Self-Illuminated Signs

Non-illuminated Signs:
Large brass or bronze numbers (Typical Cost £50+)
Plastic / Ceramic Numbers (Typical Cost £5+)
Slate House Numbers (Typical Cost £14.99 - £25)
Wooden Numbers (Typical Cost £20+)

Quite expensive and although they can be attractive, lack the "attention grabbing" prominence of the Gloweasy sign. To be seen at night, they need a vehicle headlight or torch to directly illuminate the number before it can be seen. Not a good situation if you want to be found at night!

The style of the number (font) can often be very difficult to read, particularly at a distance. The Gloweasy font has been specifically selected to overcome this problem.

External light sources (porch lights, spotlights etc), when carefully positioned, can be used to illuminate the surface of passive signs. However, these light sources need to be constantly maintained and powered - all at a cost to you!
Installing motion / proximity detector triggered porch lights can cut down these costs, but negates the lights purpose when you're outside the range of the detector (usually a few feet!)

Some of the cheaper alternatives also suffer from degradation due to weather and UV fading, leaving the units unreadable, including close up.
Even when new, some signs lack the colour contrast between the fascia and number to be clearly legible at a distance!

The design of many signs, can cause self - shadowing of the numbers. This is particularly true of engraved signs or where the numbers are sunk into the fascia.

 

Illuminated Signs:
Solar Powered (Typical Cost £20 - £35)
Battery and Mains, Filament Light Bulb and LED (Typical Cost £10+)

Solar powered products can be expensive and require line-of sight illumination of the solar cells with the sun - not always a practical proposition. In many countries (including the UK) short Winter daylight hours combined with long periods of cloud cover, can compromise even the best design!

Replacing bulbs, batteries, solar panels / cells and LCD's is again a costly problem with these devices. The safe wiring of mains powered units can also prove difficult and an additional expense.

Solar powered signs use the same technology as solar lanterns / lights. They simply don't work long enough through the night as their batteries can't hold their charge for a long period.
In general, their build quality falls far short of that required for a light that must work flawlessly, without maintenance, for more than 10 years

The Gloweasy sign does not suffer from any of these limitations, constraints and extra costs.

Another alternative technology is based on using photo luminescent paint and materials.
The chemicals embedded in these absorb light throughout the day, then release that light as the ambient light level decreases.

Initially, these perform reasonably well, but the emitted light level quickly decays as the evening / night progresses reaching an unacceptable level in , at best, a few hours.