Olight Obulb Pro Lantern Review

The Olight Obulb Pro is a new lantern that not only offers a Bluetooth user interface, it is also bigger than previous Obulbs. Read on!

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Official Specs and Features

Here’s a referral link to the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern product page.

Versions

There’s just one Olight Obulb Pro Lantern, but there are options.  Namely, body color – black, blue, OD green, grey, orange (seen here).

Price

The MSRP of the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern is $39.99.

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Short Review

I have quite a few of these Obulbs.  I love them. They’re so useful and versatile. The addition of Bluetooth is certainly neat and in some cases probably very useful. Also, note that the Pro is actually notably bigger than the previous versions. That’s useful, too.

Long Review

What’s Included

• Olight Obulb Pro Lantern
• Sticky magnetic mount base
• Googly eyes (2)
• Manual and papers
• Olight MCC Charger (in my case – the listing says a charging cable is not included)

Package and Manual

Build Quality and Disassembly

I’m not going to test the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern with runtime graphs, and charge graphs… But the photos here can probably give you a great idea if you need one. I can easily recommend the Obulb MC and if you need a bigger size or Bluetooth, then this is a great option!

Size and Comps

Body Diameter: 2.56 in (65 mm)
Height: 2.28 in (58 mm)
Weight: 3.7 oz (105 g) (Including Battery)

Here’s the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern beside the Obulb MC (at right).

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.

The all-important size comparison.  Olight Obulb Pro Lantern beside the Obulb MC.

Retention and Carry

The magnetic charging base is very useful for attaching the Obulb Pro to many places.

In the past, I honestly thought this little metal coin was just that – an Olight challenge coin of sorts.

But no, this thing cleverly has a sticky back, and can be stuck somewhere…  Couple that with the magnet base of the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern, and you have a “stick anywhere” (once) base for placing the lantern!  I find that to be exceptionally clever.

Of course, the magnetic base of the Obulb Pro itself can be stuck to more places than just this metal sticky thing.  The magnet holds the Obulb Pro very securely.

Power and Runtime

While I don’t have any runtime tests for the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern, I can say that the internal (built-in, nonreplaceable) battery is much bigger than on others like the Obulb MC. The MC is 630mAh, while this Pro version is 1650mAh. Quite an increase!

Charging

The charging base for the built-in battery in the Olight Obulb Pro Lantern is the standard Olight MCC 1A.  This is the same as any other MCC charger, and any of those will work too.

I’ll throw in that when the Obulb Pro is sitting on a flat surface, the button can be pressed by pushing down on top of the Obulb Pro, with some force.  When on the charging base, pushing down from the top actuates the switch very easily.  This is a nice feature.

There are also other charging bases available now in the MCC format.  One is built into the side of a wall wart, such that the Obulb MC can be used very much like a nightlight.  Unfortunately, in what testing I could do (without this type of charger), it does not seem to come on when the power goes off.  This would be a great feature.

One more option for charging this Olight (or really “any” Olight with this type of connection) is a charging base that has room for four items at one time.  I don’t have one of those either, so no testing on that, too.

User Interface and Operation

The switch is on the bottom of the device. It’s the “generally indented” area in the dead center. As I said above, with the Obulb Pro on a flat surface, pressing hard on the top will turn the light on or off. On the charging base, pressing on the top will operate the light easily.

It’s an e-switch, and I think the user interface will be very familiar.

Here’s a UI table!

State	Action	Result
Off	Click	On (Mode Memory)
Off	Hold	On (White, at the output level set by Bluetooth app)
On	Click	Mode advance (White > Red > Green > Blue > “Fade between colors” > Cycle between colors > Flashing Red > Off
On	Hold	Off
Off
Off	Hold >2s	Lockout (Technically On in white output, then off. Lockout is indicated by short flash upon click.)
Lockout	Hold >1s	Unlock to White

Bluetooth

Olight added a Bluetooth connection feature to this version – I would say that’s what makes it Pro! Setup and usage is very easy. While the Obulb Pro does disconnect from your device after a while, reconnection is immediate (within a second or two) when you fire the app back up and change a setting on the Obulb Pro.

Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea of the app usage. The app is available for both Android and Apple devices.

It’s all very straightforward.  In the app, it’s possible to select the “stock” four colors:

You can also completely mix RGB all the way around, and have whatever color you want!

It’s also possible to select the output level from 5% all the way up to 100%. Note the responsive runtime, too. This will update depending on the output level you select (might take a couple of seconds to respond – it feels like a calculation is being made after a sense is done of the battery state.)

You can select orange (but it’s a little hard to hit “the right” orange.)

It’s possible to group the Obulb Pro. I’m not certain what this does, but I suspect it’s so you can control multiple of the Pros to do the same thing all with one action.

And finally, you can modify the image so that it’s easier to identify your individual Obulb Pros.  I set the image as some non-stock (seen below) image but was unable to revert to the stock image. I found that very annoying. If you found and saved a stock image from the web though, you could set that easily.

LED and Beam

Nothing about the emitters is specified by Olight.  There are some interesting results below, though.

LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)

I tested the steady colors.  They’re in order of appearance through the mode cycle (which can be seen in the UI table above. Unlike the other Obulbs, the Pro doesn’t cycle two levels of white – it’s one white, then the color outputs.

White > Red > Green > Blue

My spectrometer didn’t know how to report the Green and Blue, so I made those two reports in a more manual way.  I’m extremely pleased that the white mode is around 2500K.  It’s …. super perfect.  I could not be happier with that emitter.  CRI is 86 too, so not even all that bad.

Conclusion

What I like

• Easy access to White Low
• 2600K CCT on warm white is fantastic
• It floats!
• Easy user interface
• There are some fun modes with the colors
• Magnet base works very well
• Very floody output
• Bluetooth is a neat feature

What I don’t like

• Pretty much nowhere to hold on to the thing, except to completely hold the thing.
• Output levels are memorized from the Bluetooth app, and it’s not possible to manipulate their percentage without the app (I liked the two white outputs from other Obulbs like the MC!)

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Notes

• This content originally appeared at zeroair.org.  Please visit there for the best experience!
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