Lantern String Lights with Jack O Lantern Faces, Battery, Solar or USB

A string of round orange lanterns, each printed with the black face of a jack-o'-lantern and lit from the inside by its own LED, so the whole globe glows while the face stays dark. Strung along a porch rail on the solar version, the row reads as carved pumpkins from the end of the path, and the battery and USB versions do the same on a mantel or in a front window. You choose the power and anywhere from 10 to 40 lanterns.

No knife. No candles. No pumpkin slumping on the step a week after you carved it.

Round, so it reads as a pumpkin from the street

People recognize a jack-o'-lantern by its outline first and its face second, and a round ribbed lantern gets both of them right. Each one is a round globe with fine ribs running around it, and on the front sits the face everybody draws: two triangle eyes, a triangle nose and a wide grin with square notches for teeth.

The face is printed in flat black on the shade, so when the LED comes on the whole lantern glows a warm orange while the face stays dark against it, which is exactly how a carved pumpkin looks with a candle inside. From the sidewalk, that is what the neighbors see: a row of small lit pumpkins along the rail, every one grinning at the street.

Up close, it is a tidy string. Each lantern hangs straight under the wire on a short clear sleeve, with no long cords or stems between them, and the light sits inside rather than poking out of the top.

Solar for outside, battery or USB for inside

The solar version is the one for the porch, the fence and the garden. Its panel charges through the day and a rechargeable Ni-MH battery comes with it. The lanterns switch themselves on when it gets dark, so nobody has to go out and turn them on, and the string is rated IP65.

The battery and USB versions are made for indoors, and the battery string can run along a mantel, a bookcase or the banister, wherever a cable would never reach. The USB string plugs into a USB port or charger, which suits a front window or a party table close to an outlet.

Which one to pick

Start with where the lanterns are going. Anywhere outside, pick solar and set the panel where it gets daylight. On a mantel, a shelf or a stair rail, pick battery. If a USB charger or a laptop is close by, the USB string means never buying batteries for it at all.

Then pick the count. Ten on battery make a short run for a mantel, and twenty cover a bookcase or a wide window. Solar comes with ten, twenty or thirty, and its strings run longer for the same count, so thirty will follow a whole porch rail. The USB string comes with twenty or forty, and forty is enough to trace a doorway and keep going. Every length is listed below. Hang them once, and the house grins at the street every evening until Halloween.

Specifications

Lanterns: 10, 20, 30 or 40 per string, depending on the version

Lantern: Round ribbed globe, open at the top and bottom, with a black jack-o'-lantern face printed on the front

Shade material: PVC

Light source: Built-in LED, one inside each lantern

Light: Glows orange through the shade; the printed face stays dark

Power: Battery, solar or USB, chosen with the Power option

Battery string length: 4.9 ft (1.5 m) with 10 lanterns, or 9.8 ft (3 m) with 20

Solar string length: 11.5 ft (3.5 m) with 10 lanterns, 16.4 ft (5 m) with 20, or 21.3 ft (6.5 m) with 30

USB string length: 9.8 ft (3 m) with 20 lanterns, or 19.7 ft (6 m) with 40

Battery version: Battery box on the end of the wire, batteries not included

Solar version: Solar panel with a rechargeable Ni-MH battery, included. Charges by day and lights up automatically at night

USB version: USB plug, for a USB port or USB charger

Water resistance: IP65 on the solar version. The battery and USB versions are for indoor use only

Places: Porch rail, fence and garden (solar); mantel, bookcase, banister, window and party table (battery and USB)

Package Includes

1x Lantern String Light, with the power and number of lanterns you choose