PL-1 Intelligent Plant Light

I was eager to test out my new light when it arrived. I got a few of my carnivorous plants, arranged them nice and neat, plugged the unit in the light flickered on, I adjusted the setting and inserted the watering probe. Just as I was about to walk away smoke started coming out the top of the light housing! The light went out, I quickly unplugged the item..bummer. Having worked in the manufacturing industry, I am very much aware of how things are made these days..you might be shocked to discover how many newly built items do not work right off the assembly line and need to be repaired before being packaged and sent out to consumers. I requested a replacement and got a return slip right away.(free return shipping) The NEXT DAY I received my replacement lamp (WOW) and it works just fine. Later that day I stopped by our local HomeDepot and thought "Hey while I'm here I'll pick up an African Violet to for my new plant light. Well all of there African Violets were on the brink of death but I decided to take the healthiest dying one (hu?) it had no flowers, almost all the outer leaves were dead but the center leaves looked ok. Today (a few weeks later) the center leaves that looked ok now look beautiful and there are three new flower stalks growing from the base. This is a nice desktop product.

I have just recently received this item and cannot comment on its durability or how well it performs long term, but it does do what I was looking for. I wanted to grow some herbs within my kitchen and wanted a small growing light with a no-fuss timer. The idea seemed common sense and I thought I would likely have a large selection to choose from. I was very surprised to find this was pretty much the only choice. The look of it is nice, the moisture sensor is an added bonus I was not looking for, the timer works, and some features like the telescoping height and "pebbled" base are welcomed features.However, I wish there was a little more competition in this arena, as I think it is only a good start on something that could be improved quite a bit. The timer feature, while functional, is only set by plugging-in the unit--remembering to plug it in some morning around the time you'd like it to come on is not particularly difficult in most cases, but if it ever loses power it is reset. Similarly, the season function--really an unnecessary feature for me anyways--resets to the beginning of Winter whenever power is restored; you can cycle it to a different season but it will always reset to the first day of that season. There is no way to set it beyond that. To match the actual seasons requires plugging it in or manually cycling the season button on the first day of the season, and again if power is lost, it is back to the first day of Winter. Further, in this day of microcontrollers, the base seems extraordinarily large for its limited function, and even worse is the huge "wall wart" transformer, not pictured, at the other end of the power cord. Given the size of the base and control panel, it would be much preferred to see the transformer incorporated there instead of a huge, black blight hanging from a nearby outlet. Finally, it is rather entirely plastic.For now, it does what I need, and the manufacturer was right on the same page as me with the idea and even added a few nice features. But, altogether, I'm certain the idea could be executed much better.

The intelligent plant light worked well for roughly one year. Replacement bulbs are not a problem.....readily available from replacementbulbs.com, however after a year, the electronics failed and the light no longer operates. Operation without the timer would be acceptable, but my light won't come on at all. $50 (plus the cost several new bulbs) for a fancy plant stand is no bargain. Glentronics has a great idea here, if only they could make their electronics more reliable. It makes me wonder about their other electronic products???

I bought 3 of these thinking it was a brilliant idea for a product (I still think the IDEA is brilliant, which is why I'll give it 2 stars. The product itself isn't too great). It's way too weak for any type of plant. 9 watts simply won't do anything for photosynthesis. I purchased this originally for some Venus Flytraps, but they soon let me know that they weren't too happy in the extremely weak lighting. Perhaps there's an extremely low light loving plant that this will work for, but if you have a plant that requires sunlight, this just won't work for you.