What is this thing?

[Troutbum21]

Anyone know what this is? It’s mounted about six feet up the side of the new house that we bought? There is a junction box in the garage behind it and the two exterior garage lights on each side of the garage door are attached to the junction box. TIA!

 

[He who knows]

Have you tried googling the maker?

 

[Troutbum21]

View attachment 4388
Anyone know what this is? It’s mounted about six feet up the side of the new house that we bought? There is a junction box in the garage behind it and the two exterior garage lights on each side of the garage door are attached to the junction box. TIA!

Turns out, this is a photocell. It is attached (incorrectly) to our garage lights which are also on a switch. My guess is the previous owner didn’t always want the lights to come on, so they installed a switch between the photocell and the lights so they are now manually controlled.

 

[He who knows]

Possibly that's why they did it. What latitude are you? Maybe in summer they didn't need lights on as they were never out and about during darkness,e.g. if it's daylight by 5AM....

Or maybe they didn't live there all the time.

Or it may also have given an override facility - don't know about photocells but it is common with PIR detectors for a quick OFF/ON cycle to act as a permanent on.