With the best solar lights outdoors, sprucing up your backyard space is made instantly easy. Great for year-round ambiance, these lights are our pick of the best, with choices that dazzle from the minute you install them. Sustainable and more cost-effective to power than regular plug-in lights, these solar picks will become your new staple for outdoor entertaining.
If you’re particular about the kind of lights you adorn your space with, the great news is that there’s plenty of choice on the market for solar lights. Browse options suitable for both backyard or patio use, string lights if you want to pull an entire section of your space together cohesively, or path lights to help guide your way at night.
Below, you’ll find picks from brands such as Wilson & Fisher, Brightright, and Luminabright. Each type of light is usually available in different colors, too. Once you’ve selected the lights that work best for you, all you need to do is wait for them to arrive and place them in a location where they will receive plenty of sunlight to keep them powered up.
To keep things practical, plenty of the options in this list are also waterproof, meaning you can leave them out in your backyard regardless of the season and know that they’ll still be working when the sun shines again. Keep reading to find the best solar lights outdoors, and check out our guide on the best patio heaters for more backyard essentials.
The best outdoor solar lights we recommend
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While we haven't been able to test any of the units in this guide in person, we've instead honed in on top-rated brands and used our knowledge of the best features to help you make the right decision for your home, all for the best price.
The best solar lights outdoors overall
The Brightech Ambience Pro solar light bulbs are both weatherproof and shatterproof and can withstand rain, snow and winds of up to 50mph. These solar lights also come in two different length sizes but due to the lights being solar-powered, you can’t connect one set with an additional set.
The Brightech Ambience Pro solar lights have a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 on amazing, with 24,458 ratings. Users praise the ease of installation and use as well as the durability of these lights, while negative reviews lamented that it's not possible to replace bulbs as they stop working, and that the solar battery capacity could perhaps be a bit longer.
If you’re looking for solar lights to shine huge amounts of light down on to your garden, then these are not the ones, because the string lights are designed to provide a soft, ambient look.
Each hanging light bulb has a hook above it so that you can neatly attach these lights to gazebos. The Brightech Ambience Pro lights also come with a three-year warranty - the longest we’ve seen during our research.
The best solar lights for all weather use
If you’re looking for an attractive set of path lights, look no further than Signature Garden’s 6 pack of solar garden lights.
The Signature Garden solar garden lights score 4 stars out of 5 on Amazon, from 1,035 ratings. Users praise the ease of assembly and the value for money provided by these lights, while some disappointed customers commented they're not the most durable and some didn't work after just a few days of use.
The light stakes come with a pretty sharp point so you won’t have too much trouble pushing these beauties into the ground. The LED lights are made from stainless steel and crafted with solar-powered rechargeable batteries.
This means the sun recharges the outdoor garden additions during the day so they can stay lit during the night. According to the brand, the garden lights can last for eight hours during the night. But perhaps the best thing about these lights? The fact they come with a ‘no questions-asked’ lifetime guarantee.
So if something does go wrong, you can contact the brand at any time for free replacements. These garden additions are a little bit more expensive than other path lights listed in this guide, but the lifetime guarantee helps to offer a bit of peace of mind.
The best mountable solar light
The Sunforce 81256 is a good solar light that you can mount on your garage, shed or fence. It has the brightest LEDs among the solar lights we looked at, 850 lumens.
Currently, the Sunforce 82156 solar light has a rating of 4 stars out of 5 on Amazon, out of 3,122 ratings. Users praise the light's brightness and motion detection, but there are concerns about their durability and whether they're properly weatherproof.
This solar light many times brighter than the competition and helps it illuminate objects in a 30-foot radius. The motion sensor helps save battery for when the light is needed. The 15-foot wire that connects the light to the solar panel gives you a lot of flexibility to get the best exposure to sunlight during the day.
This product has three dials that let you adjust the sensitivity of the motion detector, how long the light stays on when triggered and how much daylight will turn it off.
The best pathway solar lights
The StarGinz Solar Pathway Lights cost $35.99 for a pack of 10 from Amazon. They're ideally to shape the outline of a path or driveway, and are easy to install by just placing the stakes into the ground. As such, they don't require tools for assembly.
The StarGinz solar pathway lights score an average of 4 stars out of 5 out of 3,359 ratings on Amazon. Users praise how easy to assemble they are and the value for money, while negative reviews highlight they don't last very long during the night and they're quite small so have a limited use.
These lights come with a solar panel each, and they charge during the day before automatically turning on at dusk. The brand claims the light lasts for 6-8 hours, but some users complain this is not the case.
StarGinz has made these lights IP65 waterproof, so they can withstand bad weather year round. However, it's worth noting this rating might not be enough for intense wet and cold spells, so depending on where you live, these lights might not be sturdy enough for your yard.
The best in-ground solar lights
The Bright Right solar lights use LED bulbs and can either be placed into the ground or attached to the included stake to raise up off the floor. These lights are water-resistant and because they're solar-powered, there’s no wiring or tricky installation to worry about.
The Bright Right Solar Lights score 3.9 stars out of 5 out of 5 on Amazon from 1,298 ratings. Positive reviews highlight how easy to install and use these lights are, and praise their value for money and durability. Some unhappy customers pointed out that the lights did not provide light throughout whole nights (ie, not for extended periods of time) and that they were only bright enough to demarcate a path, not to light up a garden.
At $34.95 for a pack of 4, they're more expensive than a lot of the competition - but for the price you get bright, easy-to-install lights to light up your paths or driveways. Usefully, the Bright Right Solar Lights are IP65 rated, so they're waterproof enough to withstand wet conditions and being left outside in the soil.
The lights also have what the brand calls "dawn to dusk activation", meaning they turn off during the day and automatically turn on at night. Installation is incredibly easy, as the only step required is to stick them into the ground with the stake included.
How to choose the best outdoor solar lights for your yard
Type of Light
There is a range of outdoor solar lights you can pick up, and isolating the right type for you is a buying essential. Standalone solar lights will suit small areas, while string lights are perfect for areas with dense trees, walkways and for patios. Wall mounted floodlights are great for near doors or placed in outdoor social areas.
Brightness
You may not think it, but there’s also a range of brightness available to you when you purchase solar lights. If you’re mainly interested in creating a cozy vibe, then a lower light output will suffice, and still create a glowy atmosphere. For walkways however, a higher lumen rating is likely necessary, so that you can adequately find your way in the darkness.
Quantity and range
The bigger the space you have, the higher the number of lights you’ll need to buy will be. Solar lights can illuminate spaces from up to two feet to up to 38 feet, so be sure to read the specifications of each choice before settling on your favorites.
Batteries
If you want to be able to keep your solar lights for a long time, then models that allow to change the batteries are a great choice, and tend to be more sustainable.
