I’ve had decorative motion exterior lights for awhile and currently on my second set of three.  The second out of three just stopped working and I wanted to wait until the third one dies before replacing all of them.  I had installed switch protectors on the light switches.  See here.

To convert to a normal light, you need to access the wires going directly to the bulb socket.  You need to remove the control module to get access to the wires.  The module is held inside the fixture by two hollow rivets where the screws slide through to mount the light.  You just need to drill the tops out and you can pull the rivet and release the assembly.

There are four wires coming from the socket section – a multiwire control from the sensor, black wire (hot from bulb), white wire (neutral from bulb) and bare copper ground.  I cut the control wire and all wires from the module and connected directly to the black and white.  I then replaced the control module and rivets.

Remounting the light will give you a normal light.  I should have done this to the first one that failed instead of throwing it out and replacing with a basic jelly jar light.

Some Heath-Zenith models have a recall so check the model number before throwing it out.