Olight’s newest addition to the headlamp family is the HS2, a dual LED solution featuring a rechargeable li-ion battery. Watch the review video below, or keep reading for a text summary.
The design of the HS2 is clever, since it places the battery pack on the back of the elastic headband with a cord that runs unobtrusively along the headband to the front-facing lights. This makes the LEDs less bulky for jogging and distributes the weight more evenly across your head for more comfortable longer-term use.
The HS2 has 5 brightness configurations in 2 control schemes, separately controlled by double clicking or single clicking the on/off button. This gives a lot of flexibility on which of the two LEDs you’d like to use (there’s a brighter and weaker one) to balance battery life with beam intensity.
I did find this a bit confusing, though. It wasn’t clear how the high/low settings of the single click toggle related to the low/high/dual settings of the double click toggle. Even the brightness and battery run time numbers included made the various modes interchangeable. For instance, “Low beam low” and “High beam low” both produce 50 lumens for 18 hours. Both “High beam high” and “Low beam high” produce 200 lumens for 4.5 hours.
Aside that, this headlamp does combine quality tech with solid run times. Everything about the design feels solid, and the battery pack has a blue button you can press that lights up a strip of 4 tiny LEDs to give a battery level (1-4). While charging with the included USB cable, these lights will also let you know how far along the charge is.
I noticed when first using the HS2 that you have to connect the two cord sections (from the lights to the battery) pretty snugly to get the light to work. This isn’t a problem and it’s not difficult to get right, but at first I’d pushed them together with a firmness that felt right and the light didn’t turn on, so I make this note for others to know you might need more pressure the first time. After getting a snug connection once it seemed easier to connect it in subsequent attempts.
Check the video for more details, but I’d definitely recommend this light for evening runners or anyone that does work where light is needed in a hands-free way.
HS2 Specs:
- Max light range – 85 meters
- Max brightness – 400 lumens
- 2x CREE XP-G2 LEDs
- IPX4 water resistant
- 2000mAh rechargeable lithium ion battery
- 1 meter impact resistant