Depending on the features, the batteries may last only a few days or weeks.
We are flooded with cheap products from overseas, mostly Asia (formerly "The Orient" but that is now considered a slur for some reason). Some products are real values - low cost, well made, and supported by a company that stands behind their work. Others are shoddy merchandise, barely functional, but inexpensive. Still others leave you scratching your head, "why would I want to buy this?"
LEDs have revolutionized the lighting industry. Our gallery has maybe 100 or so "halogen" track fixtures that had 50 Watt bulbs in each fixture. That's 5000 Watts! And the heat generated, while welcome in the winter, was oppressive from Spring onward. It was like standing under a heat lamp! We had the same problem in our kitchen at home, on a smaller scale, of course.
Today, we have replaced all the halogen bulbs with 3600K warm white LED bulbs, drawing 5W each. That not only reduced our power consumption for lighting by a factor of 10, but also reduced the heat load on the building, reducing air conditioning costs somewhat. Well, actually more than somewhat - about 15,000 BTUs, or enough to run three small window unit air conditioners (!!).
So LEDs are here to stay. No, they generally don't last ten years (as was promoted) in my experience, but they do last longer than incandescent bulbs, and now that the cost has come down, are economically competitive even without the energy savings advantages.
Of course, we had to learn a whole new lexicon of LEDs - lumens, Kelvin, and so on. Gone are the days of the 100W Warm White. It has been replaced by a much more efficient LED. And some lights are programmable to different frequencies. Want soft lighting for your living room? Flick a switch and you have 2000K or 3600K for that cozy look. Need bright light for a work space? Flick the switch back and you have 5000K. Neat!
Even more fun are LEDs that change color, either on demand, or in patterns of pulsing disco lights. This is where it gets interesting. The big-box stores often have "puck lights" (as shown above) that come in a 3- or 6-pack and run on three AAA batteries each. Accompanying them is a remote control that runs on a CR2025 "button" battery and allows you to turn the lights on and off and select colors, patterns, or brightness. Since they are alarmingly cheap, they are often an impulse buy - and conveniently placed near the checkout.
Don't buy them.
Why? Well, any battery powered LED light that relies on a remote control to work is a non-starter. Even when "off" the lights are still "on" in that the control circuit in each "puck" is running - waiting and scanning for commands from the remote. It it wasn't, the remote would not work. So after a week or two, the batteries wear down, and chances are, you've already spent more on batteries than the darn things cost to begin with. Disgusted, you throw them out.
Of course, you could use rechargeable batteries, as I do. But these are Nickle Metal Hydride types that put out a slighly lower voltage than the disposable alkaline type. By the way, avoid Duracells - after Berkshire Hathaway bought the company, they tend to leak, which deposits noxious goo in your electronics, often corroding contacts or just frying circuits. Be warned! Rechargables work OK, but you just end up recharging them again and again, in these LED puck lights.
LED puck lights that have a simple ON/OFF switch seem to work OK - the batteries lasting months, with infrequent use. Since the device is OFF when you turn it off, there is no battery drain.
Mr. See wanted another kind of LED light, a pair of wall sconces with shades. Again, they were alarmingly cheap, so I said OK, as this keeps the peace, and I think he needs to buy crap like this on occasion to remember why it is a bad idea to buy crap like this.
They were, however, interesting lights. First of all, they were cheap - $39 at WalMart - but many other sites advertise them for $179 or more (!!). The actual fixtures are U/L style 110V fixtures, right down to the mounting hardware (designed to attach to a circular or hexagonal wall box). It would take little effort to wire them for 110V. Even the lamp "socket" was a U/L approved style socket with an "Edison Thread" (talk about the Mother of backward compatibility!) ready to accept a 60W Incandescent.
But of course, it was not wired. Instead, it came with two "bulbs" that mimicked the look of an incandescent bulb, right down to the Edison thread. But here's where it gets weird. The bulb came apart in two pieces. The bottom part threaded into the fixture and was just a mounting point. It attached to the top part by magnet. The top part had the LED light and circuitry and battery, with a USB-C charging port. So, to charge, you just yank the top part of the bulb out of the fixture and charge with your cell phone cable.
So far, they haven't needed a charge, probably because they use a Lithium-Ion battery and not alkaline batteries. There is a remote, and yes, you can select from a rainbow of colors or patterns (Why? For parties, I guess). So, over time, they will discharge themselves. It will be annoying, as what will happen is we will go to use them one day, only to find the batteries dead. So we will charge the bulbs and put them back, and forget about them until months later - when the process repeats. This is how puck lights get thrown away.
At least these fixtures are readily convertible to 110V with a little wiring. So there's that.
We also found some motion-sensor LED cabinet lights for $5 each at Dollar Tree. The cabinets in the camper are dark inside and these lights attach with velcro or even magnets. They are long and narrow and very bright. They have an internal Lithium-Ion battery and USB-C charging port. When you open the cabinet, the motion activates the light. Close the cabinet, the light goes out. Easy to install (no wiring needed) and cheap.
But again, the motion sensor is always "on" so after a few weeks, the batteries go dead and I have to remove them and plug them in. I suppose if I was ambitious, I could snake some really long USB cables (like the old ones I bought at a truck stop years ago) to a USB power supply and they could continuously charge when the camper is plugged in. But that just smacks of effort.
Anyway, I came to realize that almost every battery powered LED light we've bought that has a remote control feature (particularly those that use alkaline batteries) are pretty worthless. Sure, they are cheap to buy, but you'll spend more on batteries just right out of the box, than you did on the lights themseleves. And when you really want or need to use these lights, the batteries will be dead. You can buy new batteries and double-down on this idiocy, with the same result.
Go Lithium-Ion or go with an LED light that doesn't have a sensor or remote control - or forgetaboutit!
