These are my very first headlamps which I bought. Since I mainly needed headlamps for doing small repair works I didn’t really have the need for a spot so I went with the flood type instead. While searching for headlamps I kinda decided that I’ll go with the COB type instead of a regular LED which is then diffused at the lens. So I bought two of them to see how they fare and these are my findings. I’ll include links where to buy them at the bottom of the post
The one of the left is a COB flood only headlamp and costed me about 1.5$ and the one on the right is a 2 in 1 flood and spot which costed me about 7$, both lights have their price including shipping but without batteries. Lots of body color options to choose from, I chose Dark Grey since it’s the least attention grabbing.
.As usual open them in new tabs to see full res images.
Both are made out of plastic, including the lens and reflector. I would say the 2 in 1 is having a better build quality than the other one.
More pics below showing all sides.
Hinges are all plastic. Their mechanism is not that great. it holds position if you walk or move your head around a bit but if you’re running or jumping it will loose control and fall all the way down. Buttons are rubbery for both, the 2 in 1 has two buttons, one for flood and one for spot.
Battery compartments opens without any issues and fits 3xAAA perfectly. As you can see the COB only light is missing a gasket _(which has no use anyway since these lights are not waterproof_). Also the COB only headlamp uses spring connectors for battery. The screws used in the COB only lights are of the worst kind you may ever come across. Once you unscrew it the head starts to strip quickly. You cannot use those screws multiple times.
These are the lighting modes for these lamps.
COB only headlamp (10 beads)
HIGH, LOW, Beacon Flashing
2 in 1 headlamp (Fake cree emitter, 16 white beads , 8 red beads, 8 green beads)
COB WHITE LOW+SPOT HIGH , SPOT HIGH, SPOT LOW, SPOT STROBE
COB WHITE HIGH, COB RED, COB GREEN
Front shot with lights on.
COB HIGH and COB WHITE LOW+SPOT HIGH
COB HIGH and COB WHITE HIGH
COB HIGH and SPOT HIGH
COB HIGH and SPOT LOW (PWM visible in camera)
Yes you can see those individual LED beads in that 2 in 1 headlamp because it’s not that bright.
Top shot with lights on
COB HIGH and COB WHITE HIGH
COB HIGH and COB WHITE LOW+SPOT HIGH
COB HIGH and SPOT HIGH
As you can see the COB only headlamp has more blue tint than the 2 in 1 headlamp. However this blue tint is not that bad when compared to those old 5mm white LEDs.
I would say COB only is about ~6000K whereas the 2 in 1 headlamp is about ~5700K range.
Now for the Color LEDS
COB LOW and COB RED
COB LOW and COB GREEN
Again PWM is clearly visibly in camera, this affects low modes only.
While the Green light is ON my crappy cellphone camera white balance auto shifted and makes the COB only light looks warm whitish. However this is not the case when seen with the eye.
Range
COB Only in HIGH mode will light up the entire room. Perfect for working with car engine or mains electrical box in the dark. In LOW mode you can read books etc or cook food maybe. Indoors HIGH mode will illuminate upto 6 meters and LOW mode 3 meters. Outdoors HIGH mode will Illuminate your hiking path upto 3-4 meters and LOW mode is not that useful except looking at maps and stuff.
2 in 1 headlamp the HIGH SPOT has a very good range. Outdoors it will throw upto 25-30 meters with ease thanks to narrow reflector and in LOW SPOT upto 10-15 meters or so. Indoors I didn’t find the spot very useful along with the SPOT + COB feature. The white COB has a good tint and indoors 4 meters possible and perfect for reading books. Outdoors it’s pretty much useless and can only be used at reading maps and stuff. Personally I found the RED and GREEN to be just marketing gimmicks
and found absolutely no use for them, however you might find some use for it maybe. RED as usual is not very bright to our eyes and only as bright as 4x 5mm red LEDs, reaches 1 meter max. Maybe campers will love them I don’t know. GREEN is as bright as WHITE COB LOW although it has only 4 beads and it’s throw reaches same distance as WHITE.
For people who don’t want color LED’s I have included a link to a variant which doesn’t have color LED’s and is much cheaper.
Closeup underexposed shot of COB LED beads in action. 10 leds in COB only headlamp(The reflector multiplies this effect. 
) and 16 beads in 2 in 1 headlamp.
Beamshot of 2 in 1 headlamp with crappy camera at 1 meter distance from wall.
COB WHITE LOW + SPOT HIGH
SPOT HIGH
SPOT LOW
SPOT LOW looks as bright as SPOT HIGH because of crappy cellphone camera auto exposure. In real life it’s not that bright as HIGH
Here comes the Teardown
Just remove the 4 screws in the battery bay and the unit comes apart.
The COB only headlamp has it’s driver inside epoxy goo. It’s also missing one screw for it’s PCB.
Fake Cree R5 emitter along with a tiny plastic reflector on the 2 in 1. It’s circuitry looks decent, maybe it’s regulated, who knows?.
And like I said before the Screws used for the COB only headlamp is total crap, stripped their heads.
Now the headbands
The COB only came with the printed headband and is the crappiest of the 2. Yes I know they’re cheap and you get what you pay for but I’m just letting you know what my opinion. They’re of the basic ring type around the head bands and does not have that extra over the head band.
Their elastic action is not bad and does the job of holding the lights on your head without fail. You can also adjust the length according to your needs. They might last for a year maybe. No sweat guards (along with the not so strong angle hinge)so not suitable for jogging.
One major drawback I found was that when I used the headbands for more than 15 minutes or so I could feel the blood supply at my forehead interrupted. This is quite an unpleasant feeling. Maybe this is isolated to my body but I’ve got to say it anyway. I wouldn’t recommend using this headband for longer periods of time if you face similar issues like I did.
The 2 in 1 headlamp also came with this little red flasher which you place it behind your head so that someone will notice you. (apparently the headband also has a whistle with it but I haven’t tested)
It has 2 modes other than OFF. that is constant ON and Blinking (not strobe). I have to say this thing is a major fail, since the diffuser is a thick rubbery material and eats up almost all of the light that tiny SMD LED emits. Can be seen only up to max 6 meters in perfect weather conditions. What were they even thinking???
It comes apart very easily, just remove the rubbery button by pulling it upwards. It works on a single CR2032 battery and came with a dead cell, yeah that’s right.
Fortunately this blinkie can be easily removed from the headband as it serves no purpose at all and whoever finds a purpose for this blinkie cannot use it either due to it’s drawback.
So that’s about it.
Some Thoughts
I really like the brightness of the COB only headlamp since it’s very useful for my needs.
Actually I’m impressed due to it’s price tag of 1.5$.
I find the tint of the 2 in 1 headlamp is much better since I’m not a big fan of cool whites.
Color LED beads serves no purpose for me.
I did not check the heat it produced but it’s not that noticeable since they’re inside a plastic shell.
Both Lights have visible PWM flicker on camera while in LOW modes.
Both their adjustable angle mechanism is not that robust, but will do the job fine. (walking, hiking no problem)
Both lights don’t have any sort of memory
Both lights cannot be turned OFF without cycling through all it’s modes.
Advertised brightness for COB only headlamp is 110lm which I believe could be true.
Advertised brightness for 2 in 1 only headlamp is 2800lm which I believe could never be true. (looks more like 120lm in SPOT mode and 50lm in white COB mode.)
Links to the products
COB only headlamp —> Boruit COB LED Headlamp
Same from another seller (with strobe??) —> New COB 3W LED Head Light
2 in 1 headlamp which I bought —>Mini Headlamp 2800 Lumens R5 LED Waterproof
2 in 1 headlamp without color LED beads (much cheaper). —> 4 Colors Mini Headlight Headlamp COB+LED
I will update the post with measured current draw and estimated runtime figures. :+1:
Update:
Ok I have tested the whistle which came with the 2 in 1 headlamp. You can see the whistle in the headband comparison photo. Result = Total crap whining.
Another gimmick which is useless.
To add insult to injury the worthless mini blinky has an extremely high parasitic drain. It completely drained a new CR2032 within 2 weeks while idle. Pathetic.
Current draw and estimated runtime chart below
didn’t test the current for COB blinky
Advertised wattage was 3 watts for the COB only headlamp and the figure I got was half that at 1.5W. So I guess Chinese Watts = 2 x Actual Watts
