Lately, I have been finding myself researching a lot of lights with long (advertised) running moonlight modes. I am curious as to what lights others have that advertise very long runtimes in moonlight/firefly mode.
Some of mine:
Thrunite Neutron 2C - .5 lumen - 49 days
Olight M2R Pro - 1 lumen - 50 days
Armytek Tiara C1 - .4 lumen - 60 days
I know some of these light levels are not terribly impressive, but they give enough light to perform basic functions like navigating around the house, tent, camper etc, or reading when close up. I have been using these at night around the house and I have found them very useful for certain activities.
fourth for Zebralight, King of Low. but there are also some others…
for AA and AAA… Thrunite Ti3 is very very low… Manker e02 and e03 can be programmed in their Moon and Firefly Modes… I like the Astrolux A01 as well, but not as super low as the ti3. Good night light.
and most Anduril lights can get pretty low, too. Wizard Pro also has a very low firefly mode.
In each of my kids room i ceiling bounce a sc62w for their night light and it runs continuously. I swap the 18650s out every 2-3 months ish, i loose track. +1 zebralight.
I don’t know that it’s winning any awards, but my favorite and most used moonlight mode light for the past coupla years is the Reylight Pineapple Mini.
Officially rated at 0.1 lumen for 50hrs on AAA. Always end up grabbing the cell and topping it off with my other Eneloops every few months before it ever actually dies.
Zebralight used to be the king of moonlight mode with their 0.01lm lowest low mode.
Now they’ve raised it to 0.07lm because they think nobody needs 0.01lumens (wrong). The difference between the two is big.
The current moonligh mode champion will be a 2000K Nichia E21A modded Wizard Pro with a firefly of 0,02 lumens. That combined with a much more difused optic means it will beat the crap out of a Mk IV Zebralight when it comes to super low modes.
The RRT-01 goes extremely low, but my understanding is the driver overhead uses far more power than the LED at those levels. As a result, it’s great for people who demand minimal lighting, but not for ultra-long runtime.
I recall discussion of the old Arc AAAs, which drop to moonlight when the battery’s near exhausted. Maker Gransee recommended that if anyone really needed the light to leave it on continuously rather than turning it off and back on later thinking to save the battery — because powering up the driver sucked so much power compared to just keeping the LED glowing.