Consider, if you will, the headlamp. I’m willing to bet that you’re picturing an elastic strap with a big lump on the front containing the light and the battery. That is, after all, how most of them are designed. But BioLite has a different idea.
The makers of that incredible camp stove that charges your phone are back with the HeadLamp, a blindingly bright wearable light that puts the battery behind your head, and uses modern LEDs to build a lamp up front that’s thin, comfortable, and extremely bright.
The light itself toggles between modes with the press of a button on the top of the assembly (the button is a little hard to find and press by touch, my one real complaint about the HeadLamp), and you get the option of a wide or focused beam in multiple intensities, a strobe light, and a red lamp for when you don’t want to wake up a tent mate, or mess up your eyes before a stargazing session. And despite the light enclosure’s thin design (which won’t bounce around while you run, bless), you can also swivel the lamp downward at multiple angles to fit your needs.
The battery on the back is connected to the light by a thin cable, most of which runs inside HeadLamp’s extremely comfortable headband. This is a modern, USB-rechargeable gadget—no bulky AAs to be found—and can run for a whopping 40 hours at minimum brightness, or 3.5 at full blast. And trust me, at 330 lumens, it’s bright.
There are no smartphone-connected features, RGB LEDs, or, like, Alexa support here, which is probably a good thing. While HeadLamp takes cues from modern electronics, it’s still just a head lamp at the end of the day, albeit a very nice and thoughtfully designed one. I wore one around at the Outpost trade show last year, and everyone who saw it was jealous.
Many of our readers took advantage of the HeadLamp Kickstarter, which included the StuffSack (which essentially turns the HeadLamp into a lantern) for free, but now, it’s a $15 add-on.