, the Sunwind Solar Post Cap Lights are the perfect solution for outdoor lighting.
These solar cap lights are weather and waterproof with a level of resistance to water and dust of IP44. Thanks to their thick durable plastic walls, they can work appropriately in rain or snow.
They feature an amber light provided by the combination of one super bright, warm white LED and its internal reflector. This warm light gives up to 5 lumens of illumination.
The lights include four AA Ni-MH 1.2V 400mAh batteries that provide up 8 hours of illumination when charged by sunlight for 8 to 10 hours through the built-in solar panel that sits on top of the unit. For further energy saving, once they are in place, they automatically switch on at night and switch off in daylight for total energy efficiency.
Its base only fits 4×4-inch posts with nominal dimensions of 3.58×3.58 inches, and includes two stainless steel screws and wall plugs per post cap light that go horizontally through the base of the unit and into the posts.
5. Greluna Solar Post Lights
Greluna’s Solar Lamp post cap light is a traditional British-like post look for gardens, outdoor pots, paths, or front doors.
These solar lamp lights have four solar panels on top of the unit which act as the power source that charges a rechargeable and replaceable 3.2v 600mAh, AA lithium-ion battery. This battery offers a run time of around 6-8 hours at night when fully charge, saving as much energy as possible from your electricity bill.
It utilizes a round “Surface Mounted Device,” or SMD LED bulb, featuring a high-quality and bright 15 lumens of illumination and a color temperature of 6000K, suitable for outdoor home security lighting or for display areas. These features make this one of the brightest solar post cap lights on the market.
The base of the unit is designed for nominal 4×4 wooden posts, as such, its post base is 3.8×3.8 inches for the correct outdoor post installation process. It can also be surface mounted on the included base surface.
The lamp needs to be manually turned on and off by a switch on the unit. To do so, you need to remove the plastic cover of the lamp to access the interior. But this will preserve the life of the bulb, as it will not automatically turn on when you don’t need it.
6. Moonrays Solar Post Cap Lamp
This premium Solar Post Cap Lamp made by Moonray Outdoor Living provides LED lighting for fences, posts, and outside structures.
This lamp is housed on a plastic and metal brushed copper finished frame surrounded by four elegant multi-colored stained-glass-style lenses that provide an air of sophistication and refinement to the solar post cap.
It easily attaches to a wooden 4×4-inch outdoor post with the included hardware. Also, its sturdy construction is designed to be weather-resistant, to stand up against rain, heat, and snow.
Moreover, the lamp comes with a 1000mAh AA NiMH rechargeable battery that acts as the power source for the light, with an output of 18 lumens, warm light, and wide-angle beam LED. The top-mounted solar panel charges the unit at day-light, meaning this is a completely autonomous light that doesn’t require a wiring installation process to work.
The lamp automatically turns on at night and turns off at sunrise to provide an energy-efficient solution, making it one of the top-rated solar path lights available.
7. GreenLighting Solar Powered 5-Lumen Post Cap Light
The Greenlight Solar Powered Post Cap Lights are small bungalow-style outdoor post cap lights to create an elegant path for your outdoor environment.
These solar caps are easy to install at the highest point of the railing as they do not require any wiring and are 100% maintenance-free. Their base fits multiple types of configurations, including 4×4 nominal wooden posts, 4×4 vinyl and PVC, and 5×5 vinyl or PVC posts with the help of included adapters.
Each light features 5 lumens delivered by two bright white LEDs through the elegant California-style textured glass, which provide great illumination for your garden, pool deck, or boat dock. Anywhere some extra lighting is needed, these post caps are a great solution so that no corner is left in the dark.
Each cap features a built-in solar panel to fully capture the sun’s energy and integrate the solar cap system so it can be completely autonomous. Furthermore, the caps should be placed at the highest point of your outdoor space to receive maximum irradiance throughout the day.
Solar Post Cap Lights – Buying Guide and FAQ
3 Features to Look for in Solar Post Cap Lights
There are so many different solar pots cap lights and brands on the market. Generally, you want the best aesthetics that fit your house design. As everyone has their own, we leave that choice to you. What we can do to help you make your decision is list the main technical features to look out for.
Light output
When reviewing any light, there are two main features to look out for.
The brightness of the light, measured in lumens, indicates how much light you are getting from a bulb. More lumens equal a brighter light, while less equal a dimmer and weaker light. Lumens basically let you determine how much light you are getting from a specific lightbulb.
The light’s color temperature, measured in Kelvins (K), indicates the color options of the light. Different ranges of color temperatures may be suitable for different applications of indoor or outdoor lighting. For example, security lighting or solar flood lights.
Size and posts compatibility
Correct choosing of the right post cap size for your yard post is a crucial step of the selection. You want to always double-check the dimensions of your post as there are many solar cap post sizes and base options.
There are three main types of materials for typical yard fence, patio, and porch constructions, including: wooden, PVC, and vinyl. As wooden is the most typical construction material, almost every solar cap post light is sized for them.
Despite this, there are many solar cap post lights for vinyl and PVC, as these posts are up to five times stronger, as well as dust and pest resistant. You should always double-check the actual dimensions of the posts in your yard and match it with the dimensions of the product to avoid any unpleasant surprises while installing the products.
Battery
The battery is one of the most important features of a solar cap post light as it is where the energy is stored to light up your space at night.
It basically determines the charging and run time of the unit. Ideally, you want a good discharge rate of around 10 to 12 hours to have a considerable high capacity run time. The run time represents how long the light will last at night.
Most batteries included on a solar cap light are rechargeable lithium or nickel-based batteries in double AA presentations. Most AA rechargeable batteries last between 400 to 700 charging cycles which translates into proximally 2 to 3 years, which is quite a long time for a light that need minimal maintenance.
As for the charging time, the standard Ni-MH battery charges in 8 to 10 hours while a lithium-ion cell of the same capacity charges in 2-4 hours, meaning less sun exposure is required for the same weather conditions.
Solar Post Cap Lights FAQ
Q: Does it have to be installed by an electrician?
A: All solar-powered post cap lights on this list are self-contained and autonomous, meaning they do not require any electrical wiring up to the location of the lights. Most solar caps are easy to install, meaning they just need to be fixed to their posts with the included screws; that’s it. As they are autonomous, they will work on their own since the solar panels recharge the battery system during daylight and the stored energy discharges at night, powering the light. You will just have to be sure to replace the battery once every 1 or 2 years to have a great working light.
Q: How and where can I install these solar cap lights?
A: These lights are designed to be mounted on fences and posts of outdoor spaces, specifically to light up night spaces where it’s difficult to run wiring for common lights. In particular, these lights don’t offer as much illumination as traditional lighting, but they offer a great source of illumination for outdoor difficult spaces to reach. Moreover, they are not only useable on posts. By using the included flat bases and hardware, it’s possible for the solar cap lights to be mounted on plane surfaces, different post sizes, and forms, or even as a solar-powered gutter light (with the required hardware).
Q: How long will these solar post lights last?
A: It varies from one model and brand to another. Most of these lights are made of sturdy and durable materials. The best indicator of how the unit’s case will behave under your weather conditions is the ingress protection rating, which defines levels for how the unit’s case can withstand the intrusion of dust and solids and avoid moisture from entering. An IP44 rating is enough to endure most weather conditions, ensuring that the integrity of the light will last many years. Additionally, most LED bulbs have a lifespan of around 10,000 hours, meaning a single bulb can last more than 3 years.
