Nocturne Firefly Outdoor Solar Lamp Review: Pricey, But Sufficiently Bright

The Nocturne Firefly is one of the most modern-looking and stylish outdoor solar floor lamps I’ve ever used. Unfortunately, despite the Firefly working flawlessly, it’s hard to recommend to everyone because of the missing features and niceties found in much cheaper outdoor floor lamps.

Setup Takes Less Than Five Minutes

Taking the Nocturne Firefly out of its box, you’ll find the lamp’s base, two metal rods, a solid plastic section that makes up the center of the device’s frame, a pressure sleeve to connect the structure to the base, and the light itself.

Setting the lamp up was a piece of cake. After filling up the base with water, all you have to do is screw everything together. The only difficult step was ensuring the pressure sleeve that connects the frame to the base was snug enough to guarantee the two didn’t separate.

The best part about the lamp’s design is that the plastic ring in the middle of the frame makes it easy to pick up, maneuver, and place the Nocturne Firefly wherever you want it.

Then, with the lamp built and ready to go, all you need to do is put it out in the sun. Nocturne recommends leaving it outside in direct sunlight for at least eight hours before its first use. And if it rains while the floor lap is out, don’t worry; the device is IP54 rated. This rating means it’s protected from dust and splashes of water. Basically, the Firefly will be fine left outside, even in bad rainstorms.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to check the Nocturne’s battery level. There is a LED notification light on the opposite side of the pullstring, but it only lit up when the Bluetooth speaker was turned on (more on that below). You should be close to a full charge as long as the lamp has been outside for most of the day.

Controlling the Lamp Is Incredibly Easy

The Nocturne Firefly is controlled by the blue, rubberized pullstring pictured above. When off, one pull turns the lamp on and sets the light to its brightest setting. A second pull drops it down to medium brightness, and a third sets it to low. Finally, a fourth pull turns the device off.

Unfortunately, you can’t rapidly switch through modes to jump from the brightest setting to off. You need to pull the pullstring down until it clicks, wait for half a second, and then pull it down again to get the light to cycle through the modes.

While not an inconvenience, I always kept the floor lamp at its brightest level when in use, so it would have been nice to move down to the off setting quickly.

You also control the Nocturne Firefly’s built-in Bluetooth speaker using the pullstring. Like setting up other Bluetooth speakers and accessories, pulling and holding the pullstring down for three seconds will turn on the device and start the pairing process. You’ll know things are working because the speaker will say, “power on” and “pairing.” From there, you locate the device in your phone’s Bluetooth menu and connect the devices.

From an audio quality standpoint, the speaker does the job, but it’s also not the greatest. It can get loud enough for everyone at a get-together to hear the music without sounding tinny. But if you’re looking for a speaker that sounds better than adequate, I recommend checking out the JBL Clip 4 or some other standalone Bluetooth speaker.

Another feature that would have been nice is the option to use two Nocturne Fireflys simultaneously for music playback. I have been testing a pair of these solar floor lamps, and while my backyard doesn’t need the help of both lights, I know some would. I could envision the homeowner wanting to have the same song playing on both speakers in those instances.

I tried, but even with both speakers paired to my iPhone, I could only output Spotify to one lamp at a time.

Lights Up the Night

The Nocturne Firefly puts out about 300 lumens of light at its brightest. The second and third levels put out 150 and 50 lumens, respectively. The photos above show each lamp turned on and set to the brightest level. The floor lamps didn’t light up the night, but they provided more than enough to see my entire patio.

Of course, if one lamp isn’t enough, doubling up provides plenty of light coverage.

The Firefly’s battery life depends on which brightness setting you use. At full brightness with a full charge, you can expect to get 5 hours, 10 hours with medium brightness, and 30 hours at the lowest level.

The Frame Started to Bend

My biggest complaint about the Nocturne Firefly is that its frame started to sag after several weeks outside. While the top and bottom thirds of the floor lamp are made out of metal, the middle section is heavy-duty plastic. I thought this portion would be more than rugged enough to stand the test of time, but before I knew it, the entire product started to bend over.

Thankfully, pulling the top half of the Nocturne lamp back was enough to fix the problem temporarily. I don’t think the lamp will ever stand completely straight again (especially for long periods), but straightening the light every month or so will help keep it looking good as new.

Should You Buy the Nocturne Firefly Lamp?

The Nocturne Firefly is seemingly the complete package if you don’t compare it to the competition. It’s bright enough to light up my backyard, the battery life is excellent, it’s stylish, and the Bluetooth speaker is good enough.

But comparing it to other outdoor solar floor lamps, you’ll find that the Nocturne Firefly is significantly more expensive, doesn’t offer remote control, can’t be plugged in to charge (not ideal if you have several days of bad or overcast weather), the light can’t change colors, and the lamp doesn’t offer the option to turn on at night automatically.

It’d be much easier to recommend the Nocturne Firefly Lamp if it was half the price. There’s nothing wrong with the floor lamp—I really enjoyed my time with the review units—but I recommend holding off on buying the Nocturne Firefly until it’s on sale or its price drops below $274.99.