Hacking a Cheap PIR Night Light Into Something Actually Useful

I’ve been picking up a whole bunch of these motion sensitive night lights and, let’s just say, they haven’t been great. The range is poor, the battery life is nowhere near the advertised “charge it four times a year”, and the timeout is so short it’s not even enough time to get to the toilet. I thought it might be interesting to crack one open and see if I could improve it. If you’d rather watch me do all this than read about it, the full video is up on YouTube — the write-up below hits t...