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It’s winter and more than any time of year you need to be prepared for emergencies. A piece of gear you shouldn’t be without is a flashlight. I’d been eyeing a dynamo powered flashlight for a while and dropped the money on one by Etón corp. I’ve been aware of Etón for a while, I knew that they were partnered with the American Red Cross, but there was something else that caught my eye about one of their products.
About a month ago, I decided to add a Clipray to the cart when I bought a new backup harddrive for my computer. Why a Clipray? Well, not just because it was a dynamo powered flashlight, or it’s durable housing and components, but because it also includes a USB charger. First impressions were good and now that I’ve had a bit of a chance to play around with it and try out the features I decided to put together this review (along with a video).
The Clipray (one of their American Red Cross branded tools) is marketed as a “Hand Crank LED Flashlight with USB Cell Phone Chargers and Carabiner clip, excellent for Emergencies & Outdoors”. Let’s put it to the test. (Video at the end of the blog post)
Just the facts
So here’s the low down:
Features
- Powerful LED flashlight
- Crank powered
- USB cell phone charger
- Hands free carabiner clip
Specs
- 2.25”x 6”x 1.25”(W x H x D) or
- 57.15 x 152.4 x 31.75 mm (W x H x D)
- Weight: 4.9 oz. (138 g)*
*Mine was 134g woohoo! (I love products that are more than honest with specs.)
Reviewing the Features
Well let’s look at the features one by one on the product.
Powerful LED flashlight LED flashlights are always guilty of have great visibility (you can see it) but can suffer from providing great visibility (what you can see with it). Add to that the fact that this is a hand cranked flashlight and you need to be extra careful on how much energy draw your LEDs make. Well as an emergency flashlight this is more than adequate. The visibility was good with it, providing both width and distance. Don’t mistake it for a headlamp or maglite, it’s not that, nor does it claim to be. It’s good at what it meant for.
Crank Let’s analyze this one. It has a crank that feels tough. They didn’t cheap out on materials and put the effort into making something ergonomically pleasing. There’s no bumping of the fingers while you crank and while the knob for your finger could be a millimeter or two bigger, it is very easy to get a good grip on. When you’re not using the crank, it stores away nice and securely.
Powered The cranking functions well, but a sacrifice in putting in better LEDs is that the battery drains more quickly. It’s no problem to charge, but you will get a work out if you need to use it for long periods of time. I found it best to charge when you don’t need it so that it’s ready to use when you do.
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| My son wanted to help out. “It’s so easy, even children can use it!” |
USB cell phone charger I won’t lie, this feature was what made me buy the flashlight. Dynamo flashlights are incredibly common and the technology is pretty well proven, but the ability to charge a USB device was something new to me. This part gave me mixed emotions (as you’ll see on the video) as I forgot that it was an emergency device. If your phone or MP3 player is dead then you’ll need to put in some work (1 minute of steady cranking gave me 3 1/2 minutes of audio with the screen set to turn off after 10 seconds.) I haven’t tested it with a cell phone yet.
Oh, one more thing, the USB only charges while cranking, there’s no ability to charge from the battery unfortunately.
Hands free carabiner clip I assume by hands free they meant that you can slip it on without needing to open the spring loaded carabiner. A bit of pressure does that for you. You’d need to use your hands to open it though. It’s an ok carabiner for the purpose. I don’t see it breaking in the near future, but don’t do heavy bushwhacking with this hanging off your hip. In normal situations it should be fine.
Conclusions
Well, as a emergency device, this is a great tool. I definitely would keep this in my car glove box and in an easy to reach place at home.
The USB charger is a great feature that works, albeit with a bit of work. I bought this with a dream of thru-hiking the AT, PCT or CDT and using the USB charger for charging a cellphone/MP3 device. I think I will first do some weekend tests to see how it works out on those before committing myself to this and giving up my headlamp.
Over all? I’m very happy with it, the kids love to play with it and I’m not afraid of it breaking. Plus, at only $15 on amazon, how can you go wrong? I would tell friends it’s great to keep on hand for emergencies, but to be realistic about the USB charging. I’m also considering this as a gift to friends for their glove box.
Video
