List Price: $99.99
Sale Price: $54.85
Today's Bonus: 45% Off
The advertised size of 15.5 inches is misleading, since it includes the optional tail piece, which is about 5 inches long.
This sconce is smaller than I anticipated. A CFL bulb will fit, but it takes up the entire space inside. Not as pretty as advertised (notice they use a very small bulb for the picture).
Still, that's not the reason for my 3 stars.
It's made of very thin metal parts. The whole thing is very light. Luckily the glass pieces are real glass, and not some acrylic that turns opaque with time.
For what you get, I'd say this is overpriced.
Only time will tell how long the motion sensor will last, but I can tell that it's not very sensitive. I mean, at the highest sensitivity setting, it will sense a good 50ft away, which is plenty for me since that's beyond my driveway and into the road. But you'll need to make big side to side motions to activate it. If you just stay put and nod your head or shrug your shoulders, that's not enough to activate it. Unfortunately, that lack of sensitivity doesn't improve as you walk towards the unit. Even at only 10ft away, you have to make some kind of obvious motion. So, if you're just sitting on your driveway, the lights will go off and you'll have to wave your hands once in a while. In contrast, my indoor motion sensors can pickup motion if I just stand there and breath.
Most people buy these things as pairs, yet, a unit without the motion sensing isn't offered (at least not available in Amazon or else where that I've searched). Curiously, the installation instructions include the scenario of wiring a non-motion sensing unit as a slave.
I had no choice but to use 2 motion sensing units, and set the slave to constant ON from dusk to dawn. The problem with that is not only the price (I'm paying for a feature that I'm not using) but there is a slight delay in turning on. The slave unit receives power only after the master (motion-activated) unit goes on. Upon receiving power, the slave needs to "warm up" the dusk/dawn circuitry, and the end result is that the slave unit turns on about 2 seconds after the master unit.
Another annoyance with this setup: there is an override procedure (flip wall switch ON-OFF-ON-OFF within 3 seconds) which disables the motion sensing circuitry making the unit behave like a regular light, allowing you to turn it ON and OFF from your wall switch. Well, I'm guessing because of that delay, the slave unit doesn't see that disabling sequence.
I could wire both units in true parallel, as master and master, but then both units would operate independently, based on their own motion sensing and may not turn on and off simultaneously. I may try that to see if that annoys me less than the delay and lack of override capability.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
Good light, a bit smaller than I thought it would be. Works well as a dusk to dawn porch light. Works well with CFL light bulbs!
No comments:
Post a Comment