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.
Thatā€™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? Thatā€™s just wrong.

Iā€™m more curious about their numbers. 700,000 cd, but only 600m of throw?

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

Youā€™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 canā€™t decide if they donā€™t know what theyā€™re talking about, forgot the 1 and a decimal when writing things up, or if theyā€™re being deliberately misleading.

Itā€™s fire resistantā€¦

Iā€™m guessing other features are hogwash too?

So itā€™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 doesnā€™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 Iā€™m not in.
But itā€™s a major step in the right direction and I appreciate the designers for that.

I just canā€™t see how this is better than the existing LEPs already on the market. I love that theyā€™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.
Canā€™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, canā€™t see where itā€™s attached to the light.

I noticed that halo as well. Iā€™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 thereā€™s none. But it seems to be present hereā€¦

Yeah, I didnā€™t really notice the spill before, but I noticed it when the halo was pointed out. Itā€™s very, very strange.

I think that is due to extremely over exposing the image to try and put more ā€œemphasisā€ on the beam the background itself looks like sunrise/set which clearly it isnā€™t when they took the photo.

There already is one, itā€™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:

Thereā€™s better stuff out there (like the mini skylumen one)

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