GravityLight Home System GL02 Portable Self Powered LED Lamp, 56 Piece

Review of GravityLight GL02 Home System1.) It's not for everybody. What it does, it does quite well. Their stated purpose is to reduce dependency on kerosene for task light at night.2.) Larger than expected. It comes shipped in an 11 x 9 x 6" fiberboard box, well packed. The box comes in at just under 4 pounds. Mine came inside an Amazon box. It would have survived most shipping carriers, including airport baggage handlers.3.) I could not quickly find a place to hang it high enough in my house to get the claimed 20 minutes of run time. My response to that is 'so what', 12 to 15 minutes is not a problem. It looks like an 8 foot ceiling would be perfect for the GravityLight.4.) The unit appears to be very well built. Without disassembling the unit, there was nothing which would be a failure point. The cords and beads are quite sturdy, the bag for the weights is exceptionally strong. The company's plastic people did an exceptional job.5.) The light put out by the unit is, frankly, not what I am used to as a USA city person. About 15 lumen with a color temperature of 5000K and respectable Color Rendering Index of more than 70. It is more than adequate to read by and to do similar tasks in an otherwise dark area. I would not recommend cross-stitching on black aida cloth using this light.6.) It will not charge a USB device. The nominal output is 2.7 VDC 0.031 A, 0.085 W. It was not meant to charge USB devices, get a solar charger if you need to, this will not do the job, it was not designed for that. It does provide adequate lighting to read and do other tasks.7.) Pricing - I do not know the actual cost of kerosene in Kenya nor do I know how much lighting a liter of kerosene would provide. I cannot therefore provide a payback time for this unit for replacing kerosene. I can presume that the GravityLight would be infinitely better than the health risk of kerosene. Much better.8.) Yes, I would buy it again and I would recommend it with caveats to others.

Quite an interesting device! Fill the bag with 28 pounds of something (It comes with paper bags to fill it with sand or rocks, but I used cans of nails and bolts that were in my shed, where I am using the lamp. I do not have electricity in my shed, so I was very glad to have the ability to have light. The light is not very bright, but it does come on a cord that can be moved around and hung where you need it, The cord attaches into the lamp itself. There are actually two cords and two lights but I cannot figure out how to attach them both at the same time so I am guessing that one is supposed to be a replacement. It would be nice if you could use them both at the same time because then you could have two light locations. It takes a fair amount of space for this device because the bag eventually falls all the way to the floor. It is easy to pull the cords, and once pulled they give about 20 minutes of light. Then you just pull them again. Very happy with this.

I have watched this device for years as a Idiegogo concept when price point was under $15 per unit to help suppressed countries with light. Now its commercialized at $70....regardless, at $70, I expect the main unit to work and the satellite lights to work. One of the cables is bad (I traded satellites around to deduct cable). I dont want to send the unit back, so I will just do with the unit and 1 satellite.The gravel used for the weight is about 6 pounds, and its just right. I have teh unit hanging off of a pipe in my storm shelter at 6 ft. The actual main unit is about 10" in diamter, the bag is dual entry and is about 18" across.The LED is directly proportional to the weight of the bag, if the bag is too light, the bag barely moves, the LED is not as bright as it could be.Caution should be noted that the plastic beaded track cables to work the mechainism could be a hanging hazard for small children (think about the mini blind strings). Overall, would be well worth it at a $25 price point now, $70 its not near as impressive.

Really, this works pretty good. I was however shocked at the sheer size of it. This looks like a small wall mounted device. It is not, this is a large wrap your arms around it device. Do not place on a wall, the weight will dig tracks. the light is not HUGE, you wont light up the room so to speak. But it is plenty bright enough to read by, and in a room with no other light this will work very well.

I bought this to provide occasional lighting in one room of my old barn, which I use as a garden shed. It provides enough light to see where everything is and get or put away what I need. It was extremely easy to install, and using the 2 included satellite lights instead of the main light allows you to put the light exactly where you need it. My only complaint is that the zip ties included to hang up the main light and bag are useless-- both snapped as soon as any weight was applied. So I tied up the unit with rope instead and that worked fine. For Americans who are used to bright light everywhere, this will seem dim, but having grown up in a house with kerosene lighting I am quite comfortable with the light level for what I need it for. Super convenient with no batteries to replace and no sun to wait for.

Given that it is powered only by a 26 pound weight, the lighting is quite good. No, it doesn't fill a room, but I can read by it. It comes with 2 separate extension lights that can be plugged into the main unit. The cord is more than 5 yards long. This makes it possible to hang the main unit (and weight) by a wall, or perhaps a stairwell, then plug in the extension lights (as a daisy chain) and have light as far away as 10 yards from the main unit.The mechanism is very quiet. My biggest challenge was to find enough weight to fill the bag with 26 pounds of something. The instructions suggest small rocks or sand, and paper bags are provided for that. I used some barbells and a brick:)