I think that photo is the XM-L and not the XM-L2. From what I gathered, L2 color is unlike the XM-L, the immediate area outside the plastic lens bubble is silver color for the L2 and not green color as with the L.
i just realized he asked about the L2 and not the XM-L. Its Been a long night. :~
@Rick, I do not agree that no blame lies on Latticebright, they chose to mimic Cree leds into the finest detail, they did not need to do that to make their leds perform (lol, they may be able to make better leds if the requirement of Cree mimicry is dropped). Therefore the one and only reason of existance of these leds is to facilitate counterfeit products that mislead customers. That makes Latticebright as guilty, even more guilty IMO, than those who build them into flashlights and the sellers.
+1
LB’s intent is to deceive and allow others to deceive.
I loathe them.
Lattice bright singlehandedly ruin the budget flashlight market. People will now have doubts buying those affordable cree flashlights. And paypal will be harder to convince too due to close resemblance of the real and fake.
lol?are you happy?
you have good chance to get a Genuine LB
lol?are you happy?
you have good chance to get a Genuine
How do you know you really get genuine LB and not cheap LB copy?
Couldn’t agree more. Let me preface by saying that, in no way, do I condone counterfeiting or false advertising. But in most ways, this is driven by a consumer demand. Companies like CREE make quality products and like most things, you get what you pay for. Production changes and general advancements in technology can lower production costs, but usually the latest and greatest thing has a premium price tag. But most people rarely want to pay the price for a premium product and still get premium quality. So, the Chinese (and many other countries) fill this demand by making lower quality products to meet the price demand. If the demand goes away, so do most of the potential counterfeiters and their operations.
Those who put LB onto a Cree star (as show in second photo in the OP), clearly the “star maker” is to blame.
The flashlight maker putting an LB labeled star into a flashlight and sell it as a Cree, the flashlight maker is to blame. The quality of the seller is determined in part by the extend they go in verifying what they are selling.
For a chip as big as the LED emitters, I think Cree didn’t do enough to distinct themselves. Such a big chip, making it end-user visible should not be difficult. On the led side of the chip/pcb itself, Cree should put in a visible identifier such as a mini logo. If LB put in the Cree label, then LB is making a fake and is clearly to blame. If LB put in their own different ID, then I would consider them totally blameless.
Mean time, I am going to take a sip of my strawberry drink which contains no strawberry - all artificial favoring. Can’t even buy a real strawberry drink at a grocery store anymore. Even those damn saltines/crackers doesn’t use real butter… That is live in the 21st century.
One TV personality spoke of his also famous TV personality wife (post divorce): “Who knows how she really looks, I don’t even know what on her is real…”
+ 1
It makes it worse as so many of the light manufacturers and sellers are calling them “CREE ” by still stamping it on the lights, in the sellers description, and in some cases with these inferior LB LEDs on Cree stars to continue to fool & deceive the un-educated consumer that they are getting a real “Cree” powered light when they buy them, but in fact what makes it worse is not only are these LB LED’s a blatant bold direct copy of genuine Cree Emitters, they are very inefficient, lower output while requiring more amps to drive them, and even worse eye-searing bluish tinted than the worse tinted Cree bins.
One “LB” budget light i have sucks 1.8 amps from a 18650 cell while maxing out at a pathetic 400 lumens in my sphere, and the tint is so bad and CRI is so low it makes everything look like the picture on a 1960’s B/W TV set.
Basically these crap LB LEDs are a major step backwards compared to the brand name LED manufacturers in modern LED advancements, i compare these LB LEDs to old Incandescent bulbs for efficiency, power usage and output, and compare them to a 1970’s Daylight Florescent tube for tint and color rendering.
My opinion on most of the random budget lights we will get when buying will be basically a host-only that will need a real LED modded in them, as they are practically trash and useless as a flashlight to use with the inferior Lattice Bright crap in them.
Good posts guys. Thanks.
Hmmm... I havent followed this thread very well. But Im really surprised they look so similar. I would have said them to be Cree..
+ 1
My opinion of latticebright…
Some have blamed this phenomenon on the “market place” Well, in this case the “market place” is “all of us” In my opinion this is a very dangerous idea. When a person commits a criminal act and we blame it on society what we are saying is that we are all at fault. But when we say everyone is at fault, what we are really saying is that Nobody is at fault.
If everybody owns everything (Communism) then nobody owns anything.
Let’s put the blame on who really is at fault here. Lattice Bright.
They are NOT Cree led.
Lattice Bright is a company created to cash in on Cree’s success, by copying their products with cheaper, lower quality & inferior copies and fakes of a successful companies products, and with the lack of copyright laws and enforcement in China there is nobody to stop them. Added that the manufacturers of the utlra-budget flashlight industry is taking advantage of it themselves by using the inferior lower-cost LB fakes in their products and calling them “Cree” brand, while blatantly committing sales fraud. Who is going to stop them? nobody as long as they stay in China, and out goverments will still allow ship-loads of fakes, copies, and fraudulent products to flow over the borders.
It is our duty to make sure as many people we can is aware of what they could be buying now, especially here.
I don’t think anyone disagrees with you that counterfeiting is still counterfeiting and that it’s completely wrong. I completely agree with you that a company like Lattice Bright purposefully making their LEDs to look like CREEs and then having them placed in Cree labeled flashlights is terrible. I just think that with the demand from the consumers for lower price points with similar quality, one can’t be surprised that someone would see that demand and try to meet it to gain a profit, with or without integrity. But yes, it’s still wrong.
re: “…Lattice Bright purposefully making their LEDs to look like CREEs and then having them placed in Cree labeled flashlights is terrible…”
You make it sound as if LatticeBright funded those manufacturers and “having them placed in Cree Labeled flashlight.” I doubt that is the case. I am entirely confident that if a cheaper imitation came about, these manufacturer wouldn’t waste a minute switching away from LatticeBright and still sell their “Cree” labeled lights.
I think the blame LatticeBright line of thinking is way off mark. But we are all entitled to our opinions.