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I have the Acebeam H15 NW and I use it the most among my collection of headlamps because of how floody the beam is and the ease of use of the rotary brightness control. The NW 70.2 is 5000k and the tint not as good as on the Olight H2R and Armytek Wizard Pro though. I’ll wait to see some reviews on this one and I might get it if reviews are positive.

Interesting lamp

How much does it weigh?

Taking a look Acebeam’s inventory to date, they just don’t use high CRI emitters, because of the good-looking sheer big numbers - so I guess, the 5000K XHP70.2 will be a 68 or 70 CRI P2 binned one - I also have it in a HaikeLite MT07S /a very respectable light in other regards btw/, and it has definitely ugly beam from what I have seen so far, with a deep and wide cyan dip in the spectrum (as usual for low CRI emitters on the CW side). Also, all of the [XP-G3, XP-L2, XHP50.2, XHP70.2] emitters exhibit very noticeable tint shift - higher CRI ones will still show tint shift, but somewhat less.

I think, a headlamp without a proper high (at least 80+) CRI emitter is like a tiger without teeth.

I guess, we will see, how bad will that be actually, but this headlamp does have a prohibitive MSRP anyway.

I got excited for a minute until I noticed it doesn’t have a true moonlight mode, and makes a sudden jump from 3lm to 120lm. It’d be great if they added a 0.5lm and 10-20lm option as well.

Yes, I also forgot to mention that big jump - which is a painful mistake for a headlamp.

If one would insist on single emitter and XHP, then I think, high CRI XHP35 with proper TIR optics would be the way to go - or Nichia’s 144AM/AR emitter - and I think, unless some very unique heat spreading body is not designed, we are still good with 1500-1800 lumens at most.

The only meaningful upgrades are the 21700 battery, and the two auxiliary emitters - which are far from justifying this price.

I wish instead of red and green they were high CRI and UV. That would be perfect.

I got one of these recently in the 5000K+R/CRI configuration. I’m always looking for a capable headlamp for backpacking, and while I haven’t had much of a chance to use this yet, I’ll outline a few of my initial impressions from walking around in the woods behind my house.

First, my ideal backpacking headlamp needs to meet the following criteria:

  1. Very long runtime at a brightness level between ~30-100 lumens for around camp uses (examples: setting up my tent in the dark, cooking and eating around a campfire and for illumination inside my tent).
  2. Quick access to a throwy beam so I can check on things just outside my campsite that go “bump” in the night.
  3. Reasonably long runtime at a ~250+ lumen medium mode in case I’m late getting to my planned campsite and need to do an hour or so of night hiking on faint trails. I don’t want to deplete the battery just because I ran it at 300 lumens or so for an hour.
  4. Idiot-proof UI because my brain and my muscle memory seem to become stupider when my brain is depleted of blood and oxygen.
  5. Not super bulky (makes it easier to pack if there isn’t a separate battery pack and stiff cord to mess with).

I’m replacing a Fenix HP25, which was always tricky to get the hang of. It has two lamps, a flood and a thrower, which each have identical-feeling buttons. Also, each lamp has a different number of brightness levels (4 for the flood and 3 for the thrower). Since that was such a bulky headlamp, I only ever used it for camping, which I do infrequently (<10 excursions per year on average, some years less) so I would always lose my muscle memory over the winter and forget which side button controlled which lamp. Then factor in long press for on/off, the mode memory (no shortcut to low), and no shortcut to turbo. It was always such a disaster; I’m glad I decided to just move on.

Initially, I thought the Acebeam H15 would be ideal because of the short click on/off, the big tactile magnetic ring to change the main modes and the ability to very precisely configure the brightness (four sublevels to each of the four main levels), thus being able to prolong the runtime. However, with no arrow printed on the flashlight body to show which direction to turn the ring for low vs high, turning the flashlight on in a high mode when moonlight was desired becomes a challenge (to solve this, I could paint a little white arrow on the body, but in the darkness, it wouldn’t make any difference). The second reason I went with the H30 was the runtime. For the same brightness levels, the 21700 battery provides a significantly longer runtime at a modest increase in weight (although you do notice the weight difference). Finally, I have noticed with L-shaped headlamps like the H15 (or any other number of designs from other manufacturers), when you reach up to adjust the switch, light reflects off your hand and gets in your eyes. It’s a flaw inherent to the design and the only way around it is to change the locations of the emitter and switch. I find that this doesn’t happen with the centered emitter on the H30, even though the switches are right over the reflector. It’s just easier to reach the switch without shining light on my hand.

The H30 has several strengths, which I’ll try to organize as I did my criteria above:

  1. ~24 hour spec runtime at 120 lumens is plenty of runtime for the one- to three-night short trips I generally do, and then some. Occasionally, I have done longer excursions where I was camping for more extended periods of time, and the built in USB-C charging could come in handy if I am able to get to a car or outlet at a midpoint of the trip (not unrealistic). In reality, I only ever find myself using my headlamp for one hour or less per night, just because the sun sets late in the summer and I turn the headlamp off when I have a campfire going, so 24 hours in low mode is enough for most long trips too. The fact that the headlamp works as a power bank is also worth taking into consideration if bringing other devices — it’s nice to have options, and Acebeam designed the USB-C port so you don’t have to worry about a rubber flap.
  2. Double clicking the power button gives instant access to turbo, which is very floody due to the nature of the Cree XHP 70.2 emitter, but at 4000 lumens, it punches light out really far. This is plenty of brightness for the short times I need that much light on a camping trip. Even the 2200 lumen high setting is plenty bright for spotting wild animals in the woods.
  3. 7.5 hour spec runtime at 380 lumens should be great for night hiking, when needed. Even 2.9 hours at 1100 lumens is very reassuring, although that’s not a practical brightness for what I’d use it for.
  4. The UI has two buttons (bad), but they are different shapes (great!), so ungloved fingertips can reach up to the buttons and easily tell which is which. Quick clicking the square power button turns it on/off (with mode memory of the middle modes). Quick clicking the round mode button cycles through four middle modes. Long press of the power button from off gets you straight to moonlight. Double click of the power button (from off or on) gets you to turbo. If the UI stopped there, it would be perfect. Unfortunately, there is also a long press of the mode button to access the fairly useless auxiliary LEDs, which mucks the UI up a bit. It’s not bad enough to be a deal-killer for me, but I could go without the auxiliary LEDs altogether, if I were the designer. It would also have been nice if the headlamp were more glove friendly in terms of the two buttons, but I don’t do much winter camping anyway. A square and a round button is a huge step up from my HP25.
  1. It has a big battery without being too bulky.
  2. Incidentally, the tint of the main LED is very neutral to my eye. It’s not typical of this emitter, and completely lacks the typical greenish cast (as seen in flashlights like the Zebralight SC700d). It appears very neutral white to me. In fact, the Nichia (I assume it’s a 219C 5000K) aux emitter appears more greenish than the Cree XHP 70.2, and that’s not to say that the light from the Nichia emitter is green at all.

The main flaw of the H30, as others have pointed out, is the low mode spacing. The 3 lumen “moonlight” mode works OK for illumination inside a tent but is getting a little too bright to preserve night vision. It would be ideal if there were both a 1 lumen ultra low and a 40 lumen low mode because the next step up from 3 lumens is 120 lumens, which is just bright enough to be a little too capable around camp. If I don’t angle the light down at that brightness level, I’ll have to worry about blinding the other people in the campsite. Another flaw is the implementation of the auxiliary LEDs (see below), which I just wish weren’t there, but if I’m stuck with them, they could have been done a little better. The headlamp is a little front-heavy, but seeing as I don’t plan to jog with it, I don’t think it’s enough of an imbalance to cause any issues for me. The headband has a sticky lining and feels secure on my head, which is good. I’m a little concerned about the lifespan of the rubber headlamp holder (would prefer a hard plastic or metal harness), but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. As mentioned above, the headlamp could be more glove friendly, although I wouldn’t have a use for glove friendly buttons and I’d be worried about the compromises in ergonomics to make them more glove friendly — for example, you could put the power button on top and mode button on the underside of the unit, but that might be a little annoying to use the rest of the time. If Acebeam is reading this review, I personally like the buttons as they are.

Overall, I’m very impressed and I think I’ve found my new backpacking headlamp.

Acebeam must read these forums because that is exactly what they did. Mine has red and Nichia auxiliary LEDs. There is another version with red and UV aux LEDs.

For camping, it is nice to be able to change the tint of light I’m using to change up the mood. The Nichia emitter puts out a slightly more neutral and more diffuse light than the main emitter, but when I look at the runtimes and see that the Nichia emitter gets half the runtime of the main emitter at the same 120 lumens brightness level, it makes me not want to rely on it too much. Since there is only one brightness level for each aux LED, 120 lumens, I’m not really sure if Acebeam had a plan for these. Red light is good to preserve night vision for activities like astronomy, but 120 lumens of light is going to affect your night vision no matter the color, and it will especially affect the night vision of any person around you who looks directly at the LED. I’d be interested in the UV emitter if I were camping in the desert, since you can use UV light to spot scorpions, but in that case, I wonder if it would be bright enough to make them glow unless I’m right on top of one. Like I said, the Nichia emitter puts out a nicely diffuse, neutral white light that can change things up from the XHP 70.2 emitter, but I can’t help but notice that because of the frosted lens, there is no way to angle the headlamp down to keep the light from the aux LED from blinding other people in camp. The issue could be addressed by adding different brightness levels to the aux LEDs, but I’d personally prefer the simplicity of no aux LEDs at all.