Good to know, thanks. Understanding perceived brightness of non white light from looking at numbers or pictures will always be difficult. There’s also a huge perception difference just from focus of the beam, and this one seems to have a relatively focused beam. Nothing that I need this for couldn’t be done with a dim 5mm red LED, but it would be nice to have the build quality and flexibility of optional high modes.
Will do my best to find some alternative frosted/microlensed optic and suggest Sofirn to sell it as a spare/accessory part for C01R. ;-)
Here is a comparison of the C01R low vs. SP10S eco (0.5 lm) @ 1/6s f/2.8 1m distance.
Here is a comparison of the C01R low vs. SP10S low (13 lm) @ 1/6s f/2.8 1m distance.
Hope that helps.
[edit: changed Pictures - the other ones did not do it justice]
I’m still thinking it’s probably too bright for dark sky work as-is. I’ll re-assess when I receive it. Frosting will pull it down a few percent. It’s really easy to cut narrow bandwidth light with film. And realistically, we’ve become somewhat coddled by ultra-low long-runtime lights, which weren’t even available 20 years ago, so I have no reason to whine if it takes a little effort to make it usable.
Also I grabbed a couple of these 45 degree optics to check fit:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32999748949.html
C01R is quite bright, especially for a deep red flashlight. Low mode could be lower, it is likely more than 1 lm. The beam is quite throwy.
You could add a filter or a diffuser to reduce light intensity, or you could move the flashlight further away from what you are looking at, if you need less light.
That said, I like C01R a lot, and it turned out a lot better than I expected. Except for the low mode being too bright, and perhaps medium mode being too close to high mode, everything else is great. It could be improved if low mode became the new medium mode, and there was a new sub-lumen low mode.
The low mode on my Emisar D4V2 and Emisar D18 with deep red SST-20-DR-B120-V660 emitters is a lot lower than the low mode on my C01R, and the high mode is a lot higher. I had these custom built by Hank, because I wanted a powerful deep red flashlight.
Looking at the weegee’s last pictures posted, this is almost certainly prohibitively bright when used close up or in groups. If that’s a 10 degree optic, then a 45 degree should help a lot. Inverse tan^2 math puts center intensity of a 45 degree optic around 3% of the 10 degree optic, if that math is right. Dim AND focused lights are nice though for not shining in other peoples’ dark-adjusted eyes.
I received mine last week 
First impressions: I like it !!
Second impressions: I like it, but…that High mode, on white room or with a “reflective” platform (including hands), gives me a headache!! 
It thows quite well on High, and even if on Low it is brighter than I expected, I still think it does a good job keeping “night” vision.
BTW, the anodizing is slighlty different from the C01. It can be seen on the reflex!
Some photos below, just because!
(Click for bigger photos)
Into the formicary (ant hole)! 
Hey Unheard.. Does that microlensed optic just drop right in and replace the current one? Can you post a couple beam shots with it? Thxs.
I’ll do later today.
The optics needs to be taken out of the white holder to fit into the C01R/S.
Absolutely. My goal is that they offer a (microlensed/frosted) TIR lens that can be used for both C01S and C01R, regardless what LED is "under the hood". So far, SST-20 and XP-E2 are very small 3535 LEDs. I hope that E21A's footprint will not exceed any limitations of the TIR's lower aperture.
Regarding your requests to lower the low mode. I gathered all your helpful suggestions and feedback and reported them back to Sofirn to improving C01R as well as to achieving the best parameters for C01S with E21A. I have no information how much C01R lights are left for sale and if Sofirn plans to release a second batch once the first one is sold out.
Honeycomb TIR C01R vs. standard optics C01S w/ Nichia 219*C*/4000K (I have no original C01S). AWB has obviously been adjusted to 4000K. Be aware C01S spot is significantly larger with the Nichia as opposed to the Luminus.
hth
Edit: Mixed up the Nichias.
Would a sealed/glued head interfere with the idea to change the TIR lens by oneself?
I swapped the optics in one of the recent C01S. Takes some force to overcome red threadlock, but works and left no marks on the body. But of course, it is certainly not for everyone. OTOH, it can be very frustrating to open the head by accident. That’s a strong argument for glueing it imo.
Had a little fun with a raw bead-blast C01S body and swapped the C01R light engine in. I think it actually looks pretty cool with the little red ring visible in the gap between the head and body. With a red tritium in the tail I actually think this would look pretty cool.
For those concerned with brightness on low, consider taking the head apart, and running this light as a mule. Without the optic, the floody red is much less intense on the two lower levels, and the extra bright high still manages to push out a lot of red. I will leave actual beamshots to someone with a DSLR. But here are some pictures I took with my phone for a rough comparison of what low looks like (in a lit room).
Stock TIR optic beam & beamshot:
Mule (no TIR/Optic) beam & beamshot:
Keep in mind for this to work you need to find a glass lens, or cut a small plastic disc out to fill the gap left between the head and pill, where the outer ring on the optic used to sit. without something there the head can screw down too far to have the light come on, and the LED is exposed. I made cut a small plastic disc out for my Mule C01S and have had zero issues.
Thank you and hope feedbacks and tips will be considered for improve both lights,would be great if you can advert us before the end of first batch,if there will be a second C01R batch
Thank you. Seems like lately everything I decide to buy comes from Sofirn. Tell them to keep it up!
Should be noted that I am the only one who seems worried, and I don’t even have one in my hand yet. That said, too bright a low would invalidate pretty much every one of the “Typical applications” listed in the lead post.
I accidentally changed modes from Moonlight-Low-High to High-Low-Moonlight while chasing a wasp out of the living room this evening.
You really need to twist the Sofirn C01R quickly to change modes.
I found that I had to twist from OFF to ON eight times at a rate slightly faster than 2 twists to ON per second.
Now the thread/head feels a bit gritty. :-/
Thanks for your feedback. I will let Sofirn know about this, so they may slow down the rate a bit for more convenience when switching mode groups.