The Best Night Light is from Mr. Beams

When we set out to design the world’s best night light, two things drove us:
1. The world’s best night light must be attachable anywhere, regardless of electrical outlets
2. The world’s best night light needs to be off when you want to sleep and on when you need it
3. The world’s best night light must not be so bright that it disturbs your sleep, but bright enough to prevent falls
4. The world’s best night light must work anywhere, so you can use it outside and in any country that you may travel to

Our final design meets all of these design objectives.

1. The Mr. Beams MB723 Stick Anywhere Night Light can attach to any surface and stand on any table, nightstand or counter. As a wireless LED light (it is battery powered), the Stick Anywhere Night Light does not need an electrical outlet, and is the perfect solution to light up stairs, hallways and bathrooms where electrical outlets are rare.

2. The Mr. Beams MB723 Stick Anywhere Night Light stays off when it is not needed so it doesn’t waste electricity or disturb your sleep. When you move it has a sensitive motion sensor that activates a bright LED to light up your path. It is the best solution to light up your path at night between your bed and the bathroom. As soon as you get up to go to the bathroom this wireless night light illuminates the path, but should not wake up anyone else. The Stick Anywhere Night Light has an auto shut-off after 30 seconds of no motion, so this battery-powered night light is off automatically.

3. The Mr. Beams wireless Stick Anywhere Night Light is brighter than you would expect for a battery-powered LED light. And the light is focused on the floor, so it does not blind you when you get up to go to the bathroom at night or check on the kids. It will light up your path wirelessly with its motion sensor and provide the perfect amount of light at night.

4. John Osher is the best product development guy in the world. Among his many inventions are the Crest SpinBrush toothbrush and the ShaveMan battery-powered shaver. Professor Bill Sahlman of Harvard Business School writes about John as the penultimate entrepreneur. John Osher travels with the Mr. Beams Stick Anywhere Night Light. “I love your light” he recently told me. “It’s the first thing I pack when I travel. I also love waking up in a strange hotel room and having the perfect amount of light go on to help me find my way to the bathroom.” I also travel with our wireless night light and love having it in a hotel room in China, when I am disorientated from the time change.

So can we call the Mr. Beams Stick Anywhere Night Light the world’s best night light? Have we created the best solution to prevent falls at night and the best solution for a night light? In my next blog I will list what our customers say about our Stick Anywhere Night Light and how it solves their night lighting problems.

Probably the Best Playground Lights Available

High-end playgrounds and trampolines are everywhere in the backyards of our neighborhood. I am amazed how much use these outdoor items get. While I never see kids playing football or hockey in the street anymore, these playgrounds and trampolines seem to be constantly in use.

Until it gets dark, that is. Once darkness sets in, the playgrounds and trampolines are quiet. Except at the house of Ned and Andrea Montague. Ned and Andrea installed wireless lighting for their playground and trampoline and it allows the kids to play well into dark. And they did it at a cost under $120.

Ned and Andrea installed two Mr. Beams LED Wireless Motion Sensor Spotlights on the top of their playground. The first Mr Beams LED Spotlight lights up their swings. The second lights up the stairs leading up to the fort. It also lights up the slide because the Mr. Beams LED Spotlight can be adjusted to light in any direction and is battery powered so it can be installed anywhere.

“We looked around for lighting solutions for our playground and trampoline. The kids wanted to stay out later and we wanted to encourage the outdoor activities.” Andrea told me. “Wiring lights to the playground was going to cost more than $1,800. Other battery-operated lights were not weatherproof. Once we found the Mr. Beams line of wireless LED lights we thought this could be the best solution to light our playground. And it is a great solution.”

With a third Mr. Beams Wireless LED Spotlight lighting up their trampoline, the Montags now have a well-lit playground and trampoline that the neighborhood kids can play on well after dark. For a cost of under $120 they provided lighting for their playground and trampoline by installing three Mr. Beams Wireless LED Spotlights available at www.mrbeams.com .

Light Up Your Basketball Court with Mr. Beams Wireless Spotlights

December is basketball season. I am reminded of shoveling the snow and chipping the ice off my driveway in Longmeadow, Massachusetts so we could play 2-on-2 in the winter. Unfortunately, the games were always cut short by 4:30 pm darkness. That is if they were not already cut short by a fight after Sam Radner called a foul after barely being touched.

At Mr. Beams, we have a product that is the perfect solution to light up outdoor basketball courts. The Mr. Beams Wireless LED Spotlight should be renamed the “wireless outdoor basketball court light.” The Mr. Beams Wireless LED Spotlight can attach to any backboard, tree, pole or anywhere on your house in minute. A wireless light means no electrician, no wires and do-it-yourself installation. You can also move the Wireless Spotlight whenever you need to. At $40 it is a much cheaper light that installing a wired light to light your outdoor basketball court. This is why we claim to have the best light for an outdoor basketball court. Simply install batteries to power this light, drive one screw to attach the base and you can play basketball well into the night. This LED Spotlight is also available with a remote control to turn the wireless lights on and off from inside your house.

I think that our next Mr. Beams battery powered wireless LED light will have a camera in it so you can replay that weak foul call made by your friend.

The Best Lighting Solutions for Many Dark Areas of Your Home

In our last blog we wrote about how LED light bulbs will eventually replace incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs. They are durable, efficient and last for years. Mr. Beams battery-powered motion sensor LED lights are not designed to replace traditional light bulbs. Instead, Mr. Beams LED lights are designed to replace darkness – areas inside and outside your house where the darkness is a problem but the high cost of calling in an electrician to install a light fixture holds you back. For $10-$50, Mr. Beams provides the best wireless closet light, the best wireless shed light, the best wireless shower light, the best wireless attic light, the best wireless driveway light, the best wireless playground light, and the best wireless night light available anywhere. We use the most current LEDs for the brightest light of any battery-operated light. We use the latest motion sensor technology so the lights go on right when they are needed. We have designed the electronics to maximize battery life so you can get more than a year out of one set of batteries. And we have developed long-range remote controls for our battery-operated LED lights so you can turn your lights on and off from up to 100 feet.

So take a minute to think about all of the dark closets, storage spaces and corners in your house. Think about the darkness between your bed and the bathroom at night, or the kids room. Notice all of the dark doorways, dark corners outside your house, dark walkways and dark parts of your driveway. These are the lighting solutions that Mr. Beams was designed for. Our lighting solutions come in different shapes and brightness. The MB980 wireless Ceiling Light is the best solution for lighting dark closets, porches, gazebos, sheds, attics, crawl spaces, basements and utility rooms. The MB360 wireless Security Spotlight is the best solution for lighting dark driveways, dark garages, dark backyards, dark doorways, dark barns and dark playgrounds. The MB530 Stair Light is the best solution for lighting dark stairs, dark decks and dark docks. The MB723 Stick Anywhere Night Lights are the best lighting solutions for dark kids rooms, night lights where there is no outlet, night lighting bathrooms and night lighting hallways.

Whatever your darkness problem, you can find great wireless lighting solutions from the battery-powered LED lights from Mr. Beams. Please look us up at www.mrbeams.com to learn more.

Where Can You Buy Good LED Light Bulbs?

I had a meeting with a friend who is a sales manager for a company that we deal with. He is very technically savvy but when we talked about the state of LED light bulbs he was unaware of how far they have progressed into the retail market. Home Depot carries Philips LED light bulbs and the Lighting Science Group's Ecosmart LED light bulbs. Lowe's carries Sylvania LED light bulbs and Feit Electric LED light bulbs. The pricing is a little high but the return on investment from LED light bulbs can be just a few months if the light is on more than 8 hours per day. We know from our testing that the product quality is quite good. I think my friend probably falls into the same category as most people - who really browses the lighting section at these stores?

The bottom line is that LED lighting products like the Mr Beams LED lighting product line are finding their way into mass retail. 6 to 12 months ago, I was telling people that it would be 18 months before we started seeing quality LED lighting products hitting the shelves at the stores they shop. 2011 will be a breakthrough year for LED lighting. Expect to see 25W-equivalent LED light bubs selling for $19.99, up through 40W-equivalent LED lights selling for under $40.

Many people wonder how you compare the light output of LED light bulbs to the light output of incandescent bulbs and cfl / fluorescent bulbs. Some manufacturers use the term “equivalent to” or “compare to”. Watts are not a good indication because LED light bulbs and CFL / fluorescent bulbs use less watts to produce similar light. In theory, an LED bulb may need just 10W to produce the same amount of light as a 60W incandescent bulb. So when comparing light from an LED light source to light from an incandescent bulb or cfl / fluorescent, compare lumens instead. Lumens measure the total light output. A 60W incandescent bulb produces about 880 lumens. We have yet to find a LED bulb that produces 880 lumens, but we expect to see some in early 2012.

For comparison purposes, the Mr. Beams MB360 wireless Security Spotlight produces 140 lumens of light. While this is only the equivalent of a traditional 15W incandescent light bulb, this battery powered light is designed to provide efficient light where it is too expensive to hard wire (at a cost of $200 or more). 140 lumens – when focused properly – provides more than enough light to be a great lighting solution to light up playgrounds, basketball courts, driveways, dark pathways, dark garages and dark doorways.

More information is available at www.mrbeams.com

Battery Powered Lighting Improvements from Advances in Battery Technology

More wireless lighting solutions are now available - made possible by advances in LED technology and advances in battery technology. The two areas are converging to allow battery powered LED lights to find their way into applications where they have previously not been able to provide enough light or provide enough lighting solutions.

LEDs are inherently DC powered devices. Batteries for wireless lights provide DC power. As of just a three years ago, white LEDs were not efficient enough to provide enough light to be considered good off-grid lighting. By efficiency, I mean the lumens of light generated per watt of power consumed was not good enough to build a quality battery light. Over the last few years, advances in LED technology have found their way onto the market. These are not gimmicks - the light output, light color and usefulness of LED products meets or exceeds what incandescent or fluorescent / cfl lights can achieve. LEDs that can exceed 200 lumens per watt are finding their way into the R&D laboratories of the better LED component manufacturers. By comparison, incandescent lights provide just 10 lumens per watt and fluorescent bulbs provide just 45 lumens per watt.

Battery technology is advancing rapidly also. Electric cars, cell phones, smart phones, laptops, portable electronics and other battery powered devices are forcing battery companies to produce higher capacity, better performing batteries. Whether they are non-rechargeable alkaline batteries, rechargeable Li-Ion, NiMH or even more advanced battery chemistries that are finding their way into products and into the R&D laboratories of the better battery manufacturers, you can be pretty sure that the impact will be seen over the coming years.

So combine LED lighting and batteries two years from now with the type of intelligent functions that Mr Beams is integrating into its products. What kinds of products do you think will result from these two rapidly progressing technologies? We think there will be some amazing off grid lighting products, LED lighting products, intelligent LED lights, wireless lights and solar powered LED lights (yes, solar powered lights with rechargeable batteries will only get better as solar cell technology is also advancing rapidly) that are coming. We want to be the company providing the best battery LED lights on the market. Stay tuned.

The Best Wireless Lighting Solutions

Wireless Lighting. Sounds like a dream. The idea of sticking a light wherever you need it and having light for closets, showers, driveways, hallways, bathrooms, sheds and garages is a fantasy. No more electricians. Because they are wireless, you take them with you when you move and can move them anywhere you need.

Now Wireless Lighting is available from Mr. Beams. We had the dream of lights that can be attached anywhere without electricians back in 2003. Not junky tap lights, that give off a light glow and burn out in a few hours. That's not the wireless lighting solution that we wanted. We wanted wireless lighting solutions that gave bright light, turned on and off automatically, was hands-free, and provided this wireless light for more than one year on a set of batteries.

The solution required a combination of many technologies to create the best wireless lighting solutions. LEDs are used to maximize the battery power. Motion Sensors are used for hands-free automatic lighting. Auto shut-off is programmed to conserve the battery life. And battery power is used to make the Mr. Beams lights wireless.

The Mr. Beams products provide the best Wireless Lighting solutions in four different shapes and brightnesses. The Stick Anywhere Night Light is the wireless LED light that attaches to a wall or stands up on its own. It is a great wireless solution to light a path to your bathroom and prevent falls. The Stair Light is an indoor / outdoor light that mounts to a deck post or stairway wall. It lights up stairs without wires, using a motion sensor to activate. It has a glow feature so you always know where the light is. This battery-operated wireless light will last at least one year on one set of batteries. The Mr. Beams Ceiling Light is the best solution for a closet light anywhere. Because it is wireless It mounts in minutes in your closet, attic or shed. Because the Mr. Beams Ceiling Light is weatherproof, it is the best wireless lighting solution for a shower, porch or gazebo. The Mr. Beams Spotlight is the best wireless light solution for all of your outdoor areas. Stick it to a tree for lighting up a backyard, driveway or basketball court. Light up doorways, garages and barns. Because it is wireless you can install it yourself in minutes and move it whenever you need to.

So wireless lights are now a reality at Mr. Beams. We exist to create the best wireless lighting solutions to eliminate darkness. We welcome your ideas for battery-powered light designs. Please let us know how we can help you create better wireless lights by writing us at info@mrbeams.com.

Proof We Make the Best Closet Light

In September I wrote about why our Mr. Beams Battery-Powered LED Ceiling Light is the best wireless closet light available. I pointed out that it provides more than 80 lumens of light on battery power. It can be installed anywhere in minutes. It is motion sensor activated and turns off automatically when you shut the closet door. The Mr. Beams Closet Light is weatherproof and can light up showers, gazebos, porches and sheds.

Since September we have received some great reviews from hundreds of people who have installed the Mr. Beams Ceiling Light. The Handyman Club of America had its members test our wireless LED Ceiling Light and loved it. 26 out of 27 hardcore handy men and women would recommend this product, and they graded it 8.6 points out of 10. Their comments were so positive that is reinforced our belief that the Mr. Beams Ceiling Light is the very best closet light available, and the best utility light to light up attics, sheds, hallways, porches and storage areas. Here are some of the comments from serious handymen and women:

"As a firefighter, I often have to quickly get dressed for emergencies while in a dark dorm. I realized that I can place this light under my bed and as soon as my feet hit the floor, my entire area lights up. I've never been able to find my black socks so quickly."

"A much brighter light than I thought. It easily lights a fair sized closet."

"I would recommend the Anywhere Ceiling Light due to the simple fact that it can be moved all over.I put it our downstairs hall so when our youngest son woke at night to use the bathroom he had plenty of light. Thus eliminating the need to wake my wife or me."

"i would greatly recommend this for closets and other small storage areas where it is not feasible to do a lot of wiring."

"This product is perfect for that one spot that you really need a light,but don't want the hassle of hard wiring."

"It provides a nice handy light for dark places. This is very usefull when your hands are full and you can't carry a flashlight. It's also just nice to have a light come on automatically when it senses movement."

The entire line of wireless battery-powered LED lights from Mr. Beams provide the brightest light available without wires. Our LED lights are all indoor / outdoor lights, motion sensor with auto shut-off, wireless and come with a 1-year warranty. They come in different form factors based on your lighting need: Spotlights; Path Lights' and Wall Lights. Users provide rave reviews about all of our LED battery-operated lights, and we will post more of them in future entries.

Instant Bright Lighting for Property Managers

We have gotten a lot of great feedback from property managers on what types of applications Mr Beams LED lights are good for in the condos, apartment complexes, community associations and other properties that they manage. We realize that a lot of the lighting was designed into the building or property from the beginning. In those cases, a property manager can find the replacement lighting at an electrical supply house. However what we are finding is that there are a number of property management lighting applications where a wireless battery powered light makes a lot of sense.

In one example, a property manager for a condo association found that there were a number of places inside and outside of the condo buildings he was in charge of where a security light could be added. For indoor lighting, he had a number of locations in hallways and stairwells that he thought did not have adequate lighting. For outdoor lighting, there were a number of alleys that had dark spots he felt could be better. He ordered a number of the Mr Beams MB360 Wireless Outdoor Security Light which contain a motion sensor for automatic activation of the lights. His condo association board approved the spotlights as I believe the property manager had identified a place where it was worth spending money. The MB360 is a very cost effective solution for this application. In the end, he was very happy with the lights and ended up recommending the MB980 Anywhere Ceiling Light and MB530 Motion Sensing Step Light to condo owners as a good solution to lighting problems in their condos.

In another example, a different property manager used the MB980 Anywhere Ceiling Light to provide extra lighting at the mail stops on his property. At every set of outdoor mailboxes, he installed an MB980 on the overhang. At night, when residents walk up to get there mail the light would automatically turn on. The MB980 is a weatherproof, battery powered LED light. It has a light sensor that acts as a day / night sensor such that the light only turns on when it is night time. It has a motion sensor to turn on only when it senses motion and it automatically turns off 60 seconds after no motion has been detected. Battery life should be very good in this application.

For the property manager, Mr Beams LED lighting is a good option in applications where you want to add extra lighting but do not want to get an electrician involved. For outdoor lighting, utility room lighting, equipment room lighting, storage room lighting, as a wall light or a battery powered light fixture where wires are not an option, it is worth taking at look at the wireless battery-operated Mr Beams LED lights. If you are a property manager and you have an application that you think our lights would work well in, please email us at info@mrbeams.com.

Indoor Light Pollution

My last blog entry pointed out how traditional outdoor lighting is poorly designed and creates significant light pollution. The culprit is the traditional incandescent light bulb, which emits light in all directions. The CFL bulb copied the incandescent bulb and also emits light in all directions. The result is a lot of wasted light. Why are millions of lampshades sold every year? If the light bulbs were emitting light only in the desired directions, then lampshades would be irrelevant. Other light fixtures that use traditional incandescent and CFL bulbs are providing more light into your eyes than illuminating the floor and walls.

LEDs are designed to shine with tighter directionality. The majority of indoor lighting applications – down-lighting; lamps; sconces; track lighting; ceiling lights; wall-mounted lights – need to emit light over less than 180 degrees. Thus LEDs area better match for most indoor lighting applications. LEDs are more efficient and create less indoor light pollution.

Mr. Beams makes a number of energy efficient LED lights. The motion sensor battery powered Ceiling Light has a bright LED that emits at a 120-degree angle. This tight beam is perfect for lighting closets, sheds, crawl spaces, attics and porches without creating light pollution. The Mr. Beams motion sensor Ceiling Light mounts easily in minutes without an electrician because it is battery powered. It operates for about $1 per year.

The Stick Anywhere Night Light prevents light pollution in your hallways, stairs and bedrooms. Instead of lighting up all night and interfering with your sleep – as most night lights do - the Mr. Beams motion sensor Stick Anywhere Night Light stays dark until it detects movement. At that time it provides the perfect amount of light to prevent falls, but not so much light that it disturbs your sleep mode.

That is the definition of the perfect indoor light: it is on only when you need it and it lights up only what you need illuminated for safety and security. The Mr. Beams battery operated LED lights provide light only when it is needed and only where it is needed. These LED motion sensor lights come in four designs: Spotlight; Ceiling Light; Stair Light; and Wall Light.

How to Reduce Light Pollution

My 7-year old son was recently given a telescope for his birthday. We were excited because we had recently watched an episode of the original Batman TV series where Bruce Wayne was unlocking the secrets of the universe to Dick Grayson through a telescope at Wayne Manor. No doubt Bruce Wayne – being a millionaire when millionaire meant something - had the top of the line telescope and that helped. But there was another reason why our telescope was not able to reveal too much about our universe: light pollution.

Light pollution is caused by improper lighting in heavily-populated areas. Light from outdoor fixtures is aimed improperly and causes light bouncing in all directions. You can see this in parking lot lighting that shines in every direction; street lighting that lights in too many directions; and house lighting that shines in your eyes and shines up instead of just lighting the ground.

Drive down a residential street at night and notice how many lights are shining right at your eyes instead of just lighting the path and the house. Some are a nuisance, while some can almost blind you. This is one of the complaints of incandescent bulbs: they shine in every direction, while you only need the light to shine in specific directions. This is one of the important advantages of LEDs - they are more directional. The typical LED shines a beam of about 120 degrees – putting light in only one third of the places that an incandescent bulb will throw light. This is the main reason that creating an incandescent bulb replacement using LEDs is so challenging. However, this is also why LEDs create much less light pollution compared to incandescent bulbs. And this is why light fixtures made with LEDs can be so much more efficient that incandescent bulbs and CFLs as well. Incandescent bulbs and CFLs emit light in every direction. Does your outside lighting really need to shine upwards?

I recently wrote about the cost savings of using the Mr. Beams battery powered LED security light versus using a traditional wired spotlight with an incandescent bulb. The cost savings is dramatic: If you would normally turn a 75W incandescent light bulb on all night (cost of $35.50 each year at $0.13 per kWh) then you can save about $33 per year by changing to a Mr. Beams battery operated Security Spotlight. The Mr. Beams LED Security Spotlight will only activate when it detects motion. The Spotlight also reduces light pollution. It s bright LED will only shine in the direction that you have pointed it. It is smarter lighting that will prevent light pollution while preventing wasted energy.

Please learn more about the Mr. Beams line of battery powered, motion sensor LED lighting at www.mrbeams.com

How to Choose the Best Outdoor Lighting

What kinds of things are important to consider when you are thinking about adding outdoor lighting at your house? Here is a list of things we think are important:

1. Weatherproofing - Wherever you live, a good outdoor light has to withstand the rain, snow, temperature, humidity etc. You want to put the light up and not worry that rain will leak in or that it will stop working when it gets really hot or cold outside.

2. Ease of Installation - Most of the places you need more outdoor lighting are not easy to wire AC power to. A completely wireless light would allow the light to be installed anywhere. This flexibility gives you some options on adding light to the places you really need it.

3. Controls - How do you turn the light on and off? This is a very important consideration because a wall switch in a convenient place might not be an option.

4. Application - Do you need a spotlight or flood light focused on a particular spot? Do you need a patio light or porch light that provides lighting for steps or near a door way? A lot of times, people notice a place where they just don't have enough light before they think about the first 3 items on this list.

5. Budget - Many people over-pay for their outdoor lighting by installing more light than they need and by not installing controls to prevent the lights from being on all day. Determine how much light you need in lumens (total light output) and lux (how illuminated an object is). Also determine when you want you lights to be off. If you want to save on an electrician then look at battery-powered LED lights.

Mr Beams put a lot of thought into the design of its lights for outdoor lighting. We are making the best battery powered LED lighting solutions by making LEd lights that solve each of issue on the list that are most important when choosing outdoor lighting. So here is how we have addressed these important outdoor lighting issues:

1. IP44 rating - This addresses the weatherproofing issue. You cannot get a solid IP rating without building a robust, sealed housing for the outdoor light and we feel that an IP44 rating is a solid rating for our lighting applications.

2. Battery Powered Lights - Our lights are powered off of batteries. This allows lights to be wireless: installed anywhere without needing wires to AC power. The light output and wireless controls allow the batteries in our products to last more than a year and in some applications several years.

3. Motion detector outdoor lights, outdoor lights sensors, outdoor light remote control - This gives you a convenient way to turn on and off the your outdoor lighting. Intelligence built into our battery powered lights will automatically shut the lights off after some time of no use. .

4. Spotlights, stair lights, ceiling lights - We created different types of bright LED lights to solve the outdoor lighting problems people are telling us about. We have designed our outdoor light fixtures to be outdoor wall lights, outdoor spotlights, outdoor path lights, outdoor stair lights, for landscape lighting etc. Many times we hear from customers about ways they have used our lights that we had not even thought about.

Hopefully Mr Beams LED lighting solutions can provide you with the outdoor lighting options to add outside lights where you need them.