Cyansky HS5R quick thoughts

So I will not claim that this is a review, just sort of list of quick impressions.

(some might even say a rant)

I won this light in a GAW. I thank Cyansky for doing the GAW and getting me the light very quickly.

I just got the light yesterday. I have not had a chance to do any runtime tests or related measurements.

The light came well packaged in an attractive blue and white retail type box with clear plastic tray inside holding the light and accessories. Even though it was inside a much larger box with no packaging, it survived shipment well.
It came with a few accessories. A nice USB A to C cable, a bidirectional clip, a couple of the obligatory O-rings, a warranty card, decent manual (except I need a magnifier to read it), and a mystery rubber pad with peel and stick backing.

It uses a Cool White SFT40 led. IPX8, 6061-T6 case, etc.
They say 220 max hours of runtime. Max 18 watts/ 1300 lumens. Both timed and thermal step down. Timed stepdown is at 1 minute.

All of the specs are available at the web site.

The light is actually well made. The anodizing is good. But it is a bit bulky due to the right angle head and sort of over sized tail cap. But the large tail cap is a good ide because it is hard to unscrew the thing when it is mounted to the headband.But I think that the big on both ends design makes using that included clip difficult. But the bracket design makes it impractical anyway.
More on that later.

I should mention a high point for the light. Cyansky covers it with a FIVE year warranty. That is great and a bit unusual for this class of light! Good job Cyansky!

It uses a TIR lens. They claim a 15 degree spot and 80 degree spill. That looks about right to me, but honestly there is not much useable spill. This makes sense as they are using the SFT40 LED. I really prefer more spill for headlights.
EDIT:
I took it out walking last night. I got to a very dark area. Previously I had checked the beam with more ambient light. The hot spot from the TIR is actually quite big. Not as much throw as one might expect from an SFT40 (due to the TIR of course), but sufficient for my use with a headlamp. It will light up the width of a 2 meter wide path 3 to 5 meters ahead using the top two levels. There is plenty of light for walking, running or probably biking at 50 to 60 meters out. Longer than that is not important to me with a headlamp. Spill outside of the hot spot is weak though. And narrower than I like. But overall I think it is a very useable beam pattern for my use in a headlight. This is better than my first impressions.

The UI, well I am not fond of it, especially for a headlight. There are too many long and longer presses to get around. It needs a long press to turn on and off. A shorter long press form on to get to a sort of moonlight and the two red modes. Moonlight is a bit higher than what I consider to be moonlight. There is a single red mode for continuous light and a flashing red mode. I like the idea of having red available, but this light really needs some way to change the red level. The single level is too bright for certain things (reading star charts) and to dim for being able to feel secure in moving around much.

That mystery rubber thingy… I couldn’t find anything in the instructions about what to do with it. It fits between the metal headlight bracket and the band. So that is where I put it. It does give a bit of padding between the bracket and my head FWIW.

Now the thing that makes me wonder. The headlight is very difficult to release from the bracket and is painful to remove and reinstall the bracket on the headband.

It took me probably a half hour to finally release the wire clip that hold the light to the bracket. The wire is stiff and under quite a bit of tension. The clips that it goes into are pretty long. There is no way to get fingers in there to release the thing. I tried a few tools. I ended up using s small flat blade screwdriver. The problem is that the clearances and angles required are just bad. I got it, but it was a real struggle. Getting it back in the bracket was a little easier, but not much (maybe 15 minutes instead of 30). Seeing that they provide a clip for the light, I guess they assume people will be removing the light from the headband. Well I won’t. I think I will be looking for a different compatible headband. Or maybe just resign myself to leaving the light mounted to the headband forever. This defeats the very nice feature of a 90 degree lamp with a tail magnet.

In short, while it is a very secure mount, it is a bad design. It is not only very difficult to remove the light, but it is way too stiff when trying to adjust the angle. Yes tit also makes wearing it directional. If you want a full 90 degrees of rotation from horizontal, the head of the light must be on the right.

The band is threaded trough slots in the bracket. Each side has a very thin opening that the band must be held edge on and stretched to get in or out. I guess they think no one will ever want to take the bracket off of the band. Like maybe when the band needs to be replaced?

Sometimes I just scratch my head over design choices, this is one of them. Too bad, because the execution is very good. It is a super strong retention method and that band is not coming out accidently. :japanese_ogre:

This may all seem negative, and it is in a way. It is a shame because the light does everything they promise for it. For someone looking for the things that the light does, it could be a nice solution. I will use it more just to get a better feel for it. I think it could fill a niche in my collection. Even with the things that have frustrated me about it. I will write more if warranted.

Thanks for reading.

That’s how I feel about it too. Good build, useful LEDs, size/form is good. UI and headband are the worst I have ever used.