nydude The Olight i3E is appealing as an AAA light since it’s among the smallest in that class. I do wish it had a low mode though. I agree, some directionality is useful for this type of light.
BOO5TED The Jetbeam Mini-1 is quite nice, if only they cut the price in half…
chinooker That’s a reasonable solution if it works for you. I like having just one cluster to bring with me, plus I prefer not having the knife visible since it seems to make people uncomfortable. How long is your knife? Mine is 65mm and although it’s the bulkiest and heaviest item on my keychain, it’s been so useful to have it with me all the time.
Agro Those prices are more like it! Though the lack of USB charging on several of them is still disappointing. At least the Hobi Plus has that. When/where were the deals?
Lightbringer Don’t worry, photons aren’t bothered by noise. I think that argument would be more relevant for a knife on a keychain, and yet it’s been very useful for me. To each their own! Gotta say, for an AAA light at 70mm, the Glaree E03 seems pretty nice: moonlight/low/high and weighing 12g. Price isn’t terrible, but it’s still double the Sofirn C01S which lacks moonlight, but has high CRI…
After reading some more, the RovyVon Aurora A3 upgrade seems interesting. At 57mm long and 19.5g it’s 1.5X as long and 2X as heavy as the smallest options, but it compensates with a 260mAh battery, 2lm moonlight mode, and crazy (short duration 450-650lm) brightness. Plus there’s no head to unscrew/lose and build quality looks good. So it might be something to rationalize, but the 30+ USD price plus shipping is hard to swallow.
In all 3 cases that was gearbest. Not any special date, just an incredibly good coupon out of the blue.
Really, I can’t recommend waiting for coupons this good. You are likely to wait for a year or more and if you’re unlucky that price won’t appear ever again. If I wanted another Fairy I would be glad enough if I managed to buy for $16. And I would seek such price only if I was really not in a hurry.
BTW I wonder who will be the first to introduce Type C to this kind of lights.
A friend of mine could use a nice pendant but I won’t buy her something with micro USB for the simple reason that it’s an extra cable to carry around.
Could work, thanks for the suggestion. But it just doesn’t feel right to give a decorative present with incompatible connector and throw an adapter needed to make it useful.
Agro I don’t mind waiting for the right price. My main concerns for a keychain light are the practicality (small and lightweight, ideally imperceptible) and reliability (what good is it if the head gets lost on its own, or it self-discharges, or is frustratingly flaky/flickering?). I keep reading but I have my doubts whether what I’m looking for exists.
Right now I’ve ordered a C01S at a good price and I’ll put it on my keychain a little while to evaluate the size/weight. I really have misgivings about it being too big, but the C01S will be useful to me aside from a keychain light anyway, plus I get to check out my first CRI light.
As a side note, I took several weight measurements:
my entire keychain currently weighs 61g
my pocket knife (on keychain) is 19g
my USB flash drive (on keychain) is 5g
an Eneloop AAA is 11-12g
my 18650 laptop pulls are 41g
I also measured an AA Eneloop but I forgot its weight. I think it was around 25g, roughly double the AAA.
Olight i3E is about 15G w/ an alkaline ....minh IS heavier than an alkaleak
c01 w nimh is about 26grams ...and about a 1/3rd of an inch shorter than the tool ..1/4 inch taller than the i3sand about half an inch taller than the olight i3E
Well the bigger battery beats it right off the bat .
I'd carry the Sofirn and see if the weight or size bugs you.It will give you some thought as to whether 3 lumens works for you too . try it for a few weeks .
If you only judge by weight, it will lead you to the Photon:
I carried a photon on my keys for years.
then I tried a couple 10180 size, I found them finnicky and gave up on them
also tried a Pico Light, gave up on them when they needed new batteries
then I got into AAA, and stopped putting lights on my keys, or if I did, I used a quick release:
at that point I became aware of High CRI and started having Low CRI lights modified to N219b
I still love N219b. A High CRI LED is more important to me than the host.
My Spyderco Micarta Jester is 62mm. I believe you misunderstood how I carry those. They hang inside hooked on a corner of my pocket. Completely out of sight and do not hang far enough to interact with my keychain at all.
I have an Olight i1R on a neck lanyard right now, a Fenix E05 on my keys since 2014, and an old UltraFire B3 on my other set of keys (circa 2007). (And an S1R-II in my pocket, lol.)
Replaced the wife’s dead Nitecore Tube on her keys with an Olight i3E.