Are these permanently on at night/darkness or is there a way to choose to not have them light up? is there a switch I/O ?
There’s a small light sensor on the front of the plate at the lower left that turns the light on in the dark and back off when enough ambient light is present.
This does not answer the question. So, there is no off switch. It will always be on in the dark?!
That is correct.
Can you use these over a square light switch?
Not likely. Switches have two contacts on a single side, outlet have contacts in different positions on both sides.
These look like they might be an older version of the SnapPower GuideLights. They also make a product called SwitchLights which would do what you want. You can find them online.
Adding to this, wall switches typically do not have a neutral wire.
(Note that I am not staff. I just volunteer to help out on the forums.)
I have these, and they definitely are inspired by the SnapPower lights. New versions of SnapPower have a toggle switch to do off, Low, High. These hug the contacts on the sides of the receptacle to get their power. These particular ones are triggered by light sensor, and yes, they are on all night. An interesting thing is I have one in my living room, and it slightly flickers when I point my remote toward TV, so they are (maybe) sensitive to infrared from remotes.
About to move in to a new home build. In for 2 sets of round and 1 set of square for the price point here…I’m sure I’ll use a few of them somewhere (thinking hallways and Garage maybe).
I have these and they are crap good luck
Are these compliant with typical building and electrical codes?
I got a set a while back and put one on the bathroom outlet upside down. It replaced the nightlight that was previously in plugged in and it’s great. It’s bright enough you could read by if you wanted to, but not bright enough to ruin night vision when using the bathroom overnight.
What makes them so bad?
I have ~8 of these I installed 2 years ago in my condo. Love them. They are on when it’s dark out (light sensor), but did not seem to affect my power bill much as the lights are so small. Easy to get around at night without ruining night vision/making it hard to get back to sleep.
Looks like these won’t work if you have split upper and lower outlets for switching. My uppers are pretty much all switch controlled. You break that tab off when splitting them into two circuits.