GeekPi

In my last post, I described the weakness of LED lighting in the home and for general illumination – this product is what I see as an excellent implementation of the light emitting diode technology; low power consumption and rugged capabilities. Mid last year, the company SunNight Solar (www.sunnightsolar.com) sent me one of their first production solar flashlights to review (#276, to be exact). I’ve been living with and playing with the flashlight for a year now, and I can honestly say, this thing is a winner.

So here’s the breakdown of the product. These guys are trying to change the world, one flashlight at a time. Yeah, I know it sounds cheesy, but it seems like they’re doing a pretty good job at it. They designed these things to be used in the 3rd world, where they don’t have access to cheap and simple electricity. The company website goes into detail of the economics of this light versus a standard d-cell flashlight, and claim it’ll save a boat load of money for tribal groups and off-grid 3rd world folks. What it comes down to is you leave this thing sitting out in the sun, and it’ll give you cheap light 8 hours a night, night after night. The thing is, this comes pretty handy for the typical American schmo too. Pack it in your emergency kit, car, camping backpack, be ready for a power outage, it has a ton of uses and doesn’t need much to keep it going over the long run – just some rechargeable AA batteries every couple years.

The lowdown

Since this LED flashlight is designed to be cheap enough for the 3rd world, they’ve made it very simple to use and maintain. First of all, it has a solar panel. All you have to do is leave it sitting in the sun, and it’ll stay charged. I leave mine lamp down, sitting on the windowsill. That seems to work pretty well, but ideally you’d want it in direct sunlight. One of the next outward features you’ll notice is the carabiner-like clip at the top. This lets you hang this up in your tent at night and shine downwards as an area light, and as an easy way to clip it to your gear. A nice touch.

The flashlight uses 3 NiMh AA batteries, which they claim with a full charge, will power the flashlight up to 8 hours in low power mode. A day left in the sun, should be enough to fully recharge the batteries – cloudy days, not so much. They’ll handle 750-1000 nights of use until needing to be replaced. I believe them, as I’ve seen long life with my sample. A nice touch is how they’ve designed the water resistant battery slots. Each battery slot can be rotated open and shut with a coin. When the batteries poop out, it’s easy to replace them.

As for the business end of the flashlight, it’s decked out with 9 led bulbs. Depending on what mode you run it in, 6 will blaze for flashlight use, and in ‘ambient lighting’ mode the middle three will illuminate. They’re controlled by a little rubber button on the side of the torch. It has three levels of brightness for the flashlight mode, and three levels for the ambient light mode. At full brightness, I measured 40 foot candles at a little over a foot away, 20 foot candles at medium and 10 on low. As you can see, it has a pretty nice center spread of light – no match for a mag light for output, but I’d say they serve entirely different purposes. A mag light can’t be left out in the sun to recharge.

Don’t expect to be blown away by the light output. I wouldn’t use it as my only flashlight when camping, but it does make for a good short distance and ambient light flashlight. The company has been getting quite a bit of press lately from O-magazine, Readers Digest, Time and Newsweek. For the price of $26, I’d say it’s a pretty good value. I’ll be buying some more for my emergency kits.

A Geekpi Approved Gadget*

*other than being given the flashlight to review for free, I was not paid for this review and have given my honest opinion.

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