Not great, but the best I've found

We've had two of these gates for the last 4 years, and are fairly happy with them.  Our main staircase is 14 steps and uncarpeted, so we felt it important to have gates that would be secure, but easy to open for adults.

This gate has some great ideas going for it, and a couple of unfortunate problems- weak plastic hinge mounting hardware and weak springs inside the gate that break and cannot be fixed.

The gate consists of two white-painted, all-metal panels, with vertical balusters.  Each panel has a line of pre-drilled holes that allow you to bolt the panels together to size the gate for the particular opening you want to span.  The range is from 28" to 42", and both panels must be used for all installations.

At the hinge end of the gate two metal eye bolts screw into threaded holes, allowing you to fine-tune the gate's length to fractions of an inch.  This also allows you to compensate for off-plumb walls by screwing one bolt farther in or out than the other.  You have to be careful when doing this, since beyond a certain point the gate will be so unlevel that it will swing on its own in one direction or another at a pretty good clip.  In an ideal situation, the gate will be mounted between solid, parallel surfaces, and will sit level.

The eyelets on the eye bolts slip down over pins on the hinge mounting hardware.  Each of the two mounting points is a plastic piece that uses two screws to hold it to the wall or whatever surface you're using.  After the eyebolts are slipped over the pins, additional plastic trim pieces conceal the pins and lock the gate from being lifted off.

Unfortunately, all these mounting pieces are plastic, and our older daughter, at age 3, put her weight on our downstairs gate while it was open and the plastic hinge pieces shattered, dropping gate and child (thankfully unhurt) to the floor.  I had to remount the gate using metal corner braces and bolts purchased at a hardware store.  The result was much more sturdy, but a bit less visually pleasing.  It wasn't a complicated fix, but did require some home fixit skills.

The latching end of the gate latches into a receiver unit that screws onto the wall.  This piece is about 2 feet long, and at the top it houses the motion activated LED light.  A screwed on, removable panel not only covers the D Cell batteries that power the light, it also serves as the "stop" for the gate, preventing it swinging open past the receiver.  By flipping the panel you can configure it for whichever way the gate needs to swing.

The motion-sensor LED light is a nice touch, but not one that we really used.  The sensor feels a bit too sensitive, and turns on the light anytime you get close, even when you are not going through the gate.  We had a few instances where a nearly-asleep baby was roused by the light, and we quickly pulled the batteries.

Two spring-loaded plastic pins protrude from the receiver end of the gate, and lock into matching holes when the gate is shut.  To show that the gate is safely latched, a green "locked" symbol appears in a hole in the receiver, and a red "unlocked" symbol shows when the gate is open or not completely latched.

Opening the gate is a two step process.  First, you push down and hold a thumb switch, and while doing that also pull the main handle upward.  This is a one-handed operation that takes some effort, due to an internal spring connected to the handle, but one that quickly becomes second nature.  Most small toddlers, even if they figure out the thumb switch, will have difficulty getting the leverage and force necessary to raise the handle.

The problem here is that the springs inside both of our gates have broken, and due to the riveted construction of the gate the springs cannot be replaced or repaired.  Without the spring tension, the force needed to lift the handle is greatly reduced, and the handle no longer automatically returns down to the locked position.

When I called Safety 1st, they said the gate was no longer under warranty, (big surprise) and that the gate would probably work fine even with the spring broken!  This is of course not true, as our oldest daughter was now able to open the gate easily, where before she could not.  Fortunately she is now at the age where we trust her to close the gate behind her for the sake of her younger sister.

Overall I do recommend the gate.  Most of the alternatives we saw in stores did not seem to be superior in design, and lacked a few of the nicer features of this gate.  Be aware that with this gate you may well have to face the same problems we have.