My new house has a crawl space, and I love it. Shortly after moving in, we installed a vapor barrier to prevent lung cancer from radon gas (The science behind this is actually pretty cool, you should check it out) which makes the space, if not homely, quite approachable.

It's just missing some light, and flashlights just don't cut it. So I made a plan — install some light fixtures, tap into an existing circuit that was already running through there, maybe even add an outlet (who knows what for, but I'm sure it would come in handy at some point).

I put together a shopping list for the hardware store with everything I would need for this project. I'd already done some electrical work elsewhere in the house, so I was confident in my skills. I was prepared.

And then, as I went through the aisles of the hardware store, I was stopped in my tracks. There before me was a battery-operated 300 lumen motion-sensing LED light fixture. No cable splicing, no wire nuts, no junction boxes. Just add some AAs, screw the back plate to the ceiling, and that was it.

You can probably guess what I went home with. Yes, it's less capable than what I was planning on implementing. Yes, it's less extensible.

But it solves the problem that I have right now, and it solves it really well. Instead of messing around down there for a few hours, I got the whole thing installed in 5 minutes (it would have been 2 if I had brought a drill bit the first time I went down there).

No need to be elaborate or complex when simple does the job just fine.