Received a new release from Olight, a lantern, Olantern is the name. When I received the box...
...I thought it's a big lantern, but...
...after opening box cover, I was surprised that it's actually just about the size of Olight X7 Marauder, much lighter, and made of plastics (PC, ABS, TPE) with some parts in Aluminum Alloy. This is the first lantern from Olight.
Olantern Specifications:
and the full contents of Olantern package:
the yellow label is a reminder that Olantern is shipped in electronic lock-out state. So unlock it by holding down the switch button for a while until the light comes on. If after performing this unlock function and your Olantern still does not turn-On, then connect the MCC3 charging cable and charge it for a while and try again, it's likely the battery is too low to be turn-On.
of course, the first thing we should do is to fully charge the battery. It takes approximately 7 hours to fully charge Olantern battery pack from empty to full (it took ~4 hours to recharge upon receiving my review unit of Olantern from Olight as the battery is not empty). Again, in this case, full when using the MCC3 is less than 4.2V, and the charging indicator turns Green when it's 95% charged. The best way to know when the Olantern is fully charged is to use a USB meter. Yes, you can use the lantern while charging. All modes are available while charging too. This lantern is bright, really bright, and has pretty good regulation too. I doubt that it's just 360 lumens as claimed, so I compare with another lantern from Fenix, the Fenix CL25R at 350 lumens.
Olantern at 360 lumens is clearly much brighter, although I given the choice, I would prefer the tint on that Fenix CL25R. So I was either sent an over-performing Olantern or Olight is under-quoting the output number here.
Some pictures of the Olantern...
Magnetic charging contacts at the base of Olantern. The design of the base allows MCC3 charging cable to pass through one of the 3 opening to allow Olantern to stand-up right while charging, but due to charging indicator is entirely depending on the MCC3, this feature makes it inconvenient for users to know the charging status. For yours truly, I turn the Olantern up-side-down when charging.
at top of the Olantern, there is a label sticker detailing the power input and output of Olantern
and the Olantern hook attachment. I really like this hook design, it's very functional. Due to the anti-slip material used, I can hang the Olanter at the side of table without it falling off (although accidentally knocking it off is still possible). With the hook attachment being covered in anti-slip material and the base of lantern being the same, my only concern is the degradation of such material from my experience with anti-slip plastics. Only time will tell. and speaking of time, Olantern comes with only 2 years of warranty (MCC3, the charging cable, is 1 year) instead of the usual Olight 5 years warranty.
Olantern features a motion sensitive battery indicator which will lit-up in pulsing manner (fade-in, fade-out) for 7 seconds. However, due to the amount of light let out around the switch button is too low, it's really difficult to agree with Olight that it has another purpose as being a locator beacon besides being able to show the state-of-charge of the in-built battery pack, a 3.7V, 4 x 18500 1900mAh battery pack.
The indicator will lit-up in different LED color depending on the state-of-charge of the in-built battery pack:
- >70%: Green Lit
- 30-70%: Orange Lit
- <30%: Red Lit
- <10%: Red Pulsing
UI of Olantern is accessible through this single big button:
- To turn ON/OFF: Single click the button.
- To switch mode: Press-and-Hold the button from On to cycle through Low-Medium-High mode.
- To engage Electronic Lockout: With Olantern in OFF state, Press-and-Hold the switch button and wait for Low mode to come on and goes Off, release the button. When Electronic Lockout is engaged, the battery indicator around the switch button will lit up Red to signal it's locked out.
- To disengage Electronic Lockout: Press-and-Hold the switch button and wait for Low mode to come On.
Although the switch button is big, it's not as easy to press as other Electronic Switch from Olight, it's slightly harder to push the button. A softer Electronic Switch similar to that used on Olight Perun would be a welcoming upgrade.
Top cover of Olantern can be easily remove by twisting it counter-clockwise, and putting it back is as easy too, just twist it back in.
The inside of the Top cover is a piece of reflective plastic with the design to attempt to reflect as much light in all direction as possible.
there is also an O-ring sealing the main Olantern base unit from external element. Olight quoted Olantern as having IP rating of IPX4.
this is the while LED module. It's a screw-on module that allows Olantern to exchange the light source to another, in this case, a Flaming LED module.
removing the screw-on module reveal the underlying contact pins, it appears that the contact pins are further sealed against the element with the black cover.
the included screw-on LED modules, left is the Flaming LED module, while on the right is the main White LED module.
although Olight quoted the main White LED is Neutral White, it still appear cooler than the usual Neutral White spectrum on the Kelvin scale.
while the Flaming LED is more of an Amber color than Yellow.
Let's put back the Olantern top cover and see some brightness shots:
Low mode - 30 lumens
Medium mode - 120 lumens
High mode - 360 lumens
Flaming LED - 1 lumen
yes, it does a simulate flame movement... although not very good at it to be honest... at least not the best flame movement imitation by a LED, there are better Flaming LED out there, but this does gives you the "mood" for when you are in the occasion... you will need a few more Olantern to create a cozy warm candlelight feeling, one unit just won't cut it.
Olantern measured output:
Note that due to it being a lantern, I had to remove the top cover to measure in my lightbox, as such, the lumen reading tends to be higher as expected... that 517 lumens measure is at turned On, which it sustain for approximately 2 minutes before gradually stepped down to ~460 lumens, again, the reading is higher than quoted by manufacturer due to measurement were taken by removing the top lantern cover. So let's treat this as LED lumens and not out-the-front lumen reading. The usual disclaimer: I do not claim the above measured lumens as authoritative nor an indication of over/under-stating the number given by manufacturer. It's calibrated against some known light output (e.g. SureFire, Elzetta, etc.) so take it with a grain of salt and just as a relative reading.
and the runtime test on High mode:
I do get slightly over 7 hours of runtime compare to what Olight quoted at 6.5 hours, now, ignoring what I measure the unusual high lumens reading with my lightbox, look at that near-flat regulation... Well done Olight!
Below are some pictures showing how bright the Olantern works in a small room...
In conclusion, I'm honestly pretty impress and surprise by how good this Olantern is:
- exchangeable LED screw-on module where Olight could potentially offer other LED options in this configurations
- good runtime
- multi-functional hook design
- pulsing/heart-beat battery status indicator is motion sensitive
- rechargeable via MCC3
- it's bright, can easily lit-up a 5-person tent
however, I do think there are a couple of missing features from the Olantern:
- Discharging function --- support USB output port to charge devices like phones, etc. Supports for QC3.0 would be great!
- Red light --- the Flaming LED is Amber, not Yellow, not Red.
- The battery indicator should last longer as signal, not just 7 seconds if Olight intended it to be a locator signal.
- it's time Olight offer High CRI LED option.
- User replaceable battery pack, "Hey Olight, this Olantern is not cheap"
- Magnet attachment --- which can be place at the top...
for the last missing feature, it's doable via...
voilà, done!
Thanks for reading.
