Confession time. I bought a $16.95, Chinese-made LED headlamp back in October. Every night it's used, I feel a little guilty as an America-first kind of guy. But this light is hands down one of my best gear purchases in years.
In fact, I just returned home from a night out on snowshoes above treeline in the Chugach Mountains. It is near 1 a.m. Up high, the snow was close to knee deep in places, despite Anchorage's snow-sparse winter. It was dark. The wind was gusting to 30 mph or so at times. Some snow was moving around. In places, the old snowshoe track I was trying to find was drifted in.
Anyone who has spent time in the dark trying to find a trail like this knows what a pain that is. Light is a godsend. Especially enough light to illuminate the scene nearly the way car headlights do.
This cheap-o headlight claims to pump out 3,000 lumens, a standardized measure of light output. It does not put out that much light. That claim is hooey.
The headlights on my truck, according to a chart for light bulbs, throw about 1,200 lumens on high. This headlamp does not throw that much. I have a pair of bike lights that reputable bicycling websites have measured at 700 lumens and 1,200 lumens, respectively.
This light is somewhere between the two though, I never expected it to match the performance of the lesser of those lights.
Better batteries
Truth be told, this light was bought solely because it was cheap, had a decent looking headband, and came with a battery case that holds two 18650 lithium batteries. Those batteries are worth another column.
Suffice to say, if you aren't already using them you should be. They're lighter than MiNH or NiCad batteries, hold more power, and last longer. They are the cells used in the battery packs for all high-end bike lights these days.
If, however, you've gone through as many of those battery packs as I have, and later taken them apart only to find out that they are dead because one of the four cells has died, you too might want a battery pack that can use individual 18650s. If one goes dead, pull it out, recycle it, replace it, and save some money while helping the environment.
Anyway, before cutting this particular headlamp apart and splicing in an electrical connector to hook the battery holder to a much pricier bike light and then jerry-rigging an attachment between the bike light and the headband, I decided it would be wise to try the headlamp as is.
Why? Just because.
It seemed the sensible thing to do.
Go-to light
The first positive discovery involved ease of use. Headlamp X, as it will be called from here on, had a big, square on-off switch between the two smallish LED lights that provide illumination. The bikes lights all have a switch mounted on the backs of the lights. Those switches are a pain to get at when using the lights as headlamps.
Ease of use encouraged regular use of Headlamp X. It became the go-to light for night time jaunts. I figured it would sooner or later get wet and fail. It didn't. It's obviously not waterproof, but it's clearly water resistant enough to put up with the rain and wet snow of a Southcentral Alaska fall.
It's now lasted through a couple months of that, and we're finally, hopefully, into the season when rain becomes less common -- though you wouldn't know it this week.
So this light, for its less than $20 price (postage from China was free), would qualify as a good buy if it failed tomorrow. A date night at the movies costs you significantly more than $20, and this light has lit up more entertainment than a half dozen or more movies.
Pulsating light option
But here's what I really like about the light.
Of the five functions provided by the multi-function switch -- left lighthead alone, right lighthead alone, both lightheads together, and both lightheads flashing -- there is one unique function: two lightheads pulsating intermittently.
From beneath this headlamp, you can barely tell this is happening. To anyone meeting you on a trail, or more importantly a residential street, you look like an emergency vehicle.
I've actually had cars stop -- a life-saving rarity on Anchorage streets -- on slippery-street days as the drivers tried to figure out the meaning of those pulsating lights approaching. I don't exactly like to scare neighbors into stopping their motor vehicles, given that everyone in America is in a hurry all the time.
But considering the option between getting hit by a car or causing sometime stop ...
Let's put it this way: When a pedestrian or cyclist gets hit by a car, they invariably lose. I don't want to lose. So on the short stretch of street the dog and I use coming home after nighttime adventures in the Chugach, the light gets clicked to that pulsating configuration.
We can barely tell the light is flashing, but everyone else certainly can. That alone makes this light worth the price.
That it will run for more than two hours out in the backcountry on a couple 18650s is a bonus. I carry a spare pair if necessary. They weigh little in the pack and are easy to swap out.
They, and this headlamp, are a reminder that technology is our friend. Sure, that comes with the caveat "only when it works,'' but it's hard for me to imagine the reaction of some Dena'ina Indian of the 1700s if I'd have met him on a trail above Anchorage in the dark of night.
He'd surely have thought me some sort of God. But in the 21st century, all I am is some cheap Alaskan who got tempted by China's new capitalism.
And as a guy who grew up in the Cold War era, I must admit it is almost as difficult to wrap my head around those last three words as it is to grasp the idea that a $16.95 headlamp will perform the way this one does.
It wasn't that long ago that headlamps costing $100 and up couldn't begin to come close to matching this cheap-o. And now they're in the bottom of a basket in the mudroom, unlikely to ever be used again.
Contact Craig Medred at craig@alaskadispatch.com. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com.