LEP zoomie on Kickstarter

On Kickstarter is a interesting LEP zoomie https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hightech/hand-held-long-range-white-laser-tactical-torch-flashlight.
Looks good on Kickstarter, hope the real flashlight is as good as advertised.
Once I have mine I will test & tell.

Not really a zoomie, it allows you to unscrew the head by like 20 turns in order to defocus the beam enough to make a slightly larger spot.
That’s how they can still maintain IP68, which normal zoomies cannot do.

USB C charging and a non-proprietary 21700 cell are good design choices though.

A zooming LEP? That’s just wrong.

I’m more curious about their numbers. 700,000 cd, but only 600m of throw?

The KR1 can out throw 600m with a smaller head.

You’re absolutey correct. You have named 3 values (cd, m, ft) that have a FIXED relation.
I assume this company is located in the USA, so they know their feet.
Because 1 foot = 0.3048m. That makes 2,000ft = 609.6m. Calling it 600m is about correct.

For 600m throw you need (600 x 600)/4 = 90,000cd. I guess their decimal point drifted a bit off.

{To give you an impression: 250,000cd = 250kcd = 1km, 1,000,000cd = 1Mcd = 2km (BLF-GT)}

Yeah, I ran the numbers when I first heard about it, and figured it should be about 1.6km of throw at 700kcd. Another LEP, the Weltool W3 has a smaller head and also out throws this thing by almost twice (363375cd, 1205m). I can’t decide if they don’t know what they’re talking about, forgot the 1 and a decimal when writing things up, or if they’re being deliberately misleading.

It’s fire resistant…

I’m guessing other features are hogwash too?

So it’s a highly throw-focused zoomie that has a badly looking, low CRI and extremely narrow flood. Furthermore zooming is extremely slow. But it probably throws better than any other zoomie of this size, even though it doesn’t look like the designers paid much attention to making it compact.
I tend to prefer flood-focused zoomie designs that have nice looking, warm, high CRI and reasonably wide flood beams, so I’m not in.
But it’s a major step in the right direction and I appreciate the designers for that.

I just can’t see how this is better than the existing LEPs already on the market. I love that they’re trying to innovate, but it seems to underperform in all metrics.

Wayyyyy overexposed images. Beware.

Being (a bit) colorblind I wonder if nobody has noticed the thick blue halo.
Seems to me this halo is not created by the laser, but in the (sub-par?) optics.
Can’t remember such a heavy set halo in the LEP-reviews of ChibiM.

About the shape, it looks like a WW-II Stielhandgranate (stick hand grenade).
A good choice, because this light comes with a Skywolfeyes battery.
So if the thing gets hot, just throw it away.

A lanyard is included, can’t see where it’s attached to the light.

I noticed that halo as well. I’m used to seeing such things on aspherics and this is certainly worse than usual.
I also find this:

interesting.
Do I see spill? There should be none and they claim there’s none. But it seems to be present here…

Yeah, I didn’t really notice the spill before, but I noticed it when the halo was pointed out. It’s very, very strange.

I think that is due to extremely over exposing the image to try and put more “emphasis” on the beam the background itself looks like sunrise/set which clearly it isn’t when they took the photo.

There already is one, it’s damn expensive but super cool. Check our Michaelssearchlights on YT. He got one and reviewed it. Awesome precision optic lenses.

Direct link:

Looks much larger, also a twisty, better in quality.
Thanks for sharing.

$149 to gamble on an LEP.

that is not unreasonable.

Maybe they had all the funds they needed but used Kickstarter for marketing. :wink:

There’s better stuff out there (like the mini skylumen one)

I withdrew my support. Many others did that too.
Bought an Astrolux WP1 instead.