Don’t Buy Olight: The Hidden Cost of Proprietary Batteries

Right around 2019 I was as big of an Olight fanboy as you can get. Then one day I got really angry at Olight and stopped buying their gear.

Essentially, they had a Rewards or Points program and I had bought a LOT of Olights recently. They were getting ready to drop something cool but the top tier of their Rewards holders got first crack.

I figured I was in the top tier. I found out that you had to be logged in to their site to get the points. It wasn’t enough to just buy one with your name and address.

That isn’t what ticked me off.

What got me was that I mentioned it in their forum some clown dropped a crying face emoji on me.

That wasn’t what made me mad either. People started piling on once clown number one broke the ice. Nope, that wasn’t it either. Hey, I’ve been on the internet long enough to know what happens when you complain about something on a Fan Boy page.

What angered me was that an Employee of Olight piled on.

Now That’s Way Out Of Line

I complained about that. I was told she wasn’t supposed to be commenting in the Olight USA group and she did something in China for Olight. They apologized. Not good enough. I told them to delete my account, and my points and that I’d never buy another Olight again in my life. I will confess that years later I bought a couple of keychain flashlights. Conversely, I wanted a small keychain light and a search kind of revealed that those were the best thing going. I bit my lip and bought a couple. My wife and I use both of ours a lot. It was a good purchase. So maybe with time I seem to have gotten over this.

And then they gave me another reason to hate them.

OLIGHT IMINI 2 Keychain Flashlight Review

I have a whole bunch of OLight flashlights but some years ago some clown on their website made fun of something I said. That’s fine, but what wasn’t okay was that an employee of Olight jumped on me as well. I quit collecting flashlights at that point. Anyway, I guess I have gotten over that with the purchase of the OLIGHT IMINI 2. ($11.99 Black Friday Deal). I got two of them.

What really predicated this purchase was that my wife and I went to a bonfire cookout and it was pretty much in the woods in a dark but wonderful place. Navigating to the fire was a bit scary because of tree roots and slippery wet leaves.

Walking up to the truck to get a proper flashlight I kind of wondered if I could find an Every Day Carry (EDC) keychain flashlight for just such situations. Much as it made me make a cringy face because it was from Olight, it looked very cool.

Adventure Lights Guardian LED

Once upon a time I was introduced to Adventure Lights the hard way.  I had just come out of Iraq and I don’t think I even got home when they told me to fly to our HeadQuarters in Lakehurst New Jersey and pick up an assault pack of Adventure Lights that our Engineers were testing for use in Helicopter Landing Zones and VTOL Pads.  I was then to proceed to the Philippines with them. This was sometime in late 2006 or early 2007.

They weren’t authorized for fleet use at that time.  However, the 1st Marine Air Wing was tasked with a humanitarian mission in Bicol Province in the Philippines.  Three typhoons hit back to back to back which caused a mudslide which destroyed an entire village.  A field hospital was set up and a farmers field was utilized for helicopter landings.   Because it was supposed to be multinational the Marines requested the Adventure Lights (VIPIR model) to make a NATO “Y” marking for the landing zone.

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I’ve never really done flashlights before.  About a year or so ago I realized I had one crap flashlight at home.  Bought some inexpensive but good flashlights on Amazon and kind of caught the flashlight fever.   Also I started going camping and without a doubt you need a good flashlight walking around in the woods or for when the campsite power goes off (It will).

I’m not a Prepper, but I’m not unprepared by a long shot either.  I like quality, and I like quantity.  When it gets dark is not the time to ask “where’s the last place I had the flashlight?”  A good quality flashlight should be within reach basically in just about every room of the house.  Seriously.  You may think that is a bit much but it’s really quite practical.

Also, as a typical person in America I have a job that requires me to be there early, and since my dog can’t walk himself and since dog walks typically occur in the dark in the morning I also carry a light with me to keep from getting hit.  I also jog early in the morning, in the dark and wear dark clothes.  A high quality flashlight is a must.  Those are other smaller flashlights that I carry (from the same company) but this blog is about the Olight Seeker 2 Pro.

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