Solar Lights Get Radios, Turning Motion Into On-Demand
Adding NRF24L01+ – A hobbyist has added an NRF24L01+ radio and an STM32 controller to an inexpensive, solar-powered motion light, enabling on-demand control through home automation or Meshtastic-style networking.
Solar power is so inexpensive now that people can outfit outdoor spaces without wiring headaches—and a recent build shows how easily those cheap panels can do more than just soak up sun.
“Mauro” took an ordinary solar-powered landscape light that was motion-activated only and added the ability to switch it on demand.. The change isn’t a new battery pack or a bigger panel.. Instead. the light’s housing now includes a radio module and its own microcontroller. letting the lamp respond to signals instead of waiting for movement.
At the center of the upgrade is an NRF24L01+ radio paired with an STM32 microcontroller.. Mauro kept the new setup largely separate from the light’s existing control circuitry.. It can still do the practical part—switch the lights—and it also draws power from the same solar panel that originally powered the motion functionality.
To make the new modules usable in the real world, Mauro also created a small communication library. The goal is simple: give these upgraded lights a way to talk, whether through a home automation stack such as Home Assistant or another control method entirely.
What’s striking is that this kind of add-on doesn’t require turning a solar light into a complicated smart appliance.. Instead, it treats the enclosure’s “free space” as a platform for remote features.. Mauro points to Meshtastic as the most immediate example: adding a Meshtastic node to one of these lights would make it convenient while keeping the electronics stealthy.. Beyond that, the same approach could support other remote hardware, like a gate sensor or a plant health monitoring system.
As solar-powered outdoor lighting becomes a default choice for low-cost power, projects like this hint at where the ecosystem is headed—lights that don’t just react to motion, but can quietly become part of a broader network of sensors and controls.
solar power solar lighting STM32 NRF24L01+ home assistant Meshtastic home automation IoT wireless modules outdoor electronics