Linkind Solar Pathway Lights SP6 review: Ground control with full color

Price When Reviewed

$99.99 (avenue value)

Best Prices Today: Linkind Solar Pathway Lights SP6

Solar-powered pathway lights get a foul rap for an excellent motive: Most of them seem like rubbish, with dim bulbs that solid a weak glow after hours. With its Solar Pathway Lights SP6, Linkind smartens up this house for a second time, constructing on the success of its sensible panorama lighting product launched earlier this yr.

Specifications

Like the Solar Spotlight SL5C I reviewed in April 2025, Linkind’s SP6 lights are totally self-contained and designed to be powered by the solar. Four pathway lights come to a field, every that includes a head unit that’s six inches sq. together with a bulbous shade and a three-part floor stake. Entirely manufactured from plastic, all of the items go collectively with out instruments, and the unit measures 14 inches tall as soon as it’s staked into the bottom.

There is not any different solution to safe the product than through the bottom stake, so this isn’t an excellent answer for hardscape or deck installations. Each mild carries an IP67 weatherproofing score. TechHive’s IP code guide signifies which means the trail lights can’t be disabled by particulate matter getting inside, and that they’ll face up to being submerged in a meter of water for as much as 30 minutes.

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The high of every head unit incorporates a 1.8W photo voltaic panel that prices an 1800mAh battery beneath. Flip the pinnacle unit over and also you’ll see what might be the SP6’s most uncommon characteristic: Not one LED however 4, organized in a grid. Each LED affords a most of 60 lumens of brightness however observe that just one LED can be utilized at a time.

The thought is that every LED will get lined with a plastic lens that creates a unique mild sample on the bottom: concentric circles, shimmery ripples, a swirl impact, and so forth. With 4 LEDs however 5 lens choices, it’s as much as you to resolve which 4 results you want the perfect. Each RGBTW (crimson, inexperienced, blue, and temperature-tunable white) LED helps 16 million colours and white temperatures from a heat 2700Okay to a really cool 6500Okay.

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You’ll wish to cost the spotlights through a USB-C cable for a few hours earlier than first use, or you possibly can park them within the solar for 2 days to get them prepared for preliminary deployment. Linkind says a full cost will present 12 to 14 hours of working time relying in your brightness settings.

As with the SL5C, the SP6 lights connect with the AiDot app in your sensible telephone through a Bluetooth mesh. You’ll have to be near one of many lights to manage any of them. Linkind says the lights have a most vary of 98 ft, unobstructed, between the controlling telephone and between one another. (With obstructions, I managed a variety of about 25 ft.) Up to 8 teams of 32 lights might be managed within the app. Linkind affords a $40 Bluetooth-to-Wi-Fi bridge if you happen to’d fairly join as much as 32 lights to your Wi-Fi community (2.4GHz solely).

Installation and setup

Assembling the lighting items is the extra tedious a part of set up, with every lamp involving 9 parts that you will need to match collectively. Figuring out the lenses is the toughest a part of this, because it’s not altogether straightforward to see at a look which is which, and there’s no solution to actually perceive what every lighting impact will seem like till you give it a attempt. You ought to plan to check with simply one of many lights to finalize your lens choice earlier than you set the remaining collectively and jam the stakes into the bottom the place you need them.

Onboarding to the AiDot app is so simple as urgent the ability button on every head unit and ready for the app to auto-discover it through Bluetooth. It’s actually a one-step course of that couldn’t have gone extra shortly in my testing.

Using the Linkind Solar Pathway Lights SP6

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There’s not quite a bit to the fairly dated AiDot app, to be trustworthy. Each mild seems by itself, and they are often grouped for management en masse.

Individual administration is restricted to altering brightness with a slider, selecting white temperature or coloration from one other slider, and choosing which of the 4 lens results you wish to use. Choosing a unique lens doesn’t change the remainder of the lighting settings; no matter coloration or impact was utilized if you had the “diamond” lens energetic shall be copied over to the “triangle” lens as soon as you choose it.

In different phrases, you possibly can’t configure 4 totally different results, one for every lens, after which cycle amongst them that manner. You can, nonetheless, configure every lamp to cycle by the 4 obtainable lens patterns, shifting each 30 seconds (this time restrict can’t be adjusted). You’ll simply get the identical coloration or impact solid by a unique lens.

Various preset results are additionally obtainable, with a variety of vacation and seasonal themes supplied. If these don’t work, you should utilize the DIY editor to decide on as much as eight colours to cycle by, in addition to set how they transition and the way shortly. A music mode could cause lights to bop both through the built-in microphone on the lamp or your telephone’s mic. Finally, if you wish to see what different individuals have performed, you possibly can try AiDot’s “Light Lab;” nonetheless, I used to be unable to import any of the publicly obtainable settings to my SP6 set up—even from different SP6 customers.

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Groups are a extra helpful solution to management lights in bulk, and group administration provides a brand new mode known as Light Show, which lets the lights work as a group. “Christmas Cheer” cycles lights by totally different colours so all of them blink on the similar time, whereas “Spellbound Specter” creates a shimmering impact that runs alongside the lights from one to the following as in the event that they have been wired collectively.

The unlucky problem with teams is that they’ll’t do all the things, and quite a few settings should be utilized mild by mild. This contains power-saving options resembling the automated power-down setting, which defaults to 30 seconds, and any timers you set. As with the SL5C, you possibly can tie a schedule to the ambient mild stage or time of day, however solely within the particular person mild administration system. There is nonetheless a shortcut workaround: Using the “Copy Work Mode” characteristic you’ll can discover within the gear-icon menu, you possibly can take the settings on one mild and push them out to others. (Note additionally that these lights don’t work with AiDot’s extra complicated Automations system.)

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Again, very like the SL5C, the lights are shiny, dramatic, and rather more spectacular than off-the-shelf hardware-store lighting. Cast down, the lights create a circle 4 ft in diameter, so you possibly can shortly cowl loads of floor with only a handful of items. For what it’s price, I discovered the SP6’s downlighting to be extra spectacular than the SL5C’s uplighting. On the opposite hand, the SP6 {hardware} isn’t very fascinating to have a look at when it’s off, coming off as somewhat low cost. Remember, you’ll be wanting on the {hardware} in the course of the day when it’s dormant in addition to at night time when it’s lit up.

Should you purchase the Linkind Solar Pathway Lights SP6?

At a avenue value of $100 for 4 lamps, the Linkind SP6 is effectively priced, significantly if you wish to make a colourful splash in your driveway or sidewalk. Users who solely want white mild for security causes can most likely get by with dimmer commodity bulbs. But those that wish to make a seasonal assertion with their lighting will discover these to be a formidable and versatile different.

In truth, I’m maintaining just a few of them round for the vacations to see in the event that they advantage a everlasting residence in my yard.