Linkind Photo voltaic Pathway Lights SP6 assessment: Floor management with full colour

Greatest Costs Right now: Linkind Photo voltaic Pathway Lights SP6

Photo voltaic-powered pathway lights get a foul rap for a superb purpose: Most of them appear to be rubbish, with dim bulbs that solid a weak glow after hours. With its Photo voltaic Pathway Lights SP6, Linkind smartens up this area for a second time, constructing on the success of its good panorama lighting product launched earlier this yr.

Specs

Just like the Photo voltaic Highlight SL5C I reviewed in April 2025, Linkind’s SP6 lights are totally self-contained and designed to be powered by the solar. 4 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. Solely 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 no such thing as a different technique to safe the product than by way of the bottom stake, so this isn’t a superb answer for hardscape or deck installations. Every gentle carries an IP67 weatherproofing score. TechHive’s IP code information signifies which means the trail lights can’t be disabled by particulate matter getting inside, and that they will stand up to being submerged in a meter of water for as much as half-hour.

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The highest of every head unit includes a 1.8W photo voltaic panel that costs an 1800mAh battery beneath. Flip the pinnacle unit over and also you’ll see what might be the SP6’s most uncommon function: Not one LED however 4, organized in a grid. Every LED provides a most of 60 lumens of brightness however be aware that just one LED can be utilized at a time.

The thought is that every LED will get coated with a plastic lens that creates a distinct gentle 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 most effective. Every RGBTW (pink, inexperienced, blue, and temperature-tunable white) LED helps 16 million colours and white temperatures from a heat 2700K to a really cool 6500K.

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You’ll wish to cost the spotlights by way of a USB-C cable for a few hours earlier than first use, or you’ll be able to 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 hook up with the AiDot app in your good cellphone by way of a Bluetooth mesh. You’ll have to be near one of many lights to regulate any of them. Linkind says the lights have a most vary of 98 toes, unobstructed, between the controlling cellphone and between one another. (With obstructions, I managed a variety of about 25 toes.) As much as 8 teams of 32 lights might be managed within the app. Linkind provides a $40 Bluetooth-to-Wi-Fi bridge for those who’d slightly join as much as 32 lights to your Wi-Fi community (2.4GHz solely).

Set up and setup

Assembling the lighting items is the extra tedious a part of set up, with every lamp involving 9 elements that you could match collectively. Determining 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 technique to actually perceive what every lighting impact will appear to be till you give it a attempt. It is best to plan to check with simply one of many lights to finalize your lens choice earlier than you place 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 by way of Bluetooth. It’s actually a one-step course of that couldn’t have gone extra shortly in my testing.

Utilizing the Linkind Photo voltaic Pathway Lights SP6

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There’s not so much to the slightly dated AiDot app, to be sincere. Every gentle seems by itself, and they are often grouped for management en masse.

Particular person administration is proscribed to altering brightness with a slider, selecting white temperature or colour from one other slider, and deciding on which of the 4 lens results you wish to use. Selecting a distinct lens doesn’t change the remainder of the lighting settings; no matter colour or impact was utilized once you had the “diamond” lens lively will probably be copied over to the “triangle” lens as soon as you choose it.

In different phrases, you’ll be able to’t configure 4 totally different results, one for every lens, after which cycle amongst them that means. You’ll be able to, nevertheless, configure every lamp to cycle by the 4 out there lens patterns, shifting each 30 seconds (this time restrict can’t be adjusted). You’ll simply get the identical colour or impact solid by a distinct lens.

Varied preset results are additionally out there, with a variety of vacation and seasonal themes supplied. If these don’t work, you need to use 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 may cause lights to bounce both by way of the built-in microphone on the lamp or your cellphone’s mic. Lastly, if you wish to see what different folks have finished, you’ll be able to take a look at AiDot’s “Gentle Lab;” nevertheless, I used to be unable to import any of the publicly out there settings to my SP6 set up—even from different SP6 customers.

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

The unlucky problem with teams is that they will’t do every little thing, and quite a few settings should be utilized gentle by gentle. This consists of power-saving options resembling the automated power-down setting, which defaults to 30 seconds, and any timers you set. As with the SL5C, you’ll be able to tie a schedule to the ambient gentle degree or time of day, however solely within the particular person gentle administration system. There may be nevertheless a shortcut workaround: Utilizing the “Copy Work Mode” function you’ll can discover within the gear-icon menu, you’ll be able to take the settings on one gentle and push them out to others. (Be aware additionally that these lights don’t work with AiDot’s extra complicated Automations system.)

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Once more, very like the SL5C, the lights are shiny, dramatic, and far more spectacular than off-the-shelf hardware-store lighting. Forged down, the lights create a circle 4 toes in diameter, so you’ll be able to shortly cowl plenty of floor with only a handful of items. For what it’s value, I discovered the SP6’s downlighting to be extra spectacular than the SL5C’s uplighting. Then again, the SP6 {hardware} isn’t very attention-grabbing to have a look at when it’s off, coming off as a bit of low cost. Keep in mind, you’ll be wanting on the {hardware} through the day when it’s dormant in addition to at evening when it’s lit up.

Must you purchase the Linkind Photo voltaic Pathway Lights SP6?

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

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