Purple Solar Halloween Lights - 2 Pack 72FT 200 LED Solar String Lights with 8 Lighting Modes, Waterproof Outdoor Decor for Halloween, Garden, Patio, Yard, and Party Decorations (Purple)

Edit 18Oct2019:Temporarily installed these in my now completed gazebo to see how well they worked. They are dimmer than I hoped. Not as much ambient light at seat level as I would like. They do provide a cool "starry" effect that I like. Took a picture to try and capture how bright they appear to me. The picture shows some of the gazebo with no other lighting. The bare patio is barely visible in the photo but it is slightly brighter to my eyes. The lights themselves and ceiling are about how bright I perceive them. I may try again to get a better overall representation if that is possible with my camera. So far I still give them 5 stars even though they don't put out as much light as I hoped. That is not their fault.Original review:Haven't yet installed these in my intended application, a gazebo. Gazebo is not built yet.I did a test to see how long the string would stay lit. Hard to say if it was completely charged. I tested it in its received state plus a few hours under a desktop LED light. It doesn't stay the same brightness until it just quits. It runs for quite a long time and then starts getting slowly dimmer and dimmer. So how long it lasts is subjective. At what brightness level is it no longer useful for your application? Hard to tell. I would say that it maintained roughly the same brightness for maybe 10 hours. The lights were still on, although pretty dim and not of much use, at 15 hours.I did open this up to get a look at construction and materials. The battery looks like an AA size rechargeable with a marked 800mAh capacity. It is in a battery holder instead of welded or soldered directly so it can be replaced. Although the construction does not appear to be 100% waterproof, it does at least seem to have attempts at water resistance. There is a rubber o-ring between the top and bottom halves and a rubber grommet to try and seal the exit point of the wires. Additionally, there are two rubber seals over the push button switches for power on/off and mode. The solar cells seem to be well sealed behind some clear sealant. I wouldn't expect the control unit to be totally waterproof but it might survive rain although I might be a bit worried about where the screws attach the two halves, the grommet area around the wire exit and possible the rubber seals covering the switches.As far as operation, there are several light modes with different blinking styles or fading on/off. The default mode is a fast blinking. It is supposed to remember the state it was in but it is not clear if that applies to when the on/off switch is toggled or turning off/on due to light exposure or both. I haven't quite figured out why it sometimes seems to remember its previous state and other times it doesn't, during my informal testing of it at my desk. I'll have to work on that. If the lights are on, when the solar cells are exposed to light the lights turn off (makes sense).There is a two piece plastic spike mount to allow mounting this into the ground and the top of the mount pivots so you can try and get the best sun exposure. There aren't really any other designed for mounting options. We'll see how and where I end up mounting this for the gazebo.One thing I might change if I was designing this would maybe be to put the mode and power switches on the side. This may be more of a challenge from a manufacturing perspective but it would allow me to perhaps mount to the roof of the gazebo by just gluing it or using mounting tape.So far, based on desktop testing, I am very happy with the value of these lights. I will update the review once I have them installed as far as how bright they are for this application and any possible mounting issues.We like the lights but we were disappointed that one of the two strings did not work. The patterns on the working one were really neat. I wonder if the supplier would send us a replacement string for the one that didn't work?FOLLOW-UP Well, my face is red. I changed my review to five stars because, after reading a support comment from the seller, I found that I the faulty light string power button on OFF instead of ON! Glad to report that both strings working great now.I plan to use these lights outside in the spring. Its fall and getting colder already with our cloudy, shorter days so I am waiting until Spring to out them out. I can't wait to see how they hold up.&tldr; The lights are beautiful when they work, but the quality of the solar panel / battery seems to vary quite a bit, so be sure to test thoroughly (more than one day) before installing. I'd even recommend buying twice as many as you need, and returning the ones that don't pass testing (or you don't end up needing).I originally ordered two sets of lights for a landscape lighting project. When the lights arrived, I put both outside in the same location (in the California October sun) to charge up, and brought them indoors once it was dark enough outside for them to switch on, so that I could better monitor how long they'd stay lit; I was impressed to find that they both were still lit the next morning. I put them back into the same location to charge up for a full day and brought them in again after dark; this time one of the sets was visibly dimmer after 2 hours and the lights turned off after 3 hours, while the other set stayed lit until morning again. I repeated the process the next day with the same results. I figured there must something wrong with either the battery and/or solar panel in one of the units, so I'd need to order a replacement - but I decided to hedge my bets and order a pair instead of just one, just in case.When the new pair arrived, I performed the same testing again with the same result: after the first day, one of the new lights would last all night on a day's charge, whereas the other one would dim after 2 and die after 3 hours. I returned the two defective lights (one from each order), and kept the two good ones.Installation was very easy. I'm guessing that most of the folks complaining about tangled wires probably just weren't being careful enough. Even though the wire came coiled without a physical spool in the middle, I was careful to unroll it as if an imaginary spool existed (instead of dropping the coil on ground and trying to unroll/untangle it that way) as I laid it out, and it came uncoiled without any tangling or other issues.I like all the patterns, so I leave the lights in the mode that rotates through them all. My only complaint (other than the initial quality issue) is that it seems impossible to get the patterns to be in sync across the two light sets. I've tried all variations of trying to turn the sets on at the same time, and cycling through all the modes so that they arrive at the rotating one at the same time - but no matter what I do one of the sets always rotates ahead of the other.Its been over two months now, and we're still absolutely delighted with how these lights look in our yard. With the shorter winter days, the lights don't get enough sun to last through the night any more - but they're still on when we go to bed at night, so we're satisfied with the amount of charge they're able to get. I would have given 5 stars, had it not been for the quality issue that delayed our original installation.Using for outdoor trees and shrubs. Perfect because they are solar and turn on and off without having to think about it. There are multiple settings for steady burn, twinkle, random, glow or whatever you like.They were bright enough to use as I had purchased them for. I still found a use for them. Also have to be turned off and one at least once a month to keep the solar panel working.I sincerely wish they would offer these lights without the “8 different modes”. This is my third set now and they all do the same thing. I spend hours wrapping them around my trees and arches and set them on the constant mode. After about 2 days they all default to the flashing mode- which makes my garden look like Vegas and about gives me a seizure. I have tried holding down the button for 5 seconds as someone recommended-still changes to the flashing mode. It’s too much of a hassle to unwind them and return them and so if they keep doing this l will just turn them off.Bright