EMERGENCY LIGHT ANYWHERE
For someone who rarely camps, I own too much camping equipment.
But I feel no guilt; this gear is so darn functional. Camping lanterns may be the best example of that. If you’ve ever lost power in your home or apartment, you’d appreciate owning at least one of these. They’re safer than candles, easier to use and store, and much more versatile. Decent work lights too. I tried out four brands and styles of LED lanterns.
The Goal Zero Crush Light Solar Lantern ($20) is a collapsible, lightweight device about 5 in. square and 4 in. high when expanded. It has a small solar panel on top, plus a micro USB outlet for charging. The LEDs can be set to high (60 lumens), medium, low or a “candle flicker” setting. The light lasts for three hours on high. The detachable handle lets you hook this device to almost anything. And it’s all waterproof—for camping, you know. It’s simple, small, inexpensive and easy to store. Goal Zero is known for making a wide range of power stations, solar panels and lights.
The Luci Pro Series Outdoor 2.0 provided my light as I wrote this. The inflatable lantern ($45) might feel like an inexpensive blow-up pool toy, but it’s a serious lantern that can put out 150 lumens of LED light and charge your cell phone. It collapses to a 5-in.-diameter disc and weighs just 6 oz. Choose low, medium or high light output, or the flash setting, perhaps for camping emergencies. It is all waterproof and can be charged by the sun or a USB cable, with a battery indicator light to tell you how you’re doing. On high power, the light lasts about five hours, as advertised. I loved the size, the brightness and the price, but the clear plastic bubble means the light can be a bit glaring.
The Black Diamond Apollo Lantern ($65) runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery or 3 AAs. No solar charge option here. But the highsetting output is 250 lumens of warm white light, the equivalent of a 30-watt incandescent bulb. Instead of preset outputs, this one is dimmable. It has three fold-up legs, plus a metal loop on top for hanging. It’s also capable of charging a cell phone and includes dual USB ports, a nice feature. Black Diamond is well known in camping and outdoors circles.
In this lantern quartet, the Luminaid PackLite Titan is the brightest, the most expensive ($75) and the only one with a red-light setting for night vision. In its white-light high setting, the PackLite emits 300 lumens; it stayed bright for me for nearly seven hours. This one has both micro and regular USB ports, like the Black Diamond, but it adds a large solar panel. It can even charge other devices. The Luminaid’s cool-white light made it less appealing to my eyes, but it’s easily the brightest of this group. It’s also waterproof and it floats.