Shedding some light on Lights

With electricity being such a precious commodity at the moment, here are some useful and unique portable lights which could help you out in a pinch. My personal pick of the items would be the Neo-Fusion Bracelet and the 12 Super-Bright LED Light.

Neo-Fusion Bracelet Handi-Light

This LED powered bangle, which means it will last for up to 100,000 hours, is meant for handymen who require the full use of both hands and are often in dark places, or clubbers who are in the same situation. It is surprisingly bright and provides more than enough light for those situations that require its use and the only downsides I can see are that it is fairly hard to put on with one hand especially because the clip is really tight and the on/off button is very sensitive and a simple knock can turn it on or off. It is one size fits all and has replaceable batteries.

LED Candle with Glass

As far as odd uses of LED lights go, this is very high on the list as I am yet to fully figure out why anyone would want an LED candle. That aside the light provided by the LED is surprisingly bright and its gentle flicker is quite soothing. It uses 3 replaceable AG13 or LR44 batteries and comes in 4 different colours; white, orange, green and blue.

USB Think Light

This strange gadget is a USB light with a twist - the faster you type, the brighter the light burns. The packaging says its great for improving your typing skills and general stress relief, the latter I can agree with because I laugh every time I have tried to use it as I feel like a hamster trying to keep up with my wheel. This product has a major downfall in that it only works on Windows XP and 2000. All the required software is included in the box and to install the software and get everything running takes only a few seconds. I don’t think this has much staying power and will quickly be packed away along with the LED candle.

Flexible USB Light

This light consists of 10 LEDS connected to a flexible USB cable which is sturdy enough to hold the weight of the LED bank at pretty much any angle. Because its LED powered it should last for up to 100,000 hours and it uses very little battery power (less than 250mA). To put that into perspective a laptop that has 30% power should be able to power the light for an entire evening (provided the laptop is in standby). Overall this is a great invention that has come in handy for me many times.

12 Super-Bright LED Light

This is marketed as a Battery Free Crank Lantern and its ideally suited for those times when the power goes out and you remember that you haven’t charged your lantern or your torches batteries are flat. Lets get the facts out the way before we give it a test run. It has 12 super-bright white LED lights, which can be set to different lighting modes, all of which should last up to 100,000 hours. There is a crank that enables you to power the light although you need to average 120RPM for one minute to power it for, a claimed, 20 minutes which ends up being quite tiring but luckily there is also a USB charging port which enables effort free charging. There is also a compass mounted on the top which could come in handy should you be lost in the jungle without power and no sense of direction.

The super-bright lights are not that super-bright and the light produced by this large light is quite disappointing. The low and medium levels are okay, but the high power lighting mode should produce more light for the size and amount of LED’s that are in use. A fully charged light will give you around 4 hours on full battery, although you will notice the light not being as bright as time goes on. Apart from the light being quite large it definitely has its place and would definitely come in handy in a pinch.

Pricing and Availability

All products are available from WantItAll

• Neo-Fusion Bracelet Handi-Light - R520
• LED Candle with Glass - R620
• USB Think Light - R100
• Flexible USB Light - R550
• 12 Super-Bright LED Light - R540

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(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Filed Under Featured Reviews, Other Gadgets, Stuff