1. Has 4 modes using an electronic clicky in a cycle of High > Med > Red > Red Blinky (2 blinks/second) > Off
2. Powered by 3 x AAA batteries. White high mode is ceiling bounce eyeballed to be ~75 lumens and the med I’m guessing is ~45. Not ideal, but can extend battery life.
3. No PWM in any modes (that I could find via fast swings and camera).
4. Plastics are very decent, elastic band is pretty nice for the price. Better than $5-10 Energizer/Geonaute stuff.
5. Battery compartment is easy to open without tools, thoughtful recesses on case for fingers and thumbs. Case has what seems to be a silicone gasket all around; yet to test water resistance.
6. The white LED (quite cruddy with dirt) is sized like an XP-G but is quite floody despite the smooth reflector. I’d describe the beam as a floody thrower, almost like a TIR. It’s great for outdoor use but can be a wee bit narrow and bright for indoor use, especially since the lower mode is not low enough.
7. It’s not visible in the pictures, but the LED die sits on a piece of shiny concave stratum and the reflector (plastic, I guess?) is just very lightly wavy. Wide hotspot and decently bright spill area. Tint is 6500K ish but not ugly blue/purple.
8. Both the red LEDs are the 5mm varieties and “throw” the beam straight and forward, both hotspots merging almost immediately into one at 20cm onwards, shining through frosted plastic.
9. Haven’t been able to measure current draw or parasitic drain (I don’t see an easy way to do either) or battery life (on first set of alkalines now running on 3 hours of intermittent use).
10. The head angle adjustment is a set of ratcheting plastic teeth; not sure how long these will last, but having played with it quite a bit since arrival, I don’t see any wear/tear.
11. The only cons I see are having to go through the high and med white modes to get to the red modes and also the irritating full cycle of modes to switch off. Also, the switch is hard to depress/activate due to a weird angle it sits on internally and is nearly impossible to find with gloves on. Another minor con is there’s no foam pad on the back of the piece of plastic that holds the strap and comes in contact with the forehead. Not a problem though as there are no sharp or rough edges digging into skin. Frankly, for the price, these really aren’t real cons.
IMO this headlamp hits way beyond its price point and is great to give away to people. So many folks I know who need/deserve a headlamp but don’t know they exist at accessible price points. Also, a hack I like to do with 6000K+ tints is to stick a bit of brown packing tape over the LED to make the light warmer (at the cost of some loss in lumens, of course).
Bought it off here for the princely sum of $2.50, shipped without tracking, properly wrapped in foam
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Waterproof-4-Modes-600Lm-for-CREE-R3-2-LED-Headlight-3-aaa-flashlight-Super-Bright-Headlamp/32514987088.html
Similar looking ones are also available on other Chinese sites and eBay for $3-5, and I’m guessing they’re exactly alike.
