Hence, I've been thinking of solving this problem somehow, yet was not sure what would work. The other day I was in Costco and decided to have a look at what they have on the lighting aisle. They had these Koda LED Linkable Shop Light, 46 inch long, with a profile similar to the old style fluorescent lights; they come with a couple of 12" long chains to hook them on something above. Here are the product features:
- link up to 8 of them together
- 4600 lumens
- claimed to last for 50000 hours
- remote control
- a few levels of brightness
- timer 5,10,15 minutes for going dim or for turning off
- levels of motion sensor distance
The good:
- decent price a little less than $50 CAD
- very very bright and very white, when on max brightness
- adjustable brightness
- when placed somewhere above, the bright light seems to bounce around because I find even lighting almost everywhere, and no strong shadows
- motion sensor: this is something I really wanted. Because I go in the shed and out to the tent a lot, when I work on something, I am so tired of turning lights on and off, so I leave them on all the time, and forget about them. The real energy consumption is not what bothers me, it's just the idea, having been raised on "never leave the lights on", it's still not out of my system completely. Now I set these lights to turn themselves off after 5 minutes, and they turn on the moment I step in. Note that I was looking for motion sensor activated light switches before I found these lights, and the cheapest of them were like $15 a piece.
- all settings are only accessible with the remote control. If the remote breaks, what do you do? Since I bought two, and both can be controlled with either of the remotes, at least I have a spare. Another "compromise" is that for most uses you can live with a certain configuration, and put the remote in a safe place. Set once, be happy.
- no replaceable inner elements, like "led" tubes or something. Though this may be a way of thinking in the past, as this new generation of lights claim 50000 hours of use. If this is true, maybe I'd average 3 hours per day, and that would give me something like 60 years. Crazy!
Did I say they are crazy bright?
Edit: found out they are rated at 48W. Compare this with a regular LED light bulb at around 9-12W. I find this really a non-issue. I also found the link to the company that makes them. Please don't take my ramble as an endorsement for this product. It's just a short review, maybe useful to someone.