Atomic Beam zoomy head headlamp

So today a coworker tells me about a headlamp he recently picked up at Ross which is a clearance liquidator brick and mortar store. It claims to use a Cree LED which I am usually highly suspect about in the budget zoomy head crowd. But this evening I found my self at Ross looking at one of these things and for $6.46 out the door I took the bait. It is a typical as seen on TV infomercial type product with no real specks or useful information, the marketing video and pictures are actually comically bad. It has a 3AAA cell carrier which I despise in a light. But noticed in the paperwork there was an add for ordering an 18650 and charger to upgrade the light. I popped in an 18650 in place of the AAA carrier and went to work outside for a while. The light has an operational button in line with the cable form the rear battery compartment to the head. The rear battery compartment is quite large and seals with a soft rubber cover that stretches over a rib in the case. The rear case also has a dim red LED so you always have a tail light when it is on. There are 3 modes High (1.3A with fresh 18650) Low with no visible PWM (380mA with fresh 18650) and strobe (8Hz 50% duty cycle) Surprisingly the LED looks to be a real Cree XP-G3, with a fairly blue tint, about 6000K.

I was expecting it to be complete garbage and with that expectation I was pleasantly suppressed. The build quality seems better than most headlights in this class that I have played with before. It claims to be water proof but the seal on the battery cover is suspect, the button has no water proof seals, and I don’t think a zoomy head can be sealed because it needs to let in or out air to account for the changing volume. You can see light coming out of the hole in the rear of the head where the cable goes in. The control electronics are in the battery compartment, 3 wires from battery to button and 2 wires from button to main LED. Surprisingly I can not measure any phantom power draw from the battery when the light is turned off. So on the plus sides it actually uses a proper LED with good drive levels, runs on an 18650, and the zoomy head beam pattern which I can’t stand in a hand held torch is acceptable on a headlamp. Zoomed all the way out for most tasks gives a broad even beam which lights up most things in your main field of view, but is narrow enough that with the tilt function you can keep the glare out of everyone’s eyes when talking to them. If there is something a long ways off you are trying to see you can zoom in temporarily. For $6.46 out the door I feel it is a decent budget headlamp, at the $19.99 MSRP I would may re evaluate my decision…

Here are some links
https://www.bulbhead.com/products/atomic-beam-headlight

Edit: I just found another strength of the zoomy head styled headlamp. Operating a firearm at night. With the beam zoomed all the way in and the light slightly offset to the left side of my head I have enough light on the target 25-50 meters away that I can still make it out and the minimal side spill is enough to light up and see the sights without blinding me. This works for pistols and rifles and even scoped rifles. A traditional reflector based headlamp puts to much light on the sights and blinds me while not getting enough on target at distance.