Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI Headlamp Review
The Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp has high CRI as well as a secondary red emitter. The headband and switch are greatly updated! Read on!
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a referral link to the Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp product page.
At least two body color versions are available: black (seen here) and orange. Black is available in both cool white and neutral white with high CRI (seen here)! Both are available as seen in this post or as a kit, which includes the “wireless charging case.”
Price
As seen here, the Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp is $64.99. The kit is more pricey, at $94.99.
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What’s Included
-
- Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp
- Olight “Customized” 650mAh 16340
- Olight headband
- Charge cable (USB to proprietary magnetic) (1A max)
- Manual
Package and Manual
Build Quality and Disassembly
The build quality is good as you’d expect. The light feels smooth in the hand, and the body provides adequate grip for unscrewing the body. In the photo above, you can see that the light is labeled with CCT (4000-5000K) and CRI (90). There’s also a “HCRI” label on the body, in a place that doesn’t get covered by the pocket clip.
The head has deep cooling fins. I’m happy that Olight went with the introductory version that includes orange. Sometimes orange only comes later. I didn’t get orange, but I’ll forgive that. 😉
The head unscrews from the body, and that’s the extent of the parts. The head end has a short spring and a rubber gasket. That gasket more or less prevents the cell from being installed incorrectly. What’s inside the tail there are contacts for both positive and negative, and they are springy.
Size and Comps
Flashlight: 2.53 x 0.87 x 0.81 in (64.3 x 22 x 20.6 mm)
Perun 3 Mini Standard: 1.9 oz / 54g (Battery Included)
(Essentially unchanged from the Perun 2 Mini.)
If the flashlight can headstand, I’ll show it here. If it can tailstand, I’ll also show that here!
Here’s the test light with the venerable Convoy S2+. The version below is a custom laser-engraved Convoy S2+ host by GadgetConnections.com. I did a full post on an engraved orange host right here! Or go straight to GadgetConnections.com to buy your Convoy S2+ now!
Also in the photo above, my Standard Reference Material (SRM) flashlight is the Hanko Machine Works Trident, an 18350 light. While I have not reviewed or tested the Gunner Grip version seen here, I have tested a Hanko Machine Works Trident Total Tesseract in brass. I love the Trident, and it’s a striking contrast to the inexpensive Convoy S2+, another great SRM.
Retention and Carry
Since it ships attached to the light, let’s talk about the pocket clip first. This clip is a fairly standard friction-fit clip and is not two-way as was on the Perun 2 Mini. There’s a reason for that! Read on!
I like this clip for the usual use case anyway. Two-way clips don’t do anything special for me. Below you can also see that there’s a hole where a (very thin) lanyard could be attached, too!
The magnet in the base, which is used for charging, is perfectly sufficient to retain the light in multiple positions.
Above, you may note a new holder for my magnetic-tailcap items. That’s the Exceed Designs Hyzer Titanium Mini Hatchet D2 axe. The handle (as the name suggests) is titanium. But the blade is D2 steel and perfect for retaining magnetic tailcap flashlights! The Hyzer is available in a bunch of cerakote body colors as well as different thickness D2 heads.
The headband connector is updated. Notably, the pocket clip is used for connecting the Olight Perun 3 Mini cool white headlamp to the headband. And you must connect it this way! There is no other way!
There’s a little release button for freeing the headlamp from this connector.
There’s a bit of grip on the back of the stretchy headband. And there’s no over-the-top strap. The Olight Perun 3 Mini cool white headlamp is light enough that it’s not really needed.
To secure the Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp to the connector, you lever part of the clip into one end, and click the other end of the pocket clip into the “release button area.” It’s very straightforward and I love it! Just don’t lose or damage your pocket clip.
Power and Runtime
Olight includes the cell required for the Perun 3 Mini. It’s a “customized” 16340, with a stated capacity of 650mAh. “Customized” in this case means the positive is in the usual place, but there’s a ring of negative surrounding that.
The cell goes into the Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp in the usual way – positive end toward the head. (I believe this is an update from the Perun 2 Mini!)
Here are a number of runtimes.
The Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp does have built-in low voltage protection and shuts off at around 3V or so.
Charging
The light has built-in charging as well. Included is a cable – USB to magnetic connector. This one is the “MCC 1A,” and that’s important since there are many versions that look just about the same.
The charger snaps very cleanly to the light, and the light will sit upright on the base, too.
Here’s a charge graph. Charging is consistent, and somewhere over 1C.
Modes and Currents
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens | Tailcap Amps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turbo | 920/276 | 2m/60m | 903(0s) 815 (30s) |
3.15 |
| High | 400/280 | 2m/75m | 374 | 0.78 |
| Medium | 85 | 4.5h | 77 | 0.12 |
| Low | 10 | 30h | 9.6 | 21.2mA |
| Moon | 2 | 10d | 1.6 | 3.5mA |
| Red | 45 | 150m | 41 | 252.0mA |
| Red | 5 | 19h | 5 | 33.2mA |
Pulse Width Modulation
No PWM on any mode. Yay! These are sort of squiggles, but not actual PWM.
Click here to 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
The Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp uses a single e-switch on the head. It’s a big flat switch, has been updated to be a more flat and metal switch! I like it quite a lot. It is not the least bit proud, which allows the light to headstand. The Perun 3 Mini is not quite perfectly vertical when headstanding, but it works fine.
The switch is also just the least bit clicky. I had some complaints about the direction of the press on the older Perun Mini, but this one seems just fine. (For the record, the switches don’t feel all that different.)
This switch cover is larger than that on the Perun Mini, and that’s a nice advance. The switch also has an indicating dot, which you can see below. It’s subtle, and you won’t notice it except when it’s on.
Here’s a user interface table! I believe this to be exactly the same user interface that the Perun 2 Mini has.
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | On in Mode Memory (Moon, LMH only. Turbo is memorized as High and high is memorized as medium if on for >1m) |
| Off | Hold | Moon |
| On | Double Click | Turbo |
| On | Hold | Mode advance (Moon, LMH only) |
| Turbo | Double Click | Exit Turbo to previous mode (except if previous was high, then results in Medium) |
| Off | Double Click | Red |
| Red | Hold | Red advance: Red Low > Red High > Red SOS |
| SOS | Click | Off |
| On | Click | Off |
| On (White only) | Click and Hold (quickly) | Timer (Single blink: 3 minutes, Double blink: 9 minutes) |
| Timer | Click and Hold (quickly) | Switch between 3 and 9 minute timers. |
| Off | Hold (>2s) | Lockout |
| Lockout | Hold (~2s) | Unlock (and goes to Moonlight) |
The switch indicating feature does tell the battery capacity level, too. It does this for a few seconds when the light is turned on. It indicates as follows:
Green: >60%
Orange: 10-60%
Red: 5-10%
Red Blinking: <5%
In moonlight mode, the switch will only indicate if power is below 5%, in which case it blinks red (so consistent with the above power metrics, but only the “<5%” indicator).
LED and Beam
The emitter in this light is unspecified. I believe the emitter used in this Perun 3 Mini is an Osram P9. It’s stated as cool white, at least. The light also uses a TIR. There are two red emitters, which you can see above and below the main white emitter.
LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)
The CRI is claimed to be 90, and the Olight Perun 3 Mini CRI headlamp is definitely in that range. This is a fantastic update for Olight, and I hope we see more like this! The CCT is within the claimed range (4000-5000K), too. All good things! R9 is still fairly low and the Duv is positive, so there is still room for improvement!
CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) refers to the measurement of the color appearance of light, expressed in Kelvins (K), which indicates whether the light is warm (yellowish) or cool (bluish). A lower CCT (below 3000K) is considered warm light, while a higher CCT (above 5000K) gives cooler, bluish light.
CRI (Color Rendering Index) is a measure of how accurately a light source renders colors in comparison to natural sunlight. Scored on a scale from 0 to 100, higher CRI values indicate that colors appear more true to life and vibrant, similar to how they would look under the sun.
Beamshots
These beamshots always have 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. These photos are taken around 18 inches from the door.
I compare everything to the KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b BLF-348 because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!
Summary and Conclusion
Previous iterations of the Olight Perun Mini have been good, and this Perun 3 Mini is very good too! I appreciate the novel and updated headband connection – it’s very quick! Olight offering two distinct emitter options is great too – this higher output cool white version and a warmer white high CRI version, too. The user interface is still great and red is useful (I think they even added one level of red on this version!
The Big Table
| Olight Perun 3 Mini High CRI Headlamp | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | Osram P9 (Probably) (High CRI) |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $64.99 |
| Cell: | 1×16340 |
| Runtime Graphs | |
| 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) | 920 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 903 (98.2% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 6.31 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 133 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 231lux @ 4.802m = 5327cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 146.0 (109.8% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | 4000-5000 |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 4600-5100 Kelvin |
| Item provided for review by: | Olight |
| All my Olight 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 I like
- Great headband connection
- Added one level of red
- Great performance
- Excellent build quality
What I don’t like
- Proprietary 16340
Notes
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