Headlamps have gone from being quite exotic and expensive items to more reasonable prices but while they used incandescent globes they were always power-hungry, battery-eating things. Unfortunately, the more energy efficient globes made by, for example, Welch Allyn are more expensive.
Then the manufacturers switched to using white LEDs and the power demands fell. The headlights were of course still expensive, but the battery life went up (or the brightness went up). Then two things intervened here: the cost of the most common white LEDs with adequate power (often by Cree) fell as the production volumes went up, and manufacturing switched to Asia to cut costs. Some other vendors came into the market: mass vendors such as Walmart and battery companies started to sell much cheaper units, and then the Asian OEMs started to sell direct via the web.
Traditionally one thinks of Asian products as being 'cheap and nasty', but that ignores the fact that many western vendors get their gear made in Asia these days anyhow. And the Asian manufacturers are becoming fast learners: they see the specifications being set by the western companies and have to meet them. So they do - and then they branch out. Which brings us to this headlamp.
The unit reviewed was supplied by www.gearbest.com, with a retail price of about $27. A BPL discount may become available. Photos are largely from the Gearbest and Cree websites.
Incidentally, I did find several other Sunrei headlamps which appeared to also be called Sports 3, but they had slightly different text after the 'Sports 3' part of the label. They looked different. All very strange, but somewhat typical.
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- Introduction
- Description
- Beam shaping
- Opening the battery case
- IPX6 rating
- Headstrap
- Brightness and battery life
- Field testing
# WORDS: 1710
# PHOTOS: 9
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Discussion
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Companion forum thread to:
Sunrei Headlamp Spotlite Review
Is the circuitry regulated? Are the headlamps actually compatible for use with lithiums?
When you exploit the labor of your country, it makes no difference if you are Asian or not. South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, have good records. China does not. There are several non Asian countries that I would not buy from, if their products were available. They're not.
See Chaff thread…
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=103490&skip_to_post=875032#875032
Thanks for Roger’s review,
and yes GearBest has a promotion code for it, if you like it, then please don’t miss it.
SUNREE Sports 3 Headlamp
coupon: SUNREEGB
price: $24.99
In english it called ” sunree “
I have yet to find (with one exception) any device which can take alkaline AA batteries but not lithium AAs. They are pretty much the same voltage after all. Ditto for AAAs.
The one exception was ages ago: a Petzl headlight with an incandescent bulb. It was over-driven by the alkaline batteries, surviving by grace of the internal resistance of the alkaline batteries. When you used lithiums the internal resistance was much lower, and the bulb blew. But that was a silly design in a previous era.
Actually, white LEDs are very tolerant of small voltage deviations, and the CREE LED used is not driven at full rated power anyhow. To use that CREE LED at its full rated current you would need to heat sink it!
Cheers
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