Olight kicked off their latest flash sale, which is set to run thru 11:59pm ET May 18, 2023.
There’s a lot of new flashlights and related EDC (everyday carry) gear on sale. Here, I’ll focus on what I feel are the highlights.
To start off, Olight has a new i5R rechargeable flashlight with carbon fiber finish. They say this is a fusion of carbon fiber and aluminum alloy.
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It delivers up to 350 lumens of brightness, and is powered by a 14500 (AA-sized) Li-ion battery that recharges via built-in USB-C port.
Olight sent over an i5R test sample, and I’m loving the decorative finish. I was previously sold on the i5T design. This is similar, but is designed around the included Li-ion battery. In a pinch, you can use standard AA batteries too.
Although the 14500 cell is customized with a built-in USB charging port, it’s not proprietary to Olight.
The i5R in carbon fiber is $51.99 by itself, and featured in several bundle deals.
Olight also sent over a Baton 3 Pro Max flashlight for review, in orange. I’m a fan of the smaller Baton 3’s in orange, and the same sentiment applies here.
I was mistaken at first, and thought this was the Baton 3 Pro. The Baton 3 Pro is engineered for 18650-sized batteries, while the Pro Max is engineered for higher capacity 21700-sized batteries. It’s larger, brighter, and has more features.
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The Pro Max has a “shake to wake” feature, where a quick shake activates the battery indicator. I found this quicker than what I normally do, which is to turn the flashlight on for a moment.
The Baton 3 Pro Max is a comfortable size. While I like to think I prefer the slightly smaller Baton 3 Pro, it’s hard to argue with more power and a higher capacity battery – if that’s what you’re looking for.
My test sample has a neutral white emitter, and you can also opt for cool white.
There’s another new model, with magnesium alloy housing and desert tan finish.
Lastly, the Baton 3 Pro Max has an upgraded proximity sensor to help protect your pocket from unintentional activation.
It’s priced at $62.99 by itself, and as usual there are a bunch of bundle deals.
Like Olight’s other 18650 and 21700 LED flashlights, the Baton 3 Pro Max has a proprietary battery and is recharged via their special magnetic tailcap charger.
Also new is the O’Pen Glow, a rechargeable penlight, pen, and laser pointer that recharges via an upright docking base.
As usual, Olight has coupons for newly registered users, as well as free gift items depending on how much you spend.
The sale ends at 11:59pm ET 5/18/23, while supplies last.
Olight has other flashlights on sale too. The S2R Baton II is under $48, and while it’s not their latest generation flashlight, it’s a tried-and-true performer. The Warrior Mini 2 is also on sale, in black, and for only a few dollars more than the Baton 3 Pro.
The Warrior Mini 2 has the tactical-style momentary-on tailcap, which I like. It’s about the same height as the Baton 3 Pro, but slimmer, due to its 18650-sized battery. The Baton 3 Pro (not the Max) is shorter due to not having the special tailcap.
MKY
Stuart –
Typo
The Pro Max has a “shake to wake” feature, where a quick shake activates the battery indicator. I found this quicker than what I normally do, which is to ***the*** flashlight on for a moment
Stuart
Thank you! *fixed*
carl
I’m curious why we see so much coverage of Olight here and not any of the other competing brands? They’ve never been a favorite of mine, but I don’t have an issue with them. I simply find the exclusion of brands like Fenix, Nitecore, etc interesting.
Jason T.
Olight has a pretty extensive marketing strategy and they frequently do sales such as this. Olight is a good quality product. I carried them for a couple years as my EDC light, however I found their runtimes were never quite as good as other brands. I carry Streamlight now because it better meets my needs.
Stuart
Urgency.
I have a bunch of purchased lights waiting for photos and formal writeup. There’s no rush, leading me to tend to drag my feet a bit, as there’s a lot of other things going on.
My Olight contact will email or message me about the next flash sale, mention what they’re launching, and send a sample or two that sound interesting. The flash sale then has specific start and end dates.
Readers have different wants. Let’s say you might be interested in the Baton 3 Pro Max. It’s on sale now. It won’t be on sale next week. Next flash sale, maybe a new Warrior 3 Pro Ultra will be launched at introductory promo pricing, or a different color of Perun or the compact Baton 3.
I’m testing the Baton 3 Pro Max now. If I review it next week, I’d say to wait until the next flash sale, but who knows when that might be? Olight tends to have flash sales once a month, but the selection always changes.
I gave up trying to track readers’ “when will [certain model] be on sale again?” requests with it simply being easier to briefly cover the once-a-month-or-so flash sales.
If I share my thoughts after say 6 months, a new model or revision might be available. The same happens with Fenix and Nightcore, but not as much.
Some of the products will receive long-term reviews, but for others, there’s a small window of relevancy, giving rise to a greater sense of “now or never” urgency.
James+C
I think the point is most of your flashlight coverage is olight. If I use your search tool for “flashlight” I get a page with the most recent 20 posts (at least on mobile). Of those 20, 12 are specifically about olight.
A lot of these are about flash sales (which they do frequently) and it makes total sense you’re just passing this info on to your readers.
Perhaps you could dilute the olight posts with info on other manufacturers’ sales. E.g. Acebeam is currently having a 9th anniversary sale with some pretty good deals.
Stuart
I don’t know if I can promise to keep on top of all the sales, but I’ll pick up the pace on flashlight reviews until I clear my backlog.
carl
Exactly. It’s very Olight centric. I don’t believe it to be the case but it almost comes across to me as if there’s some strange nefarious under the table dealings going on with Olight.
I have no idea if other brands do flash sales as often or not, or what frequency various online vendors like BrightGuy or Battery Junction do flash sales. But I’d like to know about them just as much as Olight’s sales, maybe more as I tend to prefer some of them over Olight.
carl
I’m not talking about reviews, or asking for specific models. I’m just curious about the relative lack of coverage on the many worthy alternative brands out on the market and whatever they’re releasing or putting on sale.
Maybe Olight’s marketing is that much more active/aggressive, I don’t know. All I can say is it comes across as an unintentional pro-Olight bias to me after following this site as long as I have.
Stuart
Olight tends to make it easy.
With other brands, it’s not “here’s what we’re coming out with,” it’s “sign up for our affiliate program, you can make money.”
I might say “well, can you tell me about…?” and things slow down until some time later “sign up for our affiliate program to start making money.”
If you’re saying you want regular updates into what flashlight brands are doing, I can certainly do that. I’ve been hesitant to take on more samples (purchased or otherwise) but will reassess after I catch up.
Carl
Regular updates would be nice. My days of lurking the candlepowerforums or contributing reviews there are behind me, but I’m still interested in who is doing what and the general state of the industry. I recently bought a new headlamp, and am sure I’ll be looking for other new lights eventually.
I could definitely see replacing some of my older lights with newer ones if higher output high CRI options become more affordable.
Realu
Because he gets paid. Olight has a reputation for paying left and right for positive reviews and coverage.
Stuart
I’ve never been offered or given money for Olight reviews or coverage. I have had maybe 4 reps, and none have ever made any improper offers.
Can you provide links or examples of reviewers who have? A couple of people have accused this before, but nobody can ever provide examples. It seems to just be another unsubstantiated internet rumor.
Stuart
I’m still waiting for you to provide any examples of “Olight paying left and right for positive reviews and coverage.”
JR Ramos
A couple polite corrections:
The carbon fiber light (it’s pretty nifty) is more than a decorative finish as we see in most products (whether it’s a vinyl wrap or textured plastic or an actual thin layer of carbon cloth). That said, it serves zero purpose in this or any flashlight other than being really nice to look at. But with this one they actually went to surprising lengths to mill the host and actually do a legit carbon layup. I don’t know why, all things considered, but they actually did it “right”…kind of like carbon-wrapped aluminum arrow shafts.
Second, that 14500 IS PROPRIETARY. As delivered, anyway. They use a buck/boost driver mounted on the cell to get a consistent regulated 2.4V output. I’m not positive because I’ve yet to unwrap one of my cells and I can’t access the driver in the lights I have without destruction, but I suspect they boost the 2.4V back up to something usable by the emitter (for these types of discrete emitters I don’t believe there are any that exist which can light up at such a low 2.4V, not even the reds). There is no other cell or cell/driver combination on the market like this. You cannot put a normal 3.7V 14500 cell in this light, and you cannot charge this cell in a normal charger – USB only.
They had a nice factory production video about the carbon layup that they put out on youtube last fall/winter.
Stuart
Thanks!
That’s exactly why I described it as decorative. =)
Thanks – it wasn’t clear to me that this only works with Li-ion batteries set to 2.4V . I wonder why; other 14600-compatible flashlights that also work with alkaline batteries work fine with widely available cells.
JR Ramos
At first they were suggesting it was, in fact, a “solid” carbon host, which led people to speculate that they’d routed some wires/contacts through a port or something, but then details became more clear. It’s just a curious choice that they would go through the expense of a real lay-up – it’s not increasing strength in a flashlight (it’s actually decreasing crush resistance here) and it isn’t saving any weight either. But it’s quite pretty. 🙂
I need to just unwrap one of these cells and see if I can figure out exactly what’s going on with the board. It’s a regular 3.7v lithium cell in there but they’re bucking it before it gets to the driver. I wish the driver were accessible like most flashlights so we could get a peek at the circuits (or hey, if Olight would ever share actual tech details with people, right…). I say “regular cell” but it’s possible that it’s a custom cell (shorter) to make room for the buck/charging add-on boards under the wrapper. Lights that can take single cell alkaline/NiMH cells in addition to li-ion necessarily have a boost driver if not a nice buck/boost for max efficiency. The majority of flashlight drivers are just simple current-regulating designs which aren’t very efficient electrically.