Solar String Lights 2 Pack, Outdoor Light Total 400 LED 144FT Solar Christmas Lights 8 Modes Oudoor Waterproof for Tree Patio Yard Garden Christmas Parties Decoration (White)

First things first...These are solar-powered lights, so they have drawbacks that electric-powered lights do not have. For example, if you have a cloudy day, your lights will probably not make it through the night. Additionally, they do not put out as bright a light as electric models. However, for solar-powered lights, these rate five stars. And for me, their drawbacks are far outweighed by their electricity savings and environmental friendlinessBut, here are some tips to to deal with their drawbacks:(1) For added brightness, wrap the lights very tight rather than fully extending the string. At 72 feet, the string is pretty long. I have about ~15 foot-long railings leading up a stairway to my front door, which itself is 10 feet tall. I wrapped a strings very closely along the length of each of those railings, and still had plenty of room to run the string fairly up the side of my front door so that the two strings met in the middle at the top. In my opinion, the lights are plenty bright that close together.(2) For longer lasting light, make sure the solar panels are in a place where they receive the longest exposure to the sun. They have a decent lead from the beginning of the lights, so extend the lead out as far away from your house as possible. And, if you're home (like on the weekend), move them to receive more light in the evening. Even on cloudy days, I've never had them turn off before midnight.(3) For longer lasting light, turn them on "Flashing" mode. It saves energy, so after a cloudy day, the lights will last longer.One final note - they have a sensor so they ONLY light up when it's dark. I made the mistake of thinking mine were broken at first because I thought when I pressed the "ON" button they were supposed to come on right away. Pressing the "ON" button just turns the sensor on. You cannot make them turn on before the light gets low enough outside.

These are bright, and last for hours! I always have great luck with this brand. They look amazing outside! I use them all year.

Installed these lights on our fenceline to serve as a kind of illuminated boundary at night. Lights function perfectly - they're not blindingly bright, but at night they are bright enough for our purposes. Selecting the function is a bit hit-or-miss, but it's easy enough cycling through them to get the effect you want.After a day of sitting in the sun we have found that these units stay lit easily until morning (on a "twinkling" setting which my wife adores). After a couple of days of overcast the run time may be reduced a bit but honestly they last a lot longer than I was expecting. An excellent value for the money. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a solar light string.UPDATE 11/2019 : Of the four strings we have outside (and that have been outside since the original review) two of them have stopped working and the remaining two are slowly dimming. Solar panels are a bit grungy but cleaning doesn't seem to make a difference. My assumption is that the rechargeable batteries are failing. Still, after more than a year of constant use I can't complain. I'm going to see if the batteries are replaceable (don't think they are) and go from there.

One string is working quite well (of course, this is only the second night), but the other stayed on for only a very short time (as in minutes). They are on holly bushes that are next to each other, so the light for charging should be about the same for each string. I am hoping the second string just needs a bit more time to charge; by tomorrow night I should know. I really don't want to have to take these down and return them, as I DO like them. They are bright enough and convenient. We live in the country without street lights, so I can't tell how these would work in an environment where they might not stand out as readily; here they are nice though. They are convenient. I've never wanted to drag an electric cord 200 feet to those holly bushes.If this works out, I have my eye on some evergreens in the yard, too :) .UPDATE: I tried different brands this year, on different areas of the yard. These have worked the best. None of the brands stayed on for more than a few hours, but these have been the best of the ones I've tried.