Brinyte HL28 Artemis Headlamp Review

Brinyte introduced the HL28 Artemis, a headlamp that uses two 21700 cells, has white, red, and green emitters, and a zoom feature! Read on!

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Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the Brinyte HL28 Artemis headlamp product page.

Versions

There is only one version of the Brinyte HL28 Artemis headlamp.

Price

I am not seeing the HL28 Artemis in the Brinyte store at this time.  Based on the feature set, I’m guessing this light costs north of $100.

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Short Review

A headlamp incorporating a Fresnel lens?! How neat. This emitter swapping Green/White/Red option is neat and makes this a reasonable all-purpose zoomy, but I wonder how often a user would actually need all the colors at any given time. So it’s neat but useful? I’m less sure of that. Next, the zoomy feature. Normally that’s a big no-go but if you accept it for what it is and move on, you can see that this one does that feature very nicely. So while you might not like the zoom feature, those who do want it probably will like it quite a lot. Finally the power source, two 21700 cells, is good. They’re heavy, but actually balance the whole apparatus quite well.

Long Review

The Big Table

Brinyte HL28 Artemis Headlamp
Emitter:	White (Throw)
Price in USD at publication time:	?
Cell:	2×21700
LVP?	Yes
Switch Type:	E-Switch
Quiescent Current (mA):	?
On-Board Charging?	Yes
Charge Port Type:	Proprietary Magnetic
Power off Charge Port
Claimed Lumens (lm)	220
Candela per Lumen	238.1
Claimed Throw (m)	816
Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s)	1870lux @ 6.071m = 68923cd
Throw (Calculated) (m)	525.1 (64.4% of claim)^
Claimed CCT	–
Measured CCT Range (K)	6300-8300 Kelvin
Item provided for review by:	Brinyte
All my Brinyte reviews!

Brinyte HL28 Artemis Headlamp
Emitter:	White (Flood)
Price in USD at publication time:	?
Cell:	2×21700
Turbo Runtime Graph
LVP?	Yes
Switch Type:	E-Switch
Quiescent Current (mA):	?
On-Board Charging?	Yes
Charge Port Type:	Proprietary Magnetic
Charge Graph
Power off Charge Port
Claimed Lumens (lm)	450
Measured Lumens (at 30s)	568 (126.2% of claim)^
Candela per Lumen	2.3
Claimed Throw (m)	–
Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s)	145lux @ 2.878m = 1201cd
Throw (Calculated) (m)	69.3
Claimed CCT	–
Measured CCT Range (K)	6300-8300 Kelvin
Item provided for review by:	Brinyte
All my Brinyte reviews!

^ Measurement disclaimer:  Testing flashlights is my hobby. I use hobbyist-level equipment for testing, including some I made myself. Try not to get buried in the details of manufacturer specifications versus measurements recorded here; A certain amount of difference (say, 10 or 15%) is perfectly reasonable.

What’s Included

• Brinyte HL28 Artemis headlamp
• Brinyte 5000mAh 21700 (2)
• Charging cable (USB to proprietary magnetic)

Package and Manual

I did not receive a manual. I actually didn’t receive a production package at all, so I didn’t receive the case or spare o-rings, either.

Build Quality and Disassembly

The Brinyte HL28 Artemis headlamp is a lot to take in, really. Particularly in that it doesn’t really fit my usual flashlight review photography format – so sorry if these photos end up being a bit disjointed or in poor order.

The HL28 Artemis shipped to me already built onto the headband. That’s probably how you’ll receive it too, and that’s a good thing. There are really quite a lot of parts here.

As I said above, the cell carrier (2×21700) provides a good balance to the unit overall.  That there’s a zoomy headlamp part does mean there’s a good bit of weight out front. So the weight of two cells being directly on the back of the head (“opposite to” the light) is great. A single 18650 (for example) wouldn’t work here – the light would probably tip forward and off your head, crashing into your nose and leaving you as an embarrassed puddle in the dark.

The zoom feature has a nice big barrel for grip.  Twisting it is much like twisting the zoom of a camera lens. It’s very smooth.

While on one’s head, it’s possible to point the light up or down, too. The travel is from somewhere in the “reading a map” area up to somewhere in the “looking for bats” area.

And when moved around, the light stays put quite well, due to these ratchets you can see below.

Yere you can see the double-barrel cell setup. The bays are not connected physically – you must remove these tailcaps for each bay. They are likely connected electronically, though, but more on that later.

Here’s my biggest complaint about this light. These tailcaps are very hard to manipulate.  You can see that the threads are not anodized. They’re also very fine. But if you think about how the cell goes into the light, you can see that these are essentially caps that go around the cell. (That part is fine.) But then you couple that with the springs… and you’re pressing the tailcap into the body against a cell and working on unanodized fine aluminum threads. It is not smooth at all. In fact, and as you can see on my finger below, the threads shredded more than once when I was reinstalling the tailcaps.

The flip side of that information is that you might literally never choose to remove the tailcaps. Since the light has built-in charging, you can just charge the light as is and never remove the cells at all. I would strongly recommend that, because interfacing with these threads on these tailcaps is not fun at all.

It doesn’t seem to be possible to remove very much out of the headlamp without a real and proper disassembly. For example, these wires into the light do not come out when this thumbscrew is removed.

Size and Comps

I don’t see an official size listed (and really that’d be a difficult thing to specify). But I can weigh the light. It’s not very light!

Weight: 517g (with cells)

If the flashlight will headstand, I’ll show it here (usually the third photo).  If the flashlight will tailstand, I’ll show that here, too (usually the fourth photo).

Here’s the test light with the venerable Convoy S2+.  Mine’s a custom “baked” edition Nichia 219b triple.  A very nice 18650 light.

And here’s the light beside my custom engraved TorchLAB BOSS 35, an 18350 light.  I reviewed the aluminum version of that light in both 35 and 70 formats.

Retention and Carry

The Brinyte HL28 Artemis headlamp is only a headlamp, and nothing else. It isn’t even designed to come of of the headband, and removing it would probably be an accomplishment.

The headband carries the heavy unit quite well. It’s also fairly adjustable, too. The backside (where the cells are) has a grippy silicone holder that rests against your head.

The front side has an even softer pad on the back of this hard plastic piece.  Both are good, and both serve to keep the light in place very securely.

The over-the-top band is likely removable, but I won’t cover that because you will not want to remove it. This isn’t a light that can be supported by just an around-the-head headband.

Power and Runtime

The Brinyte HL28 Artemis headlamp runs on two 21700 cells, and they are included with the package. They’re held in place by two tailcaps.

That “coin slot” is actually probably better referred to as a “coins” slot – three pennies fit in there just about right. If you use something else, you’ll scratch these fine edges on the slot, too, so really, use something thickish. Be sure to get those threads exactly caught properly, or you’ll mess up the threads. THEN go ahead with your coins to tighten the tailcaps.

The power pack seen above (two 21700 cells) is not hardwired to the headlamp. That’s surprising to me since nothing else is really removable at all. What does connect the battery to the headlamp is this barrel plug.

And you might think, “awesome, I can power this headlamp from a normal barrel plug-type power source!” But no, this “12V-looking” barrel plug runs at the voltage of a single lithium-ion cell – 4.2V. AND the headlamp itself has the male plug. Brinyte includes two 5000mAh 21700 cells in the package. They’re good cells, and seemingly “normal.”

There’s actually one difference in these cells and most 21700 cells – these have USB-C charging! I did not test that feature since the light itself has charging (and again, I don’t really suggest you remove the cells!)

The battery pack is covered in a silicone protector but the battery pack doesn’t come out in any convenient way. if you disconnect the power, though, the metal case will slide out with some effort. Honestly, the effort of removing this entirely is less than the effort of swapping the cells through the removable tailcaps.

The cells go into the HL28 Artemis in the “usual” way (so to speak). That’s with the positive end (the button) going in first. You might look at the photo below and think that these cells are just swimming in that cavity – and you wouldn’t be too wrong. But don’t forget that the tailcap actually goes over the cell, too. So there has to be room around the cell for the wall thickness of the tailcap. Even so, there is a noticeable cell rattle.

Here’s one runtime. Because this light has an infinite ramp with the rotary and not even any detents to delineate modes at all, I tested only the highest output on the white mode. I have no reason to believe the performance on any of the emitter options would be different in graph shape than this runtime with the white mode.

Yes, all that bouncing around is visible. I am not sure why this is happening, but it’s really quite visible during usage.

I don’t believe it’s possible to run the HL28 on just one cell. It is possible, however, to run the HL28 on other cell sizes that fit – for example two 18650 cells, or two 20700 cells – those will work. Brinyte doesn’t really specify this on their product page, but I wouldn’t recommend mixing cell types.

Charging

There’s a built-in charging port on the cell holder. This is a proprietary magnetic connection.

Brinyte includes a charging cable, which is USB to proprietary magnetic. However, you can remove the cells themselves, and charge them via USB-C (since they have a USB-C port) or charge them in a regular bay charger.

Here’s a charge graph. I noticed something that the manual states explicitly. When charging, all four green charging indicator lights will go solid green before the charge reaches 100%. The product page says that “80-99%” is four solid green indicators. The indication during charging is a little finder detail than with the battery check (seen below), though.

One green blinking: 0-20% charge
One steady, one blinking: 20-40% charge
Two steady, one blinking: 40-60% charge
Three steady, one blinking: 60-80% charge
Four steady: 80-99% charge

It’s also possible to check the charge by tapping the charge port – it’s capacitive (I guess?) and will respond by lighting the appropriate number of LEDs, as follows:

One Green: 0-25% charge
Two Green: 25-50% charge
Three Green: 50-75% charge
Four Green: 75-100% charge

Pulse Width Modulation

Just a representative sample of the PWM – there is no PWM. The lowest and highest with all 3 emitters is shown (the order doesn’t actually matter, since there’s no PWM at all.)

Here you can see a “baseline” – a chart with almost no light hitting the sensor.

Then there’s the Ultrafire WF-602C flashlight, which has some of the worst PWM I’ve seen. It’s so bad that I used a post about it to explain PWM! Here are multiple timescales (10ms, 5ms, 2ms, 1ms, 0.5ms, 0.2ms) to make comparing this “worst” PWM light to the test light easier. That post also explains why I didn’t test the WF-602C at the usual 50us scale.

User Interface and Operation

For operating the output, there’s just one switch. It’s this rotary dial that goes from “clicked off” to “fully on” over approximately 3/4 of a rotation.

The switch is rotary only, there’s no press feature. With the light mounted on your head in the normal way, this rotary switch is on your right-hand side. I’m not sure where it’ll be if you’re in Australia, though.

There’s also the possibility of switching emitters. This is not a filter – it’s actually physically switching between three actual emitters. It’s a very neat feature and does work quite nicely.

There’s really no point in a UI table.  Twisting the dial in a clockwise direction will increase the output. Twisting the dial in a counterclockwise direction will decrease the output, all the way to off. There’s a nice click from the switch when the light is “fully off,” which I appreciate.

LED and Beam

Brinyte does not state what emitters are used in the HL28. As I said above, there are three actual emitters.

In an unusual design feature, there’s a Fresnel lens being used for beam shape. When zoomed all the way tight, the emitter shape is projected very clearly, and the result is very throwy. When zoomed all the way out, the flood is very even (except on the edges, which seem a bit brighter).

LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)

 

 

 

 

Beamshots

These beamshots are always with the following settings:  f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure. These photos are taken at floor level and the beam hits the ceiling around 9 feet away.

 

 

Tint vs BLF-348 (KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b version) (affiliate link)

I keep the test flashlight on the left, and the BLF-348 reference flashlight on the right.

 

 

I compare everything to the KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b BLF-348 because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!

Conclusion

What I like

• Neat application of the Fresnel lens
• Zoomy works well (as a mechanism: it’s smooth)
• Complete package includes these two 21700 cells
• Three emitter color options are included
• Rotary dial works very well
• Rotary dial has a positive click when off
• Battery check feature on the charge port

What I don’t like

• Removing and reinstalling the tailcaps is a massive pain
• Barrel connector seems pointless – it’s not useful for any other type of common barrel
• Proprietary magnetic charging

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Notes

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