what's up everybody welcome to another REI co-op gear guide my name is Miranda
and today we're gonna be talking about the best headlamps that you can find at
REI this year
so to choose these headlamps we talk to customers we looked at reviews we talk
to them in the store when they were buying stuff and then we took a bunch of
headlamps out and we texted them in the field and this is what we came up with
so our first category is best headlamp for camping and everyday use and for
this we chose the Black Diamond spot 325
so it choosing the best headlamp for camping and everyday use we looked for
something that had a high max lumen output as well as a long runtime and a
variety of different light beams and types so with the spot 325 you get a max
lumen of 325 which that's gonna be when it has both the flood and the spot light
turned on you have three essentially three light settings with the spot you
have the basic spot light and then you have the flood and you have a red light
setting kind of cool thing about this headlamp is that has a locking feature
so you can press and hold the buttons on top of this headlamp
and that's going to lock it so that it won't turn on in your pack or in your
pocket or anything like that which can be a really easy way to drain your
batteries and you're out of luck there there's also a memory setting on this
headlamp so when the light is on you can press and hold to dim it so to bring it
up to max and then dim it down again and if you swipe on the side here the
headlamp will go all the way up to its max brightness and then you can swipe
again and will go back down to whatever the dimness was II had set the light at
the spot 325 has a waterproof rating of ipx8 which means that it can basically
be submerged in water for one point one meters of water for up to 30 minutes
the runtime on this light varies when it's on its highest output setting
you're gonna get about 4 hours of runtime and when it's on its lowest
setting you're gonna get 200 hours of brightness so that's when that memory
brighten or that memory setting really comes in handy you can just set it to
just what you need to be able to see in that light that's got it for the spot
325 and our next category is best headlamp you can get for under $20 for
that we chose petals Tokina the Petzl Tokina is just a really good value
headlamp you get about 250 lumens of light at the maximum setting but there
are three light settings on this so there's the low light setting the medium
light setting and then the max 250 lumens light setting at this max setting
you're gonna get about 2 hours of runtime
and then at this low light setting you get about 120 hours at runtime one thing
to note with the Tokina is that there is no red light so red lights are helpful
for preserving your night vision as well as not blinding your friends across the
campfire but you do have this a courtesy tilt feature on this headlamp so you can
tilt it away from the eyes of the people across from you there is an IP X rating
of four on this so that means that it's okay in light splashes of water but
that's about it our next category for headlamps are the
best rechargeable headlamps and for this we've chosen the Petzl
active core the Petzl active coral battery pack from Petzl but it can also
run off of triple-a batteries this headland gives you a whopping 450 lumens
of light at its maximum brightness but you do get three different white light
settings as well as a red light setting so you have your low light your medium
light and then your max brightness at this max brightness you get around 2
hours of runtime and then at that low light setting you're gonna get about 130
hours of runtime this has an IP X rating of 4 which again just means light
splashes of water and like I mentioned it can run off of that core battery pack
that comes with the headlamp and that's rechargeable via USB but in a pinch you
can also run this headlamp off of triple A's as we are doing here one thing to
note is that you will get longer runtime out of the active core battery pack and
you will out of triple A's but this is really nice to have if you don't have
the ability to charge the battery pack when you're out in the field you also
have a reflective strap on the active core and then there is also a whistle on
the strap
so yeah that's the octa-core our last category for headlamps our best
lightweight headlamps and for this we have chosen the violight headlamp 330 so
we chose the bio light headlamp because it's a really streamlined and
lightweight design the strap on this headlamp almost feels like a sweatband
and while you have this bulky battery pack in the back you barely notice it
because the whole headlamp weighs only around 2.4 ounces this is USB
rechargeable so you can plug it in to charge it up and it does charge pretty
quickly it has a couple different light settings and on the brightest setting
you get about three-and-a-half hours of runtime on the lowest light setting you
get 40 hours of runtime this is an IP X rating of 4 so again weather resistant
with these different light settings you get a wide light floodlight spot light
as well as a red light setting and a strobe so just a lot of versatility and
again it has that courtesy tilt as I like to call it that's it for headlamps
if you have any other questions you can come into the store and talk to the
experts there or try out headlamps and you haven't already go ahead and
subscribe and we will see you on the trail