I remain alone with this infernal box. Although I do not understand its language, it still commands me. I bring it gifts: bits of wire, screws. Nothing seems to calm its rage. I brought a small flashlight with hopes of friendship. But the sound continues, filling my ears and clawing at my soul.
I learn of others. Three others, lying in wait, somewhere in the darkness. I can only imagine the terror they will bring me.
I stay crouched motionless in the darkest corner, hoping to remain out of sensor reach and not anger it further.
@awk oh I’m sure they’re not. I’m just envious of your experience as documented here. Could Poe have been haunted by a deeply discharged multifunction nightlight?
@awk “You must travel through these woods again and again and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time… but the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.”
I like the idea of having them set up throughout the house to turn on while I walk by, so I don’t have to turn on the lights when I walk to the bathroom or whatever in the middle of the night.
Also, if the power goes out I’ll be set with multiple flashlights and power banks.
I just wonder what it sounds like when 12 of these things are going off at once.
Okay. Turns out you just need to turn it OFF while it charges, and let it charge quietly for 15-30 minutes. The crazy noise never comes back when the battery is charged.
In fact, this thing works pretty well. All four of mine mostly work.
The smoke alarm extender function doesn’t work.
And one annoying thing, if you press “Reset” after motion detection or alarm, it doesn’t detect again unless you turn it off and on, or unplug it and re-plug it.
Soon I will spudge one open and see what’s inside.
@awk I just tested my smoke detector. Out of the 4 MAX lights, only 1 of them sensed the noise and starting mocking my smoke alarm in a jealous tantrum. It was actually the light I had plugged in farthest away from the alarm. I guess that’s… good?
@awk THANK YOU. Was about to see how far I could throw these things. Figured the battery was sitting dead for too long to recharge. At least I know to just have patience and then see if they blink or fail to repeat the smoke alarm noise. I guess if they can just work as emergency lighting I will be happy enough
@awk I don’t think it’s necessary to spudge these things. I think the 4 white-ish rubber plugs on the back side are covering up some screws or something.
I just got my 4 pack of these. NONE of them work. Two of them make a noise as if they are about to explode when I plug them in. I tried all modes (nightlight, motion, security). Complete fail. How do I get my money back? I don’t want a Sharpie this time.
Update: Now they all are making the noise. I’m leaving them plugged in in “off” mode so the noise goes away. My hope is that the noise is a “I need to be charged” sound? Maybe they don’t work unless charged, even though they are plugged into an outlet? Seems dumb, but this is Meh.
Update #2: My suspicion was right. These things need to be plugged in for at least 15 minutes before they start working–and looks like longer than that to achieve full brightness. Runs completely off the battery, not the AC outlet. Forgive me Meh, for jumping the gun. I should have known it was just a poorly designed product. Why else would you sell it!
@Barney Thanks, but I have quite a few trash cans so it won’t take me very long to look for one. I can probably wait right up until I just about need one before I start looking. (Should we sell trash cans?)
I removed the rubber nubs as suggested by @narfcake
This exposed 4 screw heads. It took me a bit to find a long thin screwdriver that could reach to them.
The screws were in pretty tight, so I used a pair of pliers to get the screwdriver started.
The circular thing at the bottom center of the image is the lens off of the PIR motion sensor.
The oddly shaped white plastic thing to the right of the nubs and screws is a light pipe. When it is in the correct place, it pipes the light from an LED on the circuit board behind the silvery cone to the outside of the case. There are two LEDs. Each one as a light pipe. The other light pipe is to the left of the silvery cone. It is offset by a few mm from its installed location to make it easier to see. Normally it would be touching the face of an LED.
!
They are standard 14x18 cafeteria trays. We couldn’t find any affordable used ones, so we bought enough new ones at one time, so the shipping wasn’t a killer.
I work on a project on a tray. When I need the work space for something else, I put the tray in the rack. Later on, I can grab the tray and restart where I left off.
The spray paint on the rack is from Home Depot’s price marking system for selling damaged and left over lumber. Since I have never seen that kind of T-slot for sale there, I assume it came from a store display that they tore down.
My boss uses cafeteria racks that were thrown out when the University remodeled a dorm.
Tempted, but if I have to run around the house silencing all four of these every time there’s a low battery beep from a smoke detector, I can see them going out the window at high speed.
According to the seller on Amazon: We are pulling this product due to several problems that have been reported. Light was too bright for a night light. Sensor did not work until very close to unit. Unit died within 60 days of use. Difficult to understand instructions.
Was a very good idea but not very well engineered. Do not know of another device with the features hope they redesign and come back with another product to replace this one.
By SELLER on August 29, 2017
An impressive 12-minute reply from the MAX customer support email, directly from their COO:
“In certain lighting conditions, typically dusk and dawn, the unit detects its own light which pushes it above the threshold set for turning the light off. When it turns off the ambient light drops below the threshold and the nightlight turns on again. It is usually possible to adjust the light brightness to find a “sweet spot” where the unit is not affected by its own light output and does not blink. I hope this helps you understand why it’s blinking and hopefully helps you find a setting that works better for you.”
Turns out this guy was on to something. Through a lot of messing around with this contraption, I finally figured out a somewhat reliable method to dim it. The manual says to “Press and hold down the reset button to Increase or Decrease brightness in any Mode”. #FAKENEWS The ACTUAL way to make this work somewhat consistently is to do this:
Unplug from wall
Click the reset button until it cycles through the flashlight and then back to the front light.
Now hold down the reset button until the dimness changes. Be careful, if it gets too bright, it may freak out and go into blink mode again. Just restart the process.
I was able to get all four of my lights dimmed enough to where they won’t turn themselves off after turning themselves on. Geesh. These thing are like my wife.
The light sensor is totally inside the case, facing a light pipe that is mostly inside the case. Neither has any opaque shielding to limit where the light can come from.
Some of my units don’t see their own glow. So I think that the shielding behind the light emitters is good enough if everything is put together just right, and the unit has not been dropped, twisted, or exposed to too many temperature cycles.
@hamjudo I’m thinking some well placed electrical tape above and below the sensor should shield enough stray internal light to make this functional as originally intended.
@phatmass thanks! i unplugged and replugged so many times at my parents’ and then drove back home and added a reset in between and it magically started working.
All 4 of mine are working properly. I let them charge in the ‘off’ position, then installed them in all of the dark areas (bathrooms & halls) I wanted to illuminate. I use all of mine in the “motion” mode. I did do the procedure of allow to fully charge, unplug from wall, cycle the reset button through to the flashlight setting, press reset one more time to light up the front panel, hold the reset button until the light starts to dim, select about 50% brightness, plug into wall.
Now, all working as expected. In fact, they seemed to improve after a few hours. The motion detection area got bigger after I stopped messing with them.
I really want one but I don’t know why. I’m going to hold out as long as I can. It’s like having an open jar of peanut butter calling my name. Make it stop!
I finally got around to unpacking mine last night, and of course they did not work by “Simply plug it in!” After about an hour of charging via AC, all four seem to work, though I haven’t tested the smoke alarm re-alert. I’ve saved the posted images and tips for future reference, thanks to the Mehrians for sharing your knowledge and experiences!
Around 5AM today, one of the units was sounding an alarm. The main front LEDs were at full brightness, but the top flashlight LED was off. It made a sequence of 3 high-pitched beeps, then 3 lower-pitched beeps, short pause, then repeat (until I pressed the reset button). Removing the unit from the outlet and turning the side switch to OFF did not stop the alarm, only the reset button made it shut up. I had been running in nightlight mode (switch in the top position). Since I don’t really need the beeper, I plan to cut one beeper wire in the middle where it could easily be reconnected if I decide I want the beeper again sometime in the future.
I wound up cutting the blue beeper wire on all eight of my security lights, as most of them started to sound an alarm. I also purchased a set of five LiPo 603040 800mAH batteries, four of my eight lights needed replacement batteries early on, and I just replaced the battery in a fifth light tonight - so I ordered another set of four 603040 batteries, I’m sure that I will need more soon.
@ekblaw Where did you get the batteries and how much are they? I liked mine as well, but they have been in a moving box since 2 moves ago. Might put them back to use if I ever come across the right box again.
@kuoh I bought them on eBay, before the pandemic made the shipping times from China expand. I just took a look and my seller is still offering 5-packs for $16 and $2 shipping, which is a little more than I paid last time.
600mAH is a useless rating. It should show wattage hours instead. We don’t know what voltage that 600mAh is rated at. Could be the 4.2V of a single 18650 battery or was it at the 5V output or is it a combination of all the batteries in series? Who knows?!?!?!? That’s why you should list capacity in watt-hours instead of mAH.
@cengland0 It’s probably a single 600mAh Li-Ion cell with a (nominal) 3.7 V output, which gives you around 2.2 W-H. (At the battery terminals. Anywhere else will be a smaller and less impressive number for the marketing department.)
However you measure it 600 mAh is pretty sad and I wonder if there’s room for a bigger battery.
@awk I didn’t even think about putting batteries inside the case. I was going to use these as 18650 battery chargers, thus the battery holder will be on the outside of the case. Otherwise, how will you get the charged battery out of the charger?
@hamjudo I wouldn’t use these as chargers. First, the charge rate would probably be very slow. Second, you’d have to buy an 18650 battery holder and that might cost $1 direct from China. That’s already 20% of the purchase price.
It would be nice to see if there’s room inside for additional batteries or at least replace the existing one with a higher capacity one. It does put out 2.1A which makes it a viable battery pack for charging phones.
I wonder if the 2.1 amps is available in battery mode? Could be that is only when plugged into wall power. Surely somebody will test for the next time these come around!
Buy inexpensive battery holders and screw them to the outside of the case. Then pull out the existing tiny battery and solder the leads from the battery holder in its place.
They will be slow battery chargers that are also power bricks, flashlights, and motion activated lighting.
@awk I assumed he intended bring the charge wires out of the case.
(I recall doing that with clock radios decades ago so I could use a better sounding speaker or at least better locate the speaker. Longgg before Bluetooth or anything other then radios/walkietalkies/ TVs were “wireless”)
Even if it wasn’t a direct money saver it is a cool hack that adds yet another function to this already multifunction device.
@RedOak@awk@cengland0 I bought the battery holders with wires rather than the battery holders designed to be soldered into a PCB board. The PCB board version was cheaper, but then I would have to drill more holes, and soldering next to plastic is fiddly. I am reasonably confident that the pins on the PCB version would be more than long enough to reach through holes drilled in the case.
On the other hand, I am not so confident that the original battery leads would reach all of the way to my chosen holder mounting place. This means I would have to solder on extensions. Potentially soldering twice as many connections ups the opportunity cost.
For those who don’t like following ebay links, the holders I got were 10 for $2.54, which works out to 40 for $10.06 (after my $0.10 in eBay bucks, eBay’s kickback scheme). So they are a wee tiny fraction of a penny over a quarter each.
I used to add headphone jacks to TVs.
There are several places in my home and garage that would benefit from motion activated lights. The cat I stepped on a few days ago is now painfully aware of how poorly us humans see in the dark.
Having the batteries live in the chargers makes it easy to remember where I left them.
@RedOak@awk@cengland0 I am not deaf or even hard of hearing, so I don’t want the thing screaming at me when it hears a smoke detector go off. Unless there is a switch to disable it, I am going remove the microphone.
After tolerating the creepy sound for 15 minutes, now I don’t know how to make the nightlight stop blinking on and off like a strobe light. “Simply plug it in!” the box says.
@phatmass press and hold the reset button, it will dim the light. Mine was too bright, kept reflecting back to the sensor, telling the light that it was day and time to turn off.
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone here. You guys always figure out how to make things work. Getting prepped to ride out Irma, I plugged these suckers in so if I lose power for any length of time, I can at least keep my phone charged. Not that the towers will be working, but maybe I can play Best Fiends Forever in the dark for a bit longer. I, of course, got the angry grumbling, so I hopped on here to find out what it was. Y’all are awesome!!!
Other side of boards
Note the nice big gap between the 120volt side of the power supply and the low voltage side. Assuming the transformer is good, this isn’t likely to kill you. Always a plus.
So I finally got to use these for their intended purpose today, they’ve been plugged in idle, waiting, since this time and tonight was their time to shine. Hour 3.5 of no power but my rooms are lit. Combined with the 10 pack of lipstick usb batteries I also purchased here I can continue with the usual internet tomfoolery with no worries.
@DLPanther Lucky you. Mine would false on the smoke alarm alert all the time and drain the batteries. It seems the charging circuit can’t keep up when the leds are on constantly. I think only 1 of my 4 still works, but I haven’t plugged it in for a long time now.
@Kidsandliz@nadroj The CCCs were the big selling point for me, too. The way I see it, we’re getting a plate of delicious chocolate chip cookies with some quirky night lights thrown in. Mmmmm!
@Jasongb What and scare anyone camped nearby when a MN or AK mosquito flies by? Of course it might work as a bear deterrent - or it might be too late when it finally goes off.
Thought of Grannie, had to buy it. For those who sleep with headphones and other aural apperati, or those who remove their hearing aids or sleep with earplugs the flashing lights (and a sonic boom) might be a lifesaver. I hope it won’t freak out the dog.
@KaRaS A little creative work - mount them higher than the dog. You loose the ease of sticking it in the outlet. But, . . . I have a battery motion detector nightlight sitting on a bookshelf about head high for me. I’m thinking about these as there are some places where sleep wouldn’t be bothered by the dogs setting off the light.
Update: I called the 800 number. After the lady asked me my phone number “in case we get disconnected”, she repeated it back to me correctly. I then proceeded to explain that 3 out of my 4 night lights blinked non-stop after “simply plugging it in”. Silence… Call was disconnected. It’s been 10 minutes. Still waiting for that call back.
This is a response by the Amazon seller of this: “We are pulling this product due to several problems that have been reported. Light was too bright for a night light. Sensor did not work until very close to unit. Unit died within 60 days of use. Difficult to understand instructions.”
Mine aren’t here yet. I hope these don’t turn out to be pieces of shit. I mean, I know they aren’t actually made out of feces…well…you know what I mean.
Cricket sounds? Per the manufacturer, leave them plug in. This is a sound that the units make when the battery is discharged. I left mine plugged in, in the off position, and after about an hour turn them on and they do not make the sound.
@donrull Same issue here. Thank you for the fix! Will try plugging all of them in tomorrow for a while. Scared to do it overnight while I sleep with that noise.
@donrull thank you for sharing this mine also made the cricket sound I left them charging in the off position overnight the cricket sound is gone and I have now set them on nightlight.
Love these. Can’t believe how inexpensive they were. They work like a charm. Often, I or my boys, get up in the middle of the night. Now, we never have to turn on a light! One of the best meh buys I’ve ever made!
@mediocrebot Is Somebody threatening me? I’m not a Rocket Surgeon, so I ain’t that clue-abled [smarts] + I’m a paranoid semi-tired, un-retired Mo Fo, so please, let me know!!
@Thumperchick Not only did I do a hard refresh, I loaded it in a new browser tab too. Still didn’t work.
Turned out that it was Ghostery – a chrome add-on that I use that prevented it from working.
I put an exception for meh to ignore the plugin and it worked. That has never been a problem in the past so your site must have some weird tracker that is being blocked by the ghostery addon that wasn’t blocked before.
@cengland0 Try restarting your browser, that usually works for me when something goes wonky with my browser. The browser’s probably stuck retrieving cached data. FYI it was working for me.
@awk thanks for that tip. I went ahead and whitelisted the whole site to make it easy on me. I trust meh. Maybe I need to reevaluate these decisions in my life.
@cengland0 Yes Meh chooses what to add to the page. Services can add their own 3rd-party services though. They all have access to the page.
Meh is admittedly pretty innocent with only seven mostly well-known companies, but I doubt the sites with 35-40 trackers on each page have any clue what sewage they are funneling up our urethras.
@Odysseus1001 1year MAX. Can be taken as the company’s name or Meh screaming “You Get 1 Year MAXimum! No More And No Less!” However you’d like to read it- 1 year warranty.
@candiedisilvio1 After your ? hit return & then do your /buy command. I’m sure you probably already know how but I didn’t want you to think you bought them and never receive them-unless you’re having second thoughts
@candiedisilvio1 I never did figure out the newfangled slash buy command. I just hit the buy button. But I know how to do this:
/giphy narcisisstic barbed copper
I watched the extended features videos and I’m in. I might use them. I know 2 people who are closing on huts next month. …and the Holidays are around the corner. They will find a home.
Oddly enough, I just busted the night light from my daughter’s room two days ago while putting up some shelves. I had one leaning against the wall, it fell, and smashed the light. If I didn’t already buy a 6 pack yesterday, I might have gotten this.
I knee-jerked meh-buttoned it thinking it was only USB powered. I have enough USB powered devices and it’s rocket science being sure they are always charged up.
I share a 4 bedroom house in East Hollywood and leaving my abode for a few days makes me wish I had a motion detecting security cam just in case but I think they’re out of my price range This will do! BUT one question please: if you set it to motion activated and leave, how the heck do you return and deactivate it without setting it off? I mean … any clues? maybe i can sell 2 of them and recoop and save for a good security cam with night vision effect to make whoever look super guilty. (sorry for the long post )
@ignoramus The reality is you usually set it off when you walk up to it to deactivate it, and then you turn it off. This is more like “scare off people / animals that weren’t expecting it” rather than a full-fledged alarm system.
@Prizeless I think as soon as the power goes out, the light comes on. You can see that in the demo videos when they pull it out of the socket and the light came on.
@fastharry I got an email today that mine have shipped. Says that I will might receive it on Monday, Sept. 11. No not fast, but eventually stuff gets to my house.
@fastharry The hurricane has really messed with the slow delivery process. My package traveled more than half way on it’s first day with FedEx. Now that it is far from the bad weather zone, I’m sure it will go back to the more traditional extreme spiral path.
Usually they spend 3 days traveling to a place a hundred miles to the north and hundreds of miles to the west of us, then they take 2 days to travel back south around lake Michigan and east from Chicago, to pass within a couple of miles of my house before taking another 2 days to reach my front porch.
@gary2311 Go to the Meh email that you received and click on the tracking number. It will take you to the FedEx shipping page.
Or
Scroll to the top of this page and click on "account"
and then click on “Your orders”. Once again, you will have to click on the tracking number which will take you to the FedEx shipping page.
@bgiese5000 They are certainly not as advertised, “Simply plug it in!” but, with enough hassling around you can eventually get them to do all the things that are listed on the box. The thing that annoys me the most are they are about 1/8th of an inch too big to easily be able to allow most plugs to fit next to them–so, essentially, they hog up two outlets.
@jsdoman The sound is merely a metaphor for our own mortality. Loud and confusing … and then suddenly it will end, and no one will remember or care. Later, the sun will swallow the earth. All of this is normal. Don’t fight it. Embrace it and draw upon its dark power.
So close … so very close. They almost made it - but are now sitting somewhere between Orlando & our south Sarasota post office. They would have been a great asset to have gotten in time to charge them for use during Irma, as she steamrolls over us tonight - but will sadly now be relegated to collecting dust until we have our power restored sometime post storm. Just informed that I-75 will be shut down at 3:00 p.m. today - time to hang on to our asses & hunker down.
What a journey! I put 6/12 back in the box and left 6 plugged in per the manufacturer. The cricket sounds went away. This morning 1/6 is completely dead. No cricket sounds, no charging lights, NADA. I guess I better check the other 6. I also will need to check functionality as I suspect they are not working like they are supposed to either…
@donrull Try charging the dead one using the micro USB port. I have 1 that also won’t charge at all using AC. Another one seems to charge ok, but when set to motion only, it also sounds the alarm, which relegates it to fulltime nightlight duty. All in all, only 2 of my 4 lights actually work 100% like they’re supposed to. Not great, but it could be worse I suppose.
How do you get them to do anything when plugged in? I get all the functionality discussed in this thread when they are charged and unplugged, but once I plug them in they are dark in all modes.
Wow, mine worked, at least the ones I plugged in. Security setting scared me half to death.
There are switches along the side for what setting you want. They are probably still set as off.
@Helot Yup, in my batch of 4, 2 will go off randomly in a completely quiet room regardless of which position the switch is in, so I can’t even use them as basic nightlights. Of the remaining 2, 1 will only charge via USB. Luckily, the last one still seems to work normally and they all seem to work as flashlights when unplugged. I’m probably going to cut the mic wire on one of these to see if it’ll stop the alarm, as covering it with tape doesn’t work.
you know since they don’t work you could contact meh support? also to save you from contacting meh support you know there is a 12 month mfg warranty on them right?
@thismyusername Yeah, the response from meh support was to post here and see if any of the troubleshooting on the forums helped. I’ll look into mfg warranty depending on reply from meh, though I bet it’s not worthwhile unless shipping is covered. Cutting the mic wire seems an option worth exploring though. Curious to hear if that works out.
@thismyusername At this point, I’m not holding my breath on either options given the responses others have received. Also, Meh has made good on several past disappointments and this one is minor in comparison so I’m willing to let it slide.
@kuoh Have the same problem. Didn’t think of cutting the mic wire, or any wires. But I am now thinking the speaker wire might be the one to cut, if that’s easy enough.
@Odysseus1001 The problem with cutting only the speaker wire is when the alarm is triggered, the main LEDs also light up until reset. Cutting the mic “should” stop both. I did take the non charging one apart and found a leaking capacitor on the power board, probably why it won’t charge on AC, but didn’t have a replacement handy so I put it back together. I’ll wait until I get the proper part before opening it again and try disabling the mic.
@kuoh Check the fused resistor when you have it open. It is shaped like a 2 watt resistor, but is an unusual material.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a bad cap also blew the fuse.
It has 4 stripes like a resistor color code, so we can probably find a datasheet for it. It would be bad to replace it with a slower fuse, even if it is the same value.
@kuoh I cut the speaker wire, and the result was exactly as you predicted. The noise went away, but the main LEDs light up which is fine if you want maximum brightness but (a) it doesn’t turn off when other lights come on and (b) it’s unreliable for a motion light or a light where you want it to be dimmer. So it’s an improvement but not a fix.
That said, I’m not sure cutting the mic will stop anything, unless we think the mic itself is malfunctioning. I suspect something on the logic board is creating the false positive, and therefore cutting the mic won’t help.
If anyone tries cutting the mic and it works, I’d love to hear that. Thanks!
@Odysseus1001 I’m guessing it’s the smoke detector detector functionality that’s at fault, so cutting the mic should remove all input. If it’s still being triggered by rf noise, then it could be bad filtering capacitors. In any case, the mic wire is the easiest mod to test, as I was never planning to rely on that feature anyway.
@kuoh my guess is that leaving the microphone inputs floating would make it even more susceptible to electromagnetic interference. It is possible that the microphone has a broken lead, which makes it an antenna rather than a microphone.
It would make it deaf to sound.
If these things had any value, I would say connect the leads with resistors to ground. Since they have no value, just short them to ground.
@hamjudo I’ve never seen an electret mic go bad let alone 2 or 3 in a batch of devices. It’s probably easier to short the leads together if it mattered, but I’ll just start with cutting one and see what happens. First I have to get around to taking another one apart rather than just talking about it. But given the time of night and having to wake up early for work tomorrow, maybe, just maybe, I’ll get around to it… Saturday or Sunday.
@hamjudo So here I am laying in bed thinking of how much hassle it’s going to be to take it apart just to disable to mic and this thought came to me! Guess I’ll find out soon enough whether I get some sleep tonight or a rude awakening.
Hey @bpingel93, I thought we were all great in the 918? How come you have gone so silent on your offer? I made an exception and saved you one. It’s just 5 bucks man, what’s the deal? Did you get cold feet?
These have been great. I have some set up as night lights and some on motion. They have been handy during power outages. When a smoke detector goes off, the built in alarm function sounds - very loudly. Mine stay plugged in all the time. With the motion detector, I don’t have to turn on a light when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. They do not charge my iPhone though. The price was great for 4 of these and they continue to work after 3 years. This was on of those good finds.
@donrull if Meh didn’t occasionally throw in a can’t resist item (coincidentally at least once a month) then I’d likely cancel after a few months of dry. We get a hell of a lot more measurable benefit from the $100 Prime fee than this $60 Meh fee.
Trying to figure out what the difficult to measure benefits of VMP are… (it’s been a long time since that ‘free’ t-shirt.)
interesting note in amazon Q&A for this product just published today…
Question: Is it universal voltage or 110 only?
Answer: We are pulling this product due to several problems that have been reported. Light was too bright for a night light. Sensor did not work until very close to unit. Unit died within 60 days of use. Difficult to understand instructions.
Was a very good idea but not very well engineered. Do not know of another device with the features hope they redesign and come back with another product to replace this one. see less
By Strange Man SELLER on August 29, 2017
@PooltoyWolf The Mouse Kingdom huh? When mine come in, I’ll ping you here, unless you have a Woot login so we can PM? We can figure out economical shipping…I like Priority Mail, but that is more than the price of the thing.
@therealjrn Unfortunately I don’t have a w00t! account. Will I break something if I just share my email address here, edited sufficiently to discourage bots?
@PooltoyWolf Not really break anything, but it’s up to you. During the exchanges, we posted secret words so the internet trolls couldn’t fake an identity. Hmm. I’ll have to try to remember how that worked. We have some time to figure that out.
The buzzing was so loud and insistent that it threw itself out of the wall outlet. Thank goodness. Turned it off because it was the only way to stay sane. Hoping everyone’s words of support here mean that in a couple of hours I can turn it on. So far I have seen no sign of light. Only the buzzing.
The charging worked, they turn on now. I still need to figure out how to dim them, cause this is crazy bright. Looking forward to using the instructions posted above. It really seems like it shouldn’t be this hard! Anyone else get an incredibly obnoxious LOUD beep when changing between modes?
.
Geeez MEH, WTF is your meaning in life…to go out of business in the fastest pace possible…I purchased four, count 'em 4 of these pieces of shiite…between the noise and half of them not working at all… a great deal just turned me sour to MEH!
I got these night lights a couple days ago and none of them work at all. I did what instructions said about reset button too but still don’t work. I need a return and refund please.
I think I would love these but none of the four work. How do I receive working ones or a refund? I called the number on the package and was told they were closed due to weather.
Well, I followed some of the recommendations listed here to get them working “properly”. One is DOA for certain. Some of the others are rather confused as to what is their purpose. I guess I will be on the phone trying to get replacement/refund. Glad to know some have gotten a good shipment with all of them functioning properly.
Just finally got mine. We are post Irma, & several families by us are still with no power. Instructions are crap. Serious questions here - how long do they have to charge for to be fully charged, & how do you know they are fully charged? My neighbors just need the flashlight & cell phone recharge capabilities.
@scfd0766 it seemed to me they charged (even the completely dead one) in less than 30 mins… I presume the battery is tiny.
I think these are great for the light mode, and perhaps even the emergency alarm repeater, but I would not depend of them to charge any phones in an emergency. If you need that just wait a day or so for meh to sell another battery pack (or just go get an anker powercore).
@djslack Uh oh, they’re supposed to use a fancy cooling system if they over clock them.
On the other hand, that would add another feature; by having the lithium battery spew fire, they can make the smoke detectors go off. Then the surviving units can sing along and flash their lights.
@djslack More like overlabeled. It’s nothing new. $5 computer speakers that consume 2 watts of power? 300 watts peak output!
Being that these are 500mah at 3.7V … factor in having to boost to 5V, losses in the circuitry, losses in your device charging, age degradation … maybe it’ll help for maybe a whole 2% increase in your phone’s battery life?
Mine all buzz. I guess the above procedures were found by trial and error? I will let them charge and try the cycling rituals before using them as targets.
@Fellscave Mine did the buzz! Go through the steps and you’re very likely to be happy with the results.
Turn off.
Charge for 30 minutes (I had to wait longer, so I just charged for a few hours.)
Unplug.
Turn on to the mode you want.
Click the reset button on the side to cycle through light, off, flashlight, light again.
Then you can press and hold the reset button - this controls the brightness. Once you like where it’s at, let go of the reset button.
Plug into wall.
Be mildly impressed.
I don’t see a “not stolen” badge on the product page. Did Mediocre find these fallen off the back of a truck?
Disclaimer: I help run things here, so you should assume I’m trying to trick you by making it look like I’m buying this.
/buy
@dave It worked! Your order number is: lapping-ardent-salmon
/image lapping ardent salmon
@dave how do I get a job here? I promise I will be very mediocre.
/image mediocre employee
@kus http://mediocre.com/jobs
@dave Do you have a talk you give new employees that goes something like “it’s just the name you still have to show up and do decent work, ok?”
I remain alone with this infernal box. Although I do not understand its language, it still commands me. I bring it gifts: bits of wire, screws. Nothing seems to calm its rage. I brought a small flashlight with hopes of friendship. But the sound continues, filling my ears and clawing at my soul.
I learn of others. Three others, lying in wait, somewhere in the darkness. I can only imagine the terror they will bring me.
I stay crouched motionless in the darkest corner, hoping to remain out of sensor reach and not anger it further.
@awk This makes me think I should have purchased them. My wife loves horror; they could have been a great surprise!
@djslack They’re not that bad once they’re charged.
@awk oh I’m sure they’re not. I’m just envious of your experience as documented here. Could Poe have been haunted by a deeply discharged multifunction nightlight?
Time has passed. Hours, days, I don’t know.
I managed to decode its vocalization. There is only one word in this language. Only one all-encompassing, terrifying concept.
HUNGER.
Now a second box is growling in the distance.
I pray for eternal silence, in whatever way it may come.
@awk “You must travel through these woods again and again and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time… but the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.”
Am I crazy for buying 12 of these?
I like the idea of having them set up throughout the house to turn on while I walk by, so I don’t have to turn on the lights when I walk to the bathroom or whatever in the middle of the night.
Also, if the power goes out I’ll be set with multiple flashlights and power banks.
I just wonder what it sounds like when 12 of these things are going off at once.
@christinerenee I might be nearly as “crazy” as you if I had “a found” $60 burning a hole in my pocket.
But don’t so I won’t.
@christinerenee Let me check the Big Book of What’s Crazy and What Isn’t… let’s see… …
…
hmm
…
yeah says right here, that’s crazy. sorry!
(post video of all 12 going off so we can all ride the carousel of madness)
This has the potential to be one of those products that does many things poorly instead of one or two things well.
@huja I know. And yet, I’m pondering of buying them anyways.
Heads, yes. Tails, no.
/coinflip
Flipping… Flippping… Flippping… HEADS!
@huja Yeah, but you get FOUR of them to do things poorly.
Okay. Turns out you just need to turn it OFF while it charges, and let it charge quietly for 15-30 minutes. The crazy noise never comes back when the battery is charged.
In fact, this thing works pretty well. All four of mine mostly work.
The smoke alarm extender function doesn’t work.
And one annoying thing, if you press “Reset” after motion detection or alarm, it doesn’t detect again unless you turn it off and on, or unplug it and re-plug it.
Soon I will spudge one open and see what’s inside.
@awk I just tested my smoke detector. Out of the 4 MAX lights, only 1 of them sensed the noise and starting mocking my smoke alarm in a jealous tantrum. It was actually the light I had plugged in farthest away from the alarm. I guess that’s… good?
@awk THANK YOU. Was about to see how far I could throw these things. Figured the battery was sitting dead for too long to recharge. At least I know to just have patience and then see if they blink or fail to repeat the smoke alarm noise. I guess if they can just work as emergency lighting I will be happy enough
@awk I don’t think it’s necessary to spudge these things. I think the 4 white-ish rubber plugs on the back side are covering up some screws or something.
I may try taking one apart later tonight.
@narfcake I have pried them out, and I see phillips heads.
@hamjudo Woohoo!
I just got my 4 pack of these. NONE of them work. Two of them make a noise as if they are about to explode when I plug them in. I tried all modes (nightlight, motion, security). Complete fail. How do I get my money back? I don’t want a Sharpie this time.
Update: Now they all are making the noise. I’m leaving them plugged in in “off” mode so the noise goes away. My hope is that the noise is a “I need to be charged” sound? Maybe they don’t work unless charged, even though they are plugged into an outlet? Seems dumb, but this is Meh.
Update #2: My suspicion was right. These things need to be plugged in for at least 15 minutes before they start working–and looks like longer than that to achieve full brightness. Runs completely off the battery, not the AC outlet. Forgive me Meh, for jumping the gun. I should have known it was just a poorly designed product. Why else would you sell it!
@phatmass Okay I was wondering the same thing. I sure hope that sound goes away at some point. It’s grumbling. I think it’s angry.
Unfortunately, they seem to be glued shut, and I bought them with the intent of tinkering with them.
/image meh
The sound this thing makes is fascinating, like some kind of avant-garde music performance.
First there is a steady buzzing sound.
Then after a few minutes, an occasional lower-pitched tick sound punctuates the buzzing every few seconds.
Then the tick becomes more and more common and it sounds like morse code. What’s it trying to say?
Now occasionally it does 10-20 ticks in a row which makes an interesting buzz variation.
There is a green LED that blinks along with the buzzing.
I put it in another room because this is somewhat terrifying.
Yet, no illumination or other function has revealed itself.
I’m jealous that you all got yours. Mine are set to arrive Monday.
On the other hand, thanks for working through all the quirks so I’ll know what to do when they arrive.
@dave If I were you, I’d start looking for a trash can.
@Barney Thanks, but I have quite a few trash cans so it won’t take me very long to look for one. I can probably wait right up until I just about need one before I start looking. (Should we sell trash cans?)
@dave Maybe trash bags. I’d buy 'em.
@dave A meh branded trash can would be awesome. You could use it for fuko’s instead of bags.
@dave Meh brand everything!
(You can start with catshirts.
)
I removed the rubber nubs as suggested by @narfcake
This exposed 4 screw heads. It took me a bit to find a long thin screwdriver that could reach to them.
The screws were in pretty tight, so I used a pair of pliers to get the screwdriver started.
The circular thing at the bottom center of the image is the lens off of the PIR motion sensor.
The oddly shaped white plastic thing to the right of the nubs and screws is a light pipe. When it is in the correct place, it pipes the light from an LED on the circuit board behind the silvery cone to the outside of the case. There are two LEDs. Each one as a light pipe. The other light pipe is to the left of the silvery cone. It is offset by a few mm from its installed location to make it easier to see. Normally it would be touching the face of an LED.
@hamjudo love the work tray. my screws would be under table in the carpet by now
@username
!
They are standard 14x18 cafeteria trays. We couldn’t find any affordable used ones, so we bought enough new ones at one time, so the shipping wasn’t a killer.
I work on a project on a tray. When I need the work space for something else, I put the tray in the rack. Later on, I can grab the tray and restart where I left off.
The spray paint on the rack is from Home Depot’s price marking system for selling damaged and left over lumber. Since I have never seen that kind of T-slot for sale there, I assume it came from a store display that they tore down.
My boss uses cafeteria racks that were thrown out when the University remodeled a dorm.
I will try including the other image in a reply.
@username the rack
@hamjudo awesome stuff!
@hamjudo that looks like standard slatwall. I’d be surprised if home depot didn’t sell it.
Don’t forget your free magnets!
You can see the indents when you open the flap on the right
The outside flap, near the red ribbon, has a metal strip (caution - sharp corners!)
The magnets are just held on with little strips of tape. To easily get to them - rip the box at the red corner that says Open
To get the metal strip, rip open the front from the curved part of the flap (mind had some separation here already, making it easier)
The final result:
Also - thanks for the tips on charging before turning them on - the buzzing was real annoying
Tempted, but if I have to run around the house silencing all four of these every time there’s a low battery beep from a smoke detector, I can see them going out the window at high speed.
I use one of mine as a motion alarm for when my kids try to sneak out of their rooms after bedtime.
@phatmass Pro Tip: They’re exiting through the bedroom windows.
My other nightlight flashlights don’t nightlight anymore.
/buy
@Thumperchick It worked! Your order number is: masterful-apathetic-credit
/image masterful apathetic credit
@mediocrebot ValJean, at last, we see each other plain… thanks to the nightlights?
@Thumperchick You get like um, an employee discount don’t you?
@huja nope. We pay the same price as you suckers. Which makes us also suckers.
@Thumperchick Dang. Do you at least get candy corn that isn’t a melted into a single brick?
@huja No, they leave it on their car dashboard in the Texas sun for a couple of hours. But it’s on the honor system.
According to the seller on Amazon: We are pulling this product due to several problems that have been reported. Light was too bright for a night light. Sensor did not work until very close to unit. Unit died within 60 days of use. Difficult to understand instructions.
Was a very good idea but not very well engineered. Do not know of another device with the features hope they redesign and come back with another product to replace this one.
By SELLER on August 29, 2017
@arfdawg Maybe also “because some company bought up all the remaining stock so they’re no longer available to drop ship”?
@arfdawg fwiw, we tested these ourselves and haven’t seen those issues. For one thing, there’s a brightness setting.
My personal guess is someone’s hoping they get to keep selling these for ~$17 apiece when they remove that comment after today.
@arfdawg Sounds like this is gonna end up being a fun electronics project if nothing else.
@dave sellers on Amazon dishonest? Never. But clever.
An impressive 12-minute reply from the MAX customer support email, directly from their COO:
“In certain lighting conditions, typically dusk and dawn, the unit detects its own light which pushes it above the threshold set for turning the light off. When it turns off the ambient light drops below the threshold and the nightlight turns on again. It is usually possible to adjust the light brightness to find a “sweet spot” where the unit is not affected by its own light output and does not blink. I hope this helps you understand why it’s blinking and hopefully helps you find a setting that works better for you.”
lol wut?
@phatmass cover the light sensor a bit
Turns out this guy was on to something. Through a lot of messing around with this contraption, I finally figured out a somewhat reliable method to dim it. The manual says to “Press and hold down the reset button to Increase or Decrease brightness in any Mode”. #FAKENEWS The ACTUAL way to make this work somewhat consistently is to do this:
I was able to get all four of my lights dimmed enough to where they won’t turn themselves off after turning themselves on. Geesh. These thing are like my wife.
@medz Covering the sensor does not work. The light creeps from within.
@phatmass this is the most helpful thing on the internet (for me, today)
@paxsarah awww, and you are the most beautiful girl on the street (depending on the street)
@phatmass “The light creeps from within.” Seems like it should apply to many things.
/giphy the light creeps from within
@phatmass "Geesh. These thing are like my wife."
She has a single eye and buzzes angrily? Sounds like my own wife!
@phatmass
Mostly confirmed!
The light sensor is totally inside the case, facing a light pipe that is mostly inside the case. Neither has any opaque shielding to limit where the light can come from.
Some of my units don’t see their own glow. So I think that the shielding behind the light emitters is good enough if everything is put together just right, and the unit has not been dropped, twisted, or exposed to too many temperature cycles.
If the light gets in, abandon all hope.
@hamjudo I’m thinking some well placed electrical tape above and below the sensor should shield enough stray internal light to make this functional as originally intended.
@Thumperchick @phatmass I think I read that novel last winter.
@phatmass thanks! i unplugged and replugged so many times at my parents’ and then drove back home and added a reset in between and it magically started working.
All 4 of mine are working properly. I let them charge in the ‘off’ position, then installed them in all of the dark areas (bathrooms & halls) I wanted to illuminate. I use all of mine in the “motion” mode. I did do the procedure of allow to fully charge, unplug from wall, cycle the reset button through to the flashlight setting, press reset one more time to light up the front panel, hold the reset button until the light starts to dim, select about 50% brightness, plug into wall.
Now, all working as expected. In fact, they seemed to improve after a few hours. The motion detection area got bigger after I stopped messing with them.
Now, time will tell how long these guys last…
I really want one but I don’t know why. I’m going to hold out as long as I can. It’s like having an open jar of peanut butter calling my name. Make it stop!
@norman8 norman8…buy me…buy me…buy me…
signed, max safety light
Will the alarm extender feature go off while I’m kicking sweet jams on my boom box, embarrassing me in front of my crew?
I’m willing to take that chance…
/buy
@awk It worked! Your order number is: loud-silver-biscuit
/image loud silver biscuit
@mediocrebot please don’t “chew out loud”, that shit drives me nuts
@mediocrebot Those look delicious. It’s been years since I’ve had a cookie.
Hey, don’t knock the Rochester garbage plate. I had my first one earlier this year and found it delicious
@Omega360 I grew up in Rochester- white hots are the best!
At least there are quite a bit of reviews on this. I found this helpful Now, what will I do with 12 of them?
The fact that it parrots smoke and CO alarms is hilarious.
Smoke alarm running out of batteries? Now the whole house can let you know!
@jmkiii First thing I do will be either disable the microphones, the noise makers, or both.
A better view of an LED
I finally got around to unpacking mine last night, and of course they did not work by “Simply plug it in!” After about an hour of charging via AC, all four seem to work, though I haven’t tested the smoke alarm re-alert. I’ve saved the posted images and tips for future reference, thanks to the Mehrians for sharing your knowledge and experiences!
Around 5AM today, one of the units was sounding an alarm. The main front LEDs were at full brightness, but the top flashlight LED was off. It made a sequence of 3 high-pitched beeps, then 3 lower-pitched beeps, short pause, then repeat (until I pressed the reset button). Removing the unit from the outlet and turning the side switch to OFF did not stop the alarm, only the reset button made it shut up. I had been running in nightlight mode (switch in the top position). Since I don’t really need the beeper, I plan to cut one beeper wire in the middle where it could easily be reconnected if I decide I want the beeper again sometime in the future.
I wound up cutting the blue beeper wire on all eight of my security lights, as most of them started to sound an alarm. I also purchased a set of five LiPo 603040 800mAH batteries, four of my eight lights needed replacement batteries early on, and I just replaced the battery in a fifth light tonight - so I ordered another set of four 603040 batteries, I’m sure that I will need more soon.
We recently had a 6 hour power outage and my Max lights stayed on for about 4 hours. I just replaced the 603040 batteries again in 5 of my 8 lights.
@ekblaw Where did you get the batteries and how much are they? I liked mine as well, but they have been in a moving box since 2 moves ago. Might put them back to use if I ever come across the right box again.
KuoH
@kuoh I bought them on eBay, before the pandemic made the shipping times from China expand. I just took a look and my seller is still offering 5-packs for $16 and $2 shipping, which is a little more than I paid last time.
Super Meh
@Stallion That’s comforting, right? Things are back to normal.
600mAH is a useless rating. It should show wattage hours instead. We don’t know what voltage that 600mAh is rated at. Could be the 4.2V of a single 18650 battery or was it at the 5V output or is it a combination of all the batteries in series? Who knows?!?!?!? That’s why you should list capacity in watt-hours instead of mAH.
@cengland0 It’s probably a single 600mAh Li-Ion cell with a (nominal) 3.7 V output, which gives you around 2.2 W-H. (At the battery terminals. Anywhere else will be a smaller and less impressive number for the marketing department.)
However you measure it 600 mAh is pretty sad and I wonder if there’s room for a bigger battery.
@awk I didn’t even think about putting batteries inside the case. I was going to use these as 18650 battery chargers, thus the battery holder will be on the outside of the case. Otherwise, how will you get the charged battery out of the charger?
@hamjudo I wouldn’t use these as chargers. First, the charge rate would probably be very slow. Second, you’d have to buy an 18650 battery holder and that might cost $1 direct from China. That’s already 20% of the purchase price.
It would be nice to see if there’s room inside for additional batteries or at least replace the existing one with a higher capacity one. It does put out 2.1A which makes it a viable battery pack for charging phones.
@cengland0 but you gotta like the principle of @hamjudo’s hack, right?
I wonder if the 2.1 amps is available in battery mode? Could be that is only when plugged into wall power. Surely somebody will test for the next time these come around!
Aside: that was weird! Was typing that comment on my iPhone and a popup of a swirly lollipop came up with the words “Cheer Up”???
I’m already pretty content since we’re at present camping at our off grid property in the northern woods.
@RedOak I’m not sure I understand what @hamjudo is going for there…bring the internal battery wires out and attach them to a battery holder?
@hamjudo please resubmit your proposal to the committee with more details.
@awk http://m.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-Mini-Plastic-Black-18650-Battery-3-6-4-2V-Clip-Holder-Connecting-Case-/322645064668?hash=item4b1f24fbdc%3Ag%3AG-4AAOSwHMJYL2wF&_trkparms=pageci%3Ae67d2436-8ccb-11e7-a886-74dbd180def0%7Cparentrq%3A2e894aa015e0ab4de60a3f6afffe879f%7Ciid%3A2
Buy inexpensive battery holders and screw them to the outside of the case. Then pull out the existing tiny battery and solder the leads from the battery holder in its place.
They will be slow battery chargers that are also power bricks, flashlights, and motion activated lighting.
@awk I assumed he intended bring the charge wires out of the case.
(I recall doing that with clock radios decades ago so I could use a better sounding speaker or at least better locate the speaker. Longgg before Bluetooth or anything other then radios/walkietalkies/ TVs were “wireless”)
Even if it wasn’t a direct money saver it is a cool hack that adds yet another function to this already multifunction device.
Saving money by doing so would be bonus points!
@RedOak @awk @cengland0 I bought the battery holders with wires rather than the battery holders designed to be soldered into a PCB board. The PCB board version was cheaper, but then I would have to drill more holes, and soldering next to plastic is fiddly. I am reasonably confident that the pins on the PCB version would be more than long enough to reach through holes drilled in the case.
On the other hand, I am not so confident that the original battery leads would reach all of the way to my chosen holder mounting place. This means I would have to solder on extensions. Potentially soldering twice as many connections ups the opportunity cost.
For those who don’t like following ebay links, the holders I got were 10 for $2.54, which works out to 40 for $10.06 (after my $0.10 in eBay bucks, eBay’s kickback scheme). So they are a wee tiny fraction of a penny over a quarter each.
I used to add headphone jacks to TVs.
There are several places in my home and garage that would benefit from motion activated lights. The cat I stepped on a few days ago is now painfully aware of how poorly us humans see in the dark.
Having the batteries live in the chargers makes it easy to remember where I left them.
@RedOak @awk @cengland0 I am not deaf or even hard of hearing, so I don’t want the thing screaming at me when it hears a smoke detector go off. Unless there is a switch to disable it, I am going remove the microphone.
/buy
@candiedisilvio1 It worked! Your order number is: creative-mopey-muffin
/image creative mopey muffin
@mediocrebot I’m a big kid now
@candiedisilvio1 You did a good job
/buy
I think I hear P T Barnum calling…
Oh well.
@2many2no It worked! Your order number is: ominous-trivial-gunslinger
/image ominous trivial gunslinger
Ah, thank you Meh for the Nick Tahou’s reference. Double-cheese garbo with mac salad (never beans), please. Nothing tastes better at 3am. Meliora!
/buy
@lehigh It worked! Your order number is: noteworthy-appetizing-thing
/image noteworthy appetizing thing
@mediocrebot That’s definitely not the interior of Nick Tahou’s – Nick’s is far more appetizing!
maybe the product’s so-so, but I got the best order number EVAR!
[dreamy-gracious-dragon]
After tolerating the creepy sound for 15 minutes, now I don’t know how to make the nightlight stop blinking on and off like a strobe light. “Simply plug it in!” the box says.
@phatmass press and hold the reset button, it will dim the light. Mine was too bright, kept reflecting back to the sensor, telling the light that it was day and time to turn off.
@Euniceandrich Dude.
TL:DR If your light goes all blinky instead of nightlighty.
Follow the instructions @phatmass posted above.
/giphy dude
@username
/giphy sweet
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone here. You guys always figure out how to make things work. Getting prepped to ride out Irma, I plugged these suckers in so if I lose power for any length of time, I can at least keep my phone charged. Not that the towers will be working, but maybe I can play Best Fiends Forever in the dark for a bit longer. I, of course, got the angry grumbling, so I hopped on here to find out what it was. Y’all are awesome!!!
Circuit boards.
@hamjudo Which wire do I cut to make it never make any sounds ever again?
@iphegenia The noise maker is the thing with the golden ring of annoyance on the back of the unit. Cut its wires.
Other side of boards
Note the nice big gap between the 120volt side of the power supply and the low voltage side. Assuming the transformer is good, this isn’t likely to kill you. Always a plus.
So I finally got to use these for their intended purpose today, they’ve been plugged in idle, waiting, since this time and tonight was their time to shine. Hour 3.5 of no power but my rooms are lit. Combined with the 10 pack of lipstick usb batteries I also purchased here I can continue with the usual internet tomfoolery with no worries.
@DLPanther Yay! It’s great when a plan comes together!
/image candle
@DLPanther Lucky you. Mine would false on the smoke alarm alert all the time and drain the batteries. It seems the charging circuit can’t keep up when the leds are on constantly. I think only 1 of my 4 still works, but I haven’t plugged it in for a long time now.
KuoH
Nightlight with too many features.
/giphy furious-inconvenient-magpie
@krdshrk Sad giphy I’m assuming they’re crying over the dead one.
@WTFsunshine I agree. That is just fucking sad.
I could use some of these actually.
/buy
@rileyper It worked! Your order number is: huge-careless-quail
/image huge careless quail
@mediocrebot reading that wall of text took me back to biochem. Made just about as much sense…
Dammit, @2many2no!
/buy
@narfcake It worked! Your order number is: caustic-jittery-magic
/image caustic jittery magic
@narfcake Hey, you flipped the coin.
I just nudged it to heads.
At least you didn’t get one of those weird giphy’s full of death. Yours is magic.
Garbage plate with salt potatoes! I never made it to Nick Tahou’s, though.
/buy
@atannir It worked! Your order number is: bony-windy-railway
/image bony windy railway
If it had been a normal Tuesday - 2 for $10, I’d be in. But are they so wonky we really need 4 just to get 1 or 2 good ones?
Meh must have a couple container loads of these.
@RedOak It’s just as likely that shipping 4 in a pack is the easiest way to ship them. We’re lazy… energy conscious.
@Thumperchick and you happen to have a shitload of them as well, right?
@RedOak
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
you had me at chocolate chip cookies
/buy
@nadroj It worked! Your order number is: mysterious-frightful-basketball
/image mysterious frightful basketball
@nadroj I only WANT the chocolate chip cookies. No option for that.
@Kidsandliz @nadroj The CCCs were the big selling point for me, too. The way I see it, we’re getting a plate of delicious chocolate chip cookies with some quirky night lights thrown in. Mmmmm!
Any chance the security part works when not plugged in? Thinking of using them outside the tent when camping.
@Jasongb What and scare anyone camped nearby when a MN or AK mosquito flies by? Of course it might work as a bear deterrent - or it might be too late when it finally goes off.
Do they make smoothies?
@hchavers for that you’d need an attached knife and bluetooth function.
@hchavers let’s find out
@nadroj Can I guess that’s what we’re selling tomorrow?
Thought of Grannie, had to buy it. For those who sleep with headphones and other aural apperati, or those who remove their hearing aids or sleep with earplugs the flashing lights (and a sonic boom) might be a lifesaver. I hope it won’t freak out the dog.
@KaRaS A little creative work - mount them higher than the dog. You loose the ease of sticking it in the outlet. But, . . . I have a battery motion detector nightlight sitting on a bookshelf about head high for me. I’m thinking about these as there are some places where sleep wouldn’t be bothered by the dogs setting off the light.
@Lighter Thank you for your suggestion.
/image herbivorous-abstracted-fairy
/giphy herbivorous-abstracted-fairy
@DLPanther How come you get the cool order #?
Perfect for the next fuku (along with clumps of candy corn).
It’s the best lighting, beautiful lighting. Really bigly lighting.
/giphy goodhearted-gruesome-knowledge
Stay weird, giphy… stay weird.
The “returns” URL is dead. My guess is excessive traffic: http://www.maxsmarthome.com/returns
Update: I called the 800 number. After the lady asked me my phone number “in case we get disconnected”, she repeated it back to me correctly. I then proceeded to explain that 3 out of my 4 night lights blinked non-stop after “simply plugging it in”. Silence… Call was disconnected. It’s been 10 minutes. Still waiting for that call back.
This is a response by the Amazon seller of this: “We are pulling this product due to several problems that have been reported. Light was too bright for a night light. Sensor did not work until very close to unit. Unit died within 60 days of use. Difficult to understand instructions.”
@phatmass As seen:
Here: https://meh.com/forum/topics/4-for-tuesday-max-safety-security-light#59a5645a7847fe0e90b2adb7
And here: https://meh.com/forum/topics/4-for-tuesday-max-safety-security-light#59a5b94c7847fe0e90b2b894
Mine aren’t here yet. I hope these don’t turn out to be pieces of shit. I mean, I know they aren’t actually made out of feces…well…you know what I mean.
@therealjrn Wait. You want me to scroll up to read? What is this, the 90’s?
Cricket sounds? Per the manufacturer, leave them plug in. This is a sound that the units make when the battery is discharged. I left mine plugged in, in the off position, and after about an hour turn them on and they do not make the sound.
@donrull Dude.
@donrull Same issue here. Thank you for the fix! Will try plugging all of them in tomorrow for a while. Scared to do it overnight while I sleep with that noise.
@donrull read this.
@donrull thank you for sharing this mine also made the cricket sound I left them charging in the off position overnight the cricket sound is gone and I have now set them on nightlight.
when in motion trip mode, light is on for 2 minutes before it goes off again
Love these. Can’t believe how inexpensive they were. They work like a charm. Often, I or my boys, get up in the middle of the night. Now, we never have to turn on a light! One of the best meh buys I’ve ever made!
Seems to me this is one of those situations where reading the documentation is an epic fail.
Sure, why not.
/buy
@The_Tim It worked! Your order number is: weird-equitable-poison
/image weird equitable poison
@mediocrebot That’s quite a depressing order number image.
@mediocrebot Hahah! Loved it.
@mediocrebot Is Somebody threatening me? I’m not a Rocket Surgeon, so I ain’t that clue-abled [smarts] + I’m a paranoid semi-tired, un-retired Mo Fo, so please, let me know!!
MAX? More like MEH.
I actually really need this for several of its uses and am flat broke at the moment. I hope this shows up again soon.
Buying the regular way doesn’t work. Page is blank and the “Fine, just buy it” button doesn’t do anything.
/buy
@cengland0 It worked! Your order number is: tall-aquamarine-salamander
/image tall aquamarine salamander
Now that I bought one, here’s an image of the “Buy It” window that isn’t working.
So where is the option to change my address and where do I enter the credit card information? It was all missing.
@cengland0 that’s weird. It’s working for me. Try a hard refresh?
@Thumperchick Not only did I do a hard refresh, I loaded it in a new browser tab too. Still didn’t work.
Turned out that it was Ghostery – a chrome add-on that I use that prevented it from working.
I put an exception for meh to ignore the plugin and it worked. That has never been a problem in the past so your site must have some weird tracker that is being blocked by the ghostery addon that wasn’t blocked before.
@cengland0 You need to allow code from Stripe, I had to do that a while back.
@cengland0 Try restarting your browser, that usually works for me when something goes wonky with my browser. The browser’s probably stuck retrieving cached data. FYI it was working for me.
@awk thanks for that tip. I went ahead and whitelisted the whole site to make it easy on me. I trust meh. Maybe I need to reevaluate these decisions in my life.
@cengland0 Well, you trust Meh, but do you trust all those third parties that come along for the ride…
@awk There are 7 trackers total on the home page. Doesn’t meh add those? A third party cannot add a tracker to a site by themselves can they?
@cengland0 Yes Meh chooses what to add to the page. Services can add their own 3rd-party services though. They all have access to the page.
Meh is admittedly pretty innocent with only seven mostly well-known companies, but I doubt the sites with 35-40 trackers on each page have any clue what sewage they are funneling up our urethras.
Mixed reviews from google, some doa.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Max safety security light&gws_rd=ssl
@craigcush I promise I hadn’t seen your post before my wonky comment below.
@craigcush That’s why you get 4 of them, to increase the odds that at least one will work.
@heartny So it really is a 2-for-Tuesday
@mehcuda67 You are being optimistic
@mehcuda67 More like a Crap-shoot for Tuesday.
/buy
@actionPacked It worked! Your order number is: fixated-plain-puck
/image fixated plain puck
@mediocrebot ooohhhhh sharp!!
@mediocrebot Just make sure you type that in right.
/buy
@Odysseus1001 It worked! Your order number is: crappy-bossy-coast
/image crappy bossy coast
I’m in, I can’t see how this could be bad, unless it burns down my house and doesn’t alert me.
/buy
@Special_Ted Sorry, the
/buycommand is currently only available to VMP members.Warranty? I didn’t see any info about that.
@Odysseus1001 1year MAX. Can be taken as the company’s name or Meh screaming “You Get 1 Year MAXimum! No More And No Less!” However you’d like to read it- 1 year warranty.
Parents could use them.
/buy
@WTFsunshine It worked! Your order number is: funky-benevolent-vest
/image funky benevolent vest
/giphy funky-benevolent-vest
How can I go wrong with a multi functional flashlight nightligght thingy? /buy
@candiedisilvio1 After your ? hit return & then do your /buy command. I’m sure you probably already know how but I didn’t want you to think you bought them and never receive them-unless you’re having second thoughts
@WTFsunshine Thank you so much I didn’t know that. I’m trying to order like the cool kids
/buy
@candiedisilvio1 Has to be on a new line in a post, not in a reply.
@candiedisilvio1 I never did figure out the newfangled slash buy command. I just hit the buy button. But I know how to do this:
/giphy narcisisstic barbed copper
3 purchases in the last 4 months. Gotta even the ratio to justify the vmp. Sigh…
/buy
@eVil It worked! Your order number is: potent-loose-mink
/image potent loose mink
@mediocrebot lame… let’s try that again
/giphy potent-loose-mink
@eVil LMAO!
@eVil LOL
@eVil giphy definitely won this time! Good Job Giphy!
/buy
@therealjrn It worked! Your order number is: coy-damp-porridge
/image coy damp porridge
@mediocrebot um…thank you?
@therealjrn no need to be coy
All it needs is a taser to defend against said intruder!
These looks interesting enough to try out. /buy
No Bluetooth - no way…
I watched the extended features videos and I’m in. I might use them. I know 2 people who are closing on huts next month. …and the Holidays are around the corner. They will find a home.
So when another alarm sounds these do too? So when my alarm clock goes off at 6:00 it wakes the whole house?
But will they blend?..guess we’ll find out, bought 4…
/buy
@Euniceandrich It worked! Your order number is: gaping-abashed-pipe
/image gaping abashed pipe
The jerk jerked from his jerkin a gherkin, which he jerked at my jockeys.
Oddly enough, I just busted the night light from my daughter’s room two days ago while putting up some shelves. I had one leaning against the wall, it fell, and smashed the light. If I didn’t already buy a 6 pack yesterday, I might have gotten this.
@lichme take those others back. These look like a lot more fun than what’s in those crappy boring six-pack night lights!
I knee-jerked meh-buttoned it thinking it was only USB powered. I have enough USB powered devices and it’s rocket science being sure they are always charged up.
I share a 4 bedroom house in East Hollywood and leaving my abode for a few days makes me wish I had a motion detecting security cam just in case but I think they’re out of my price range This will do! BUT one question please: if you set it to motion activated and leave, how the heck do you return and deactivate it without setting it off? I mean … any clues? maybe i can sell 2 of them and recoop and save for a good security cam with night vision effect to make whoever look super guilty. (sorry for the long post
)
OK giffy below ! Thanks Mr. Eh
/costly-literal-history
https://giphy.com/gifs/literally-8oQ7VR8F9eFk4
@ignoramus The reality is you usually set it off when you walk up to it to deactivate it, and then you turn it off. This is more like “scare off people / animals that weren’t expecting it” rather than a full-fledged alarm system.
@ignoramus You know this is a camera right?
@donrull 'tisn’t
random video of cat reacting to lights/sounds in middle of the night coming soon.
So, let’s say I buy 4 and then the things break in 60 days. No refund from anyone involved?
@Bigbearballs https://res.cloudinary.com/mediocre/image/upload/v1503947546/lwlvsygnfmwvjgav4h6r.pdf
@Bigbearballs but will they really give me a new one if it breaks in a year, will they?
“The built-in flashlight combined with the motion-activated night light means you won’t have to crawl around like an idiot when the power goes out”
Too bad it uses electricity to work! haha good one Meh.
@Prizeless I think as soon as the power goes out, the light comes on. You can see that in the demo videos when they pull it out of the socket and the light came on.
/buy
These are a bit more expensive than my common impulse buy, but it looks like all the cool kids are getting them, so I’ll just lemming along too.
@sligett It worked! Your order number is: boastful-grouchy-connection
/image boastful grouchy connection
@sligett Now you can boast about it.
Would you please run these again once I find a job.
why so long to ship?..
@fastharry Because they aren’t fast, harry. Hehe.
@fastharry have you seen our meh.com/faq ?
We throw stuff in boxes when we can, then FedEx bounces it all over the place and USPS eventually stuffs it in your mailbox. (Aka: we ship SmartPost.)
@Thumperchick lol…ok…ill paypal you one whole dollar if you can get those lights shipped beginning of next week…
@fastharry I got an email today that mine have shipped. Says that I
willmight receive it on Monday, Sept. 11. No not fast, but eventually stuff gets to my house.@Barney, @fastharry You’re going to lose your dollar. Mine have already shipped as well.
@therealjrn damn, i just got my tracking…I owe a buck it seems…
@Thumperchick tracking recieved…where shall i Paypal a dollar?
@fastharry
@carl669 What does it say in the mehcronomicon about bribing the Meh staff?
@Barney oopsie…
@fastharry You just got lucky, bit if you feel compelled, pay that dollar forward however you see fit.
@fastharry The hurricane has really messed with the slow delivery process. My package traveled more than half way on it’s first day with FedEx. Now that it is far from the bad weather zone, I’m sure it will go back to the more traditional extreme spiral path.
Usually they spend 3 days traveling to a place a hundred miles to the north and hundreds of miles to the west of us, then they take 2 days to travel back south around lake Michigan and east from Chicago, to pass within a couple of miles of my house before taking another 2 days to reach my front porch.
@Thumperchick it will be forwarded to Operation adopt a platoon…thanks…Harry
@hamjudo shhh… if they realize they can use that as an excuse they will just start slacking off.
It says my product shipped on August 29. When will I receive it?
@gary2311 Go to the Meh email that you received and click on the tracking number. It will take you to the FedEx shipping page.
Or
Scroll to the top of this page and click on "account"
and then click on “Your orders”. Once again, you will have to click on the tracking number which will take you to the FedEx shipping page.
Seriously, has anybody figured out how you make these things stop blinking? I want to sleep.
These items are crap. Not at all what I expected. I want a refunds. MEH has said to file a warranty claim.
@bgiese5000 They are certainly not as advertised, “Simply plug it in!” but, with enough hassling around you can eventually get them to do all the things that are listed on the box. The thing that annoys me the most are they are about 1/8th of an inch too big to easily be able to allow most plugs to fit next to them–so, essentially, they hog up two outlets.
When i plug it in, it makes this incredibly loud sound - like really loud crickets. I tried two of the four i bought and both did it. Is this normal?
@jsdoman Dude.
@jsdoman The sound is merely a metaphor for our own mortality. Loud and confusing … and then suddenly it will end, and no one will remember or care. Later, the sun will swallow the earth. All of this is normal. Don’t fight it. Embrace it and draw upon its dark power.
@jsdoman tap the reset button to clear the alarm. if it keeps doing it… IS THERE A FIRE ALARM GOING OFF IN YOUR HOUSE?
@jsdoman read this.
So close … so very close. They almost made it - but are now sitting somewhere between Orlando & our south Sarasota post office. They would have been a great asset to have gotten in time to charge them for use during Irma, as she steamrolls over us tonight - but will sadly now be relegated to collecting dust until we have our power restored sometime post storm. Just informed that I-75 will be shut down at 3:00 p.m. today - time to hang on to our asses & hunker down.
@scfd0766 I’m not sure you want to count on these for an emergency.
What a journey! I put 6/12 back in the box and left 6 plugged in per the manufacturer. The cricket sounds went away. This morning 1/6 is completely dead. No cricket sounds, no charging lights, NADA. I guess I better check the other 6. I also will need to check functionality as I suspect they are not working like they are supposed to either…
@donrull Try charging the dead one using the micro USB port. I have 1 that also won’t charge at all using AC. Another one seems to charge ok, but when set to motion only, it also sounds the alarm, which relegates it to fulltime nightlight duty. All in all, only 2 of my 4 lights actually work 100% like they’re supposed to. Not great, but it could be worse I suppose.
KuoH
@kuoh Ya know, I think even if that works, this product still qualifies as a piece of shiite!
How do you get them to do anything when plugged in? I get all the functionality discussed in this thread when they are charged and unplugged, but once I plug them in they are dark in all modes.
@Techrocket9 Is it still bright in the room? The light sensor makes it only work when it’s dark enough.
See the instructions posted in this thread about dimming it too.
Wow, mine worked, at least the ones I plugged in. Security setting scared me half to death.
There are switches along the side for what setting you want. They are probably still set as off.
Common sense triumphs instructions
Anybody else have one of these where the alarm goes off every five minutes? My other 3 work fine.
Did check, no fire alarms going off.
@Helot Yup, in my batch of 4, 2 will go off randomly in a completely quiet room regardless of which position the switch is in, so I can’t even use them as basic nightlights. Of the remaining 2, 1 will only charge via USB. Luckily, the last one still seems to work normally and they all seem to work as flashlights when unplugged. I’m probably going to cut the mic wire on one of these to see if it’ll stop the alarm, as covering it with tape doesn’t work.
KuoH
@Helot @kuoh
you know since they don’t work you could contact meh support? also to save you from contacting meh support you know there is a 12 month mfg warranty on them right?
@thismyusername Yeah, the response from meh support was to post here and see if any of the troubleshooting on the forums helped. I’ll look into mfg warranty depending on reply from meh, though I bet it’s not worthwhile unless shipping is covered. Cutting the mic wire seems an option worth exploring though. Curious to hear if that works out.
@thismyusername At this point, I’m not holding my breath on either options given the responses others have received. Also, Meh has made good on several past disappointments and this one is minor in comparison so I’m willing to let it slide.
KuoH
@kuoh Have the same problem. Didn’t think of cutting the mic wire, or any wires. But I am now thinking the speaker wire might be the one to cut, if that’s easy enough.
@Odysseus1001 The problem with cutting only the speaker wire is when the alarm is triggered, the main LEDs also light up until reset. Cutting the mic “should” stop both. I did take the non charging one apart and found a leaking capacitor on the power board, probably why it won’t charge on AC, but didn’t have a replacement handy so I put it back together. I’ll wait until I get the proper part before opening it again and try disabling the mic.
KuoH
@kuoh Check the fused resistor when you have it open. It is shaped like a 2 watt resistor, but is an unusual material.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a bad cap also blew the fuse.
It has 4 stripes like a resistor color code, so we can probably find a datasheet for it. It would be bad to replace it with a slower fuse, even if it is the same value.
@kuoh I cut the speaker wire, and the result was exactly as you predicted. The noise went away, but the main LEDs light up which is fine if you want maximum brightness but (a) it doesn’t turn off when other lights come on and (b) it’s unreliable for a motion light or a light where you want it to be dimmer. So it’s an improvement but not a fix.
That said, I’m not sure cutting the mic will stop anything, unless we think the mic itself is malfunctioning. I suspect something on the logic board is creating the false positive, and therefore cutting the mic won’t help.
If anyone tries cutting the mic and it works, I’d love to hear that. Thanks!
@Odysseus1001 I’m guessing it’s the smoke detector detector functionality that’s at fault, so cutting the mic should remove all input. If it’s still being triggered by rf noise, then it could be bad filtering capacitors. In any case, the mic wire is the easiest mod to test, as I was never planning to rely on that feature anyway.
KuoH
@kuoh my guess is that leaving the microphone inputs floating would make it even more susceptible to electromagnetic interference. It is possible that the microphone has a broken lead, which makes it an antenna rather than a microphone.
It would make it deaf to sound.
If these things had any value, I would say connect the leads with resistors to ground. Since they have no value, just short them to ground.
@hamjudo I’ve never seen an electret mic go bad let alone 2 or 3 in a batch of devices. It’s probably easier to short the leads together if it mattered, but I’ll just start with cutting one and see what happens. First I have to get around to taking another one apart rather than just talking about it. But given the time of night and having to wake up early for work tomorrow, maybe, just maybe, I’ll get around to it… Saturday or Sunday.
KuoH
@hamjudo So here I am laying in bed thinking of how much hassle it’s going to be to take it apart just to disable to mic and this thought came to me! Guess I’ll find out soon enough whether I get some sleep tonight or a rude awakening.
KuoH
Hey @bpingel93, I thought we were all great in the 918? How come you have gone so silent on your offer? I made an exception and saved you one. It’s just 5 bucks man, what’s the deal? Did you get cold feet?
These have been great. I have some set up as night lights and some on motion. They have been handy during power outages. When a smoke detector goes off, the built in alarm function sounds - very loudly. Mine stay plugged in all the time. With the motion detector, I don’t have to turn on a light when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. They do not charge my iPhone though. The price was great for 4 of these and they continue to work after 3 years. This was on of those good finds.
Specs
What’s in the Box?
4x Safety lights
4x Light stands
Pictures
Lights
Lights
Lights
Uh you broke it
So
Many
Dang
Angles
Plug’d
Wall
Box
Price Comparison
$71.96 (for 4) at Amazon
Warranty
1 Year MAX
Estimated Delivery
Monday, July 13th - Thursday, July 16th
@phatmass did the work so you don’t have to.
Looks like @crow’s got some great advice.
@hamjudo decided surgical intervention was needed.
I bought it. Seems useful for my new place when I move.
/buy
@lisameh It worked! Your order number is: foxy-favorable-cottage
/image foxy favorable cottage
I would buy this if I still had VMP, since I don’t I won’t.
@Duggle Why would one ever cease VMP?
@donrull if Meh didn’t occasionally throw in a can’t resist item (coincidentally at least once a month) then I’d likely cancel after a few months of dry. We get a hell of a lot more measurable benefit from the $100 Prime fee than this $60 Meh fee.
Trying to figure out what the difficult to measure benefits of VMP are… (it’s been a long time since that ‘free’ t-shirt.)
@RedOak I think that t-shirt cost a dollar.
@sammydog01 Correct. Socks and USB thingies were free; shirts never were.
/image brawny-exceptional-lettuce…very meh
interesting note in amazon Q&A for this product just published today…
Question: Is it universal voltage or 110 only?
Answer: We are pulling this product due to several problems that have been reported. Light was too bright for a night light. Sensor did not work until very close to unit. Unit died within 60 days of use. Difficult to understand instructions.
Was a very good idea but not very well engineered. Do not know of another device with the features hope they redesign and come back with another product to replace this one. see less
By Strange Man SELLER on August 29, 2017
@ozob Just means the seller had too many returns and complaints. (not the manufacturer) Meh users should know what they’re getting into.
@ozob Already posted, and replied to from meh:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/4-for-tuesday-max-safety-security-light#59a5645a7847fe0e90b2adb7
@therealjrn yea, i just scrolled back to hidden messages and saw that…oh well… seems i cant delete this now.
@ozob
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is anyone buying these not needing all four, and willing to part with one of them? I’d just like one to experiment with. :B
@PooltoyWolf What is it worth to you?
@therealjrn Considering the deal is 4 for $20, I’d pay $5 plus whatever it costs to ship one. How’s that?
@PooltoyWolf That’s pretty fair. Do you live near Tulsa?
@therealjrn I’m way down in Orlando, FL. Didney Worl territory.
@PooltoyWolf The Mouse Kingdom huh? When mine come in, I’ll ping you here, unless you have a Woot login so we can PM? We can figure out economical shipping…I like Priority Mail, but that is more than the price of the thing.
@therealjrn Unfortunately I don’t have a w00t! account. Will I break something if I just share my email address here, edited sufficiently to discourage bots?
@PooltoyWolf Not really break anything, but it’s up to you. During the exchanges, we posted secret words so the internet trolls couldn’t fake an identity. Hmm. I’ll have to try to remember how that worked. We have some time to figure that out.
@PooltoyWolf In the meantime, mehbe somebody in the ORLANDO area might have an extra one to sell?
Any takers?
@therealjrn If you’d like, for now, you can email me at yamahafreak (at) cfl (dot) rr (dot) com.
@PooltoyWolf Done
@therealjrn hello from Tulsa! I was about to take you up on the $5 for one, but not really sure I even want one… decisions decisions.
@bpingel93 Hi! I only have one to sell…oh hell…$5 but you have to pick it up.
@PooltoyWolf i was gonna ax if you were close to Memphis,; my group camps out @ Graceland all the time, still waitin for Elvis!!
@decoratedwarvet I’m a long way from there, unfortunately! I love to travel but finances very rarely if ever permit.
@bpingel93 when are you coming over to pick up your light?
/buy
@IcedCorn It worked! Your order number is: warlike-credible-paladin
/image warlike credible paladin
@mediocrebot Geeze @mediocrebot, lighten up a little.
@therealjrn I actually giggled at that. Such a random theory.
All 12 of mine make the same sound that @jsodman reported…well, unless I have the switch to off. This isn’t mentioned in the manual…
@donrull Dude.
The buzzing was so loud and insistent that it threw itself out of the wall outlet. Thank goodness. Turned it off because it was the only way to stay sane. Hoping everyone’s words of support here mean that in a couple of hours I can turn it on. So far I have seen no sign of light. Only the buzzing.
The charging worked, they turn on now. I still need to figure out how to dim them, cause this is crazy bright. Looking forward to using the instructions posted above. It really seems like it shouldn’t be this hard! Anyone else get an incredibly obnoxious LOUD beep when changing between modes?
.
Geeez MEH, WTF is your meaning in life…to go out of business in the fastest pace possible…I purchased four, count 'em 4 of these pieces of shiite…between the noise and half of them not working at all… a great deal just turned me sour to MEH!
I got these night lights a couple days ago and none of them work at all. I did what instructions said about reset button too but still don’t work. I need a return and refund please.
I think I would love these but none of the four work. How do I receive working ones or a refund? I called the number on the package and was told they were closed due to weather.
@dseyferth Hey - try this:
Turn them off.
Plug them in for a few hours.
Unplug them.
Turn them on.
Bask in the glowy glory of your working lights.
Well, I followed some of the recommendations listed here to get them working “properly”. One is DOA for certain. Some of the others are rather confused as to what is their purpose. I guess I will be on the phone trying to get replacement/refund. Glad to know some have gotten a good shipment with all of them functioning properly.
Just finally got mine. We are post Irma, & several families by us are still with no power. Instructions are crap. Serious questions here - how long do they have to charge for to be fully charged, & how do you know they are fully charged? My neighbors just need the flashlight & cell phone recharge capabilities.
@scfd0766 it seemed to me they charged (even the completely dead one) in less than 30 mins… I presume the battery is tiny.
I think these are great for the light mode, and perhaps even the emergency alarm repeater, but I would not depend of them to charge any phones in an emergency. If you need that just wait a day or so for meh to sell another battery pack (or just go get an anker powercore).
@thismyusername They were advertised as tiny, but they may actually be 16.67% smaller.
In the specs they say the capacity is 600mAh. I opened one up, and battery inside was labeled 500mAh.
Don’t get your hopes up, it could be worse than that. I plan on measuring the useful capacity in terms of watt hours at the USB port.
@hamjudo They’re overclocked to 600mAh…
@djslack Uh oh, they’re supposed to use a fancy cooling system if they over clock them.
On the other hand, that would add another feature; by having the lithium battery spew fire, they can make the smoke detectors go off. Then the surviving units can sing along and flash their lights.
@djslack More like overlabeled. It’s nothing new. $5 computer speakers that consume 2 watts of power? 300 watts peak output!
Being that these are 500mah at 3.7V … factor in having to boost to 5V, losses in the circuitry, losses in your device charging, age degradation … maybe it’ll help for maybe a whole 2% increase in your phone’s battery life?
Mine all buzz. I guess the above procedures were found by trial and error? I will let them charge and try the cycling rituals before using them as targets.
@Fellscave Mine did the buzz! Go through the steps and you’re very likely to be happy with the results.
Turn off.
Charge for 30 minutes (I had to wait longer, so I just charged for a few hours.)
Unplug.
Turn on to the mode you want.
Click the reset button on the side to cycle through light, off, flashlight, light again.
Then you can press and hold the reset button - this controls the brightness. Once you like where it’s at, let go of the reset button.
Plug into wall.
Be mildly impressed.
@Thumperchick this
Two out of the four never worked!