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I remember when solar gadgets died fast, flooded, or crumbled to dust. Years of long-term testing show today's cameras and panels are a different story.
Senior Contributing Editor
Senior Contributing Editor
October 8, 2026, 1:14 pm ET
Over the past few years, there’s been an influx of solar devices such as doorbells, surveillance cameras, and floodlights. They’re easy to set up because they don’t need cables run to them, and you don’t have to periodically take the unit off the wall to charge it (remember the early Ring doorbells?)
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You attach these solar-powered devices to the wall, connect them using an app, and the setup is done.
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Once they’re up and connected to Wi-Fi, they’re pretty self-sufficient. And because they harvest their own power from the sun, you’re hopefully helping make the planet last a little longer for those who will come after us.
But how long do these devices last? Because there’s no point trying to save yourself the effort of putting cables up and trying to be green if you’re chucking stuff away every year or so.
I have quite a bit of experience with solar, from large units that generate enough power to run a home to small panels that keep off-grid devices such as weather stations, trail cameras, Meshtastic nodes, and Raspberry Pi computers running.
In my experience, there are two failure points unique to solar devices — failures that are separate from the myriad ways that other consumer electronics can die.
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The first is the solar panel. Panels can be poor quality and just not up to the job right from the start. Or they can suffer from delamination, where the layers peel due to a combination of UV exposure from sunlight, daily and seasonal heat/cold cycles, and moisture. Finally, the electrical contacts can suffer from DC corrosion across wires and circuitry, damaging vital electrical connections.
The second failure point is the battery. It’s outside 24/7/365, exposed to heat and cold, being trickle-charged a lot in the summer months, and a lot less in the winter months. Once the battery can’t keep up with the device’s power draw, it’s game over.
If I were writing this five years ago, I’d say, “Don’t bother with solar stuff.” So much of what was on sale then was utter garbage. I lost count of the number of solar lights I took down that died as soon as the shorter autumnal days came, security cameras that stopped working because they’d filled with water (one time, I opened a camera and a tiny frog hopped out, looked at me, blinked, and hopped off), or solar panels that crumbled into something resembling Doritos as soon as I touched them.
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I know this because I was sent a lot of gear for testing and review, and almost nothing made it into the pages of ZDNET. Things have improved significantly in three areas.
First, solar panels have improved, and the smaller panels you typically find on doorbells and cameras can usually deliver enough power to keep the device running year-round. Another thing that’s improved is weatherproofing. I mean, if a frog could make its way inside a camera, that was something that desperately needed attention. I wish I had a photo or video of that!
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Batteries have also improved. Not so much in the underlying chemistry (these devices still mostly use lithium-ion packs), but in component and build quality. Batteries just seem to last longer now than they did a few years ago.
So, what’s been my experience lately? Back in early 2023, I built a handful of environmental monitoring stations based on Pi Zero 2 W boards, each connected to sensors and a 4G cellular module for communication.
Built to last a few months, these are still working fine three and a half years on. OK, partly I put this down to the fact that I totally overbuilt these units, housing them in plastic ammo boxes and using copious amounts of silicone grease for weatherproofing. However, none of that would have mattered if the solar panels (super-tough 10W Voltaic panels) and batteries hadn’t also been able to withstand continuous usage.
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A couple of years ago, I installed a test surveillance camera — the Baseus S1 (if you want something similar but newer, take a look at the amazing X1 Pro — overlooking one of my outbuildings.
This camera has a sun-tracking solar panel designed to maximize solar harvesting, and while I’d initially thought that this motorized part of the panel would be a potential weakness, it’s worked flawlessly, without any care or maintenance whatsoever, since the day I put it up. I checked on the battery in this camera today, and it’s at 100%.
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Another example: earlier this year, I fitted a $17 solar panel to a surveillance camera (that sounds so dramatic every time I type it) used to keep an eye on an honor box. As the better-than-average summer has given way to a wet, overcast autumn, the panel is still delivering enough power to keep the camera fully charged.
When I fitted the panel, I went to great lengths to position it for the best results, but the orientation of the box was changed shortly afterward, leaving the panel pointing in a south-easterly direction rather than the optimal due south, yet it still does the job.
The other day, I wrote about my one-year test of a 200W solar panel. This panel had absolutely no problem coping with the UK weather for a year, and after cleaning, it looks new.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you. As solar-powered products and solar components such as panels and controllers have gone mainstream in the past few years, they’ve improved a lot. They’re now at a point where, unless there’s a reason you can’t use a solar product (it’s a shaded location, or you live at a latitude where the nights are particularly long), it’s hard to justify the hassle of running cables and such.
One category of solar products I still have reservations about is power banks with a built-in panel. I have tested a few that seem to work quite well (ToughTested makes some decent stuff), but overall, most of these are poorly constructed and gimmicky.
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So, if you’re thinking about getting yourself a solar-powered camera, doorbell, or floodlight (be careful if buying a solar power bank), I say go for it. If you can, look for a reputable brand; failing that, pick something with a decent number of good reviews, and you should have a product that will give you a few years of service.
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