Just as hordes of homeowners have rediscovered the simple joy of spending time outdoors on their decks and in their gardens, backyard mosquito repellers have moved away from the smoky, smelly designs of the past, toward cleaner, more integrated solutions like the Thermacell E55. Now, Tiki Brand shifts gears from the torches nearly synonymous with its name and strings up a full strand of outdoor lights complete with silent, odorless mosquito repellent diffusers.
The Tiki BiteFighter LED String Lights comprise a 36-foot (10.9-m) strand with 12 warm-toned LED bulbs and three diffusers powered by replaceable repellent pods. Tiki has designed the pods to last a full summer season, which it estimates at 90 days of 2.4 hours of usage, for 200 hours total.
While usage will vary by household, the replaceable design makes it easy to keep the diffusers running throughout mosquito season, year after year. The bulbs are also replaceable, and unlike those ancient, infuriating Christmas lights, they continue working should one burn out.
Tiki suggests hanging the lights no higher than 10 feet (3 m) in the air, and says that they'll create a mosquito-protection zone of 330 square feet (30.7 sq m). Users can connect up to eight strings to cover larger areas. The odorless, silent and invisible operation cuts out the irritation associated with torches and other combustible solutions.
Using a simple switch, users can turn both the repellent and lights on or use only the lights, making the BiteFighter lights useful in all seasons. Tiki says that the repellent feature should be turned on 15 minutes ahead of time to give it time to clear mosquitoes out of the area.
In addition to backyard and deck use, the BiteFighter lights look like they could be quite useful for RVing and other forms of camping in which a power source is readily available. Campers could really benefit from any product that can effectively fend off mosquitoes while also lighting up camp.
Tiki launched the BiteFighter lights last June and took home an Innovation Award for them at last week's CES 2022. Each BiteFighter set includes three repellers and 14 lightbulbs, leaving two bulbs for replacements. At US$159 per set, the BiteFighter kit is certainly more expensive than a string of bargain Amazon LED outdoor lights and a mosquito torch or two, but the dual-purpose push-button design and silent, odorless background operation are certainly appealing advantages.
Source: Tiki Brand
