Our laundry room is in the garage and every time you go in or out during the night time you have to reach up and away to pull down on a chain to get the light on. After almost 20 years, my patience has worn thin and felt it was time to get a light that would turn on by itself.
We went to Lowe’s over the weekend and searched and searched and they had all manner of “on at dusk, off at dawn” devices and plenty of outdoor spotlight motion sensing lights, but no indoor types. I was just looking for something I know I’ve seen somewhere, one side screws into a socket and the bulb screws into the other side, but no dice.
When I was complaining about my inability to find this motion sensing light socket thingie to my cubical neighbor Jim on Monday he said he was in Home Depot on Sunday and had seen just what I was describing. On Tuesday Donna and I made the short trip to HD and looked all up and down their lighting section…twice…and couldn’t find anything.
Beginning to doubt the existence of such a fixture, when we got home I searched the interweb and found several places that sold them for around twenty bucks. I saved a link to place and contemplated whether or not I wanted to pay $7 to ship it.
This morning my cube neighbor said he was in Home Depot again yesterday buying some rabbit fencing to keep the hungry from his garden, saw the motion sensor fixture again and thought of me. I told him I had searched high and low and couldn’t find it. He offered to buy one for me, but I said if it was in the store, I’d find it myself. He told me it was not where I first looked, but over by the junction boxes and light switches.
Tonight Donna and I made a return trip to get one of these elusive objects. We looked up and down the aisle Jim described and didn’t see anything. We expanded our search parameters buy going slowly up and down the aisles on either side…twice…and still so no such thing.
I broke down and asked. The customer service rep behind the counter said they were at the end of aisle 4 on the right. Shazam! There they were.
First thing I did when we got home was unscrew the bulb, screw it into the motion sensor base and screw the whole thing into the wall socket. Pulled the chain to turn on the electricity, waved my hand wildly in front of the sensor and was rewarded by nothing. Crap. Unscrewed the bulb from the base, the base from the wall and put the bulb back in and it lit up pretty as could be.
All that effort and the thing doesn’t work. Now, it means a return trip to the store. Should I chance it on another cheap unit or just get my money back and just keep yanking the chain? I tried it a second time with little hope of any change and for whatever reason, it worked.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 147
I’ve had the same problem with the screw in motion sensing light fixtures myself. I bought a couple to put in my garage and sometimes they would “sense” and turn on and other times they wouldn’t. I ended up returning them to Home Depot. I suggest doing the same thing and cutting your losses.
They’re a great idea in theory but the sensing technology that they use is just not where it should be yet – the sensing lights that they sell that are NOT the screw in type (meaning you actually have to wire them to a box) do work pretty well though. My parents have had one in their mud room that’s worked perfectly for years…for some reason the screw in types just don’t work as well, it may be because of the size of the “sensing window” in the smaller fixtures.
Where were you a couple hours sooner? I returned the one that didn’t work and exchanged it for another – that doesn’t work either.
When we first moved into this house 20 years ago I put in a couple of those outdoor motion sensing things with the two floodlights on each corner in the back. They didn’t work very well if I recall and have been bulb-less for years.
I was hoping that the technology had advanced in the last couple of decades.