I received a shipping notification from Sofirn … both of my two ordered lanterns have been shipped.
Any discount codes from Sofirn for the LT1S?
Found H7XBL8UY at check out…
Even with discount and “free” CH Post shipping approx $40 is not inexpensive…
Thinking I’ll wait for someone to actually get one in hand, and other color offering besides black
code updated $4 off --WEEU1YL2IH8Q
I’ve got a couple of these now, really like them for stability. Comparisons with the BLF LT aren’t really appropriate. It does warm/cool very easily in either ramp or step mode, doesn’t run Anduril so don’t expect any candle mode or lightning storm stuff. It does the usual signal and SOS flash.
A nice touch is being able to shut off the LEDs on one side of the lantern so the light in your face is dimmed but still projects outwards.
The red modes don’t ramp, and run at lo/med/hi, plus flashing modes. Left red on low all night and the 21700 had depleted by only a quarter. All in all, I’m really pleased with them and bought a second on the strength of the first.
Had a couple of these running for a few weeks and finding it a bit strange nobody is talking about them. I fully appreciated the huge effort of DBSAR during some hard times and thanked him personally re: the LT1 and Mini versions. He’s worked closely with Sofirn, and got excellent results. It’s thanks to him we have a Sofirn lantern designed BLF. 
Personally I love the 4x18650 of my original LT1, and bought a second one. I can do Anduril, but not everyone wants all the modes. These little 21700 versions, produced in the same factory take nothing from his design. They do sport the same lantern head, but with an internal 21700 up the middle, about 40 LEDs , ability to dim one side so it’s not in your face, and 325nm red at 3 levels. Controls are simple, warm/white mix up, or red in 3 brightness, so easy.
I don’t know of another lantern type light that does this, I’m getting the impression Sofirn are being blanked by BLF because the members feel there’s a rip off of the DBSAR lantern? It’s a totally different lantern, way better than the Olight and Nitecore offerings, and ought to be talked about if only to keep the quality factory people at Sofirn producing what we want at a decent price.
There’re two other threads about the LT1s lantern too:
Sofirn New Arrival LT1S (Sofirn New Arrival LT1S)
Sofirn LT1s? (Sofirn LT1s?)
Ah, I hadn’t seen those threads, thanks.
Really neat lanterns. Did a wonderful job with the last power outage. I have two and no regerts 
I can’t understand the use case of a lantern with anduril.
Presumably these are being marketed to campers / backpackers.
Does everyone here camp alone? Because a lantern with a fidget-spinner-esque maze of a UI that requires an instruction manual would be the butt of jokes on any camping/backpacking trip I’ve participated in.
At least this one is simplified to the point it can be explained to another person in a sentence or two how to turn it up/down. The ideal solution for a lantern in general — let alone one with color tint and a bunch of modes — would be to not cram all the controls into a single button, of course.
I would agree with you that the UI on the LT1s is more practical for most people but we are enthusiasts here so Anduril is fun right? For me it’s more about memory and switching between lights. I know Anduril pretty well after a while, so it’s not so much of an issue, this one here while easy is different. The storm mode is fun too with a lantern I think.
All I use Andúril for is on, off, and ramping up and down.
I don't bother with anything else.
That said, the ramping is so nice that I really like Andúril.
The “enthusiast” label is a scary one. If you make an internet forum for wrench enthusiasts, it won’t take long before they are demanding wrenches with bluetooth that are made from copper. While people who actually use wrenches every day as a tool look on with incredulous amusement. Internet forums for enthusiasts make for terrible market research regarding products sold outside the internet forum.
Is a feature-saturated single-button UI for a lantern REALLY a practical thing for anyone who doesn’t get excited over reading flashlight instruction manuals?
I can only speak for my self and my family. I am in my late 60’s and would consider myself an “enthusiast” My wife and grown children are not. When the Q8 (Narsil) came out I got a bunch of them as our power goes out frequently as we are in the countryside and they made great emergency lighting. My wife mastered the basic ramping function and battery check in just a few minutes. She claimed Three of these for her personal use and has never come back to me for help other than to charge the batteries. When the LT1 came out she got two of those she is responsible for. She uses ramping and tint ramping with no issues. She also uses an FW3a (anduril) nightly. These are her favorite user interfaces (because of the ramping function) even though I have given her plenty of other lights with more basic interfaces. Granted she uses only a limited set of the features available but has done so without issues since being introduced to these lights. My grown children who I have given lights with advanced UI’s to have also managed to use them without having to come back to me for help. I think based only on our experience that unless you are one of those cursed to compulsively randomly press buttons you will likely have very few problems
One button is way easier. But to not backlight it with a locator LED? That’s almost a Sofirn trademark, the backlit rubber cap.
Other than that, they get used at home every night for ambient lighting and we’ve had a week away in the campervan and used them every night in there without needing to charge. I really like being able to dim one side and run them on low overnight, it hardly dents the battery.
It’s possible request LT1S version with 2700K and 4000K led’s ?
or with 2700K and 5000K led’s ?
what would be the benefit of this? You can set it to 4000k or 5000k already.
Well 2700K and 4000K would hypothetically open up LED options to something like the 95+ CRI SST-20. I almost bought that Lumintop knockoff due to it’s use of the SST-20, which I greatly prefer over the LH351D.
EDIT: I just noticed this is the thread for the shorty (which doesn’t use the LH351D) and not the mini.
The LT1 can have SST-20’s swapped in, or 219B’s or 519A’s. Doing so involves soldering.
The LT1S MCPCB has a smaller solder footprint with no thermal pad. It would need a custom MCPCB to swap these XP-compatible emitters in. The LT1S uses a 1919 size chip scale package emitter. It’s likely that either the Nichia E17A or E21A will fit, although they are reported to be more difficult to reflow solder than most other emitters.
I couldn’t agree more. I camp a lot during the summer, and all the blinky’s were fun for about 15 minutes when I first got the lantern. It’s missing a red mode as to not attract bugs. Even the ramping is not necessary. A simple 5 or 6 brightness level the whole family can use is all I care about. I normally carry two or three of the 18650 Fenix lights, and at night, they are on red mode. It’s easy enough to flick one over to white light mode for a few minutes when you need to find something, or use a pocket flashlight.
This probably won’t go over well here, but the BLF/Sofirn lanterns are functionally worse actual camping lanterns than a 4 mode light with a plastic wand.
This one in particular looks like it would be a great backpacking lantern except for the UI. Dark-adjusted outdoor eyes sip artificial light, and I’ve regularly gone on multi-day trips without even going through one cell on my flashlight “lantern” that gets left on for hours at a time.
Maybe there will be a more outdoor-oriented version of this, because it looks like they did get a lot right here.