Update:
I received my Camo M2R Pro back from a 6 month(Jan2 to July19) trip to China, for the firmware/warranty repair.
Unlike SKV89, Olight would not give me the option of replacement, even when asked. They insisted it needed to be sent to China for firmware repair.
While I didn’t ship the battery back with it, since it was just discharging it any way, they did return it with an Olight 21700 battery. It was inside the bubble wrap envelope, with the loose M2R Pro, so the battery cell wrapper was pretty nicked up from it banging against the side of the light. Which also received it’s own, slight nicks, and scratches.
I guess I should be happy getting a free battery, with such “speedy” warranty service?
Even though they make a quality product, I am losing my desire to purchase any future Olights. Especially since most of their recently released lights, ONLY function with their proprietary battery.
I was willing to over look that, since all of my previous Olights will function with a button top battery, just not charge it, internally, with the exception being the original M2R.
If I would have known the M2R Pro will ONLY function with an Olight proprietary battery, I would not have purchased it.
Thanks, I’ve just read the Reddit article on the subject… I personally think it’s a bad move and won’t consider anything that requires a proprietary ( expensive) battery
I have all three of these lights and the battery hasn’t really been as much of an issue as I thought it would be. They aren’t really designed to be lights you’d take camping with you, they are “tactical” lights. For that use case, if you have couple of the magnetic chargers around and maybe one in your vehicle, it’s actually quite convenient to not ever need to remove the battery from the light. That said, I would prefer to have the option to swap in my own cells if needed.
Olight never gave me the option for replacement. I had to send them back for repair and resent. I included the original batteries when I shipped them to but they didn’t come back with the batteries. I sent Olight an email and they shipped me two batteries separately immediately. I think the majority of the customers didn’t include the batteries when they shipped them to Olight for repair so originally Olight weren’t including batteries with the repaired lights. However, the few that shipped batteries with the light like myself probably got upset that their lights came back without the batteries. So Olight decided to just include batteries with all the repaired lights regardless of whether they were sent to Olight with or without batteries.
As for the proprietary batteries being a deal breaker, I really don’t see it. While I prefer the light can use any 21700, these Lion cells can last a long time. Just look at the batteries in your cell phone that gets used and charged on a daily basis and they still last for years. It would be extremely rare for anyone to use their flashlights as often as cell phones. Olight has the highest build quality and most efficient drivers of all brands so that alone is makes Olight stand out. The only drawback is they don’t have NW and WW options. The tint is also pretty poor, with the exception of the Seeker 2 Pro with beautiful 5700K non green tint and the H2R with 4000K rosy tint.