HL45R 1000 Lumen Zoomable Headlamp, USB-C Rechargeable, 3X AAA Dual Fuel, Gesture Sensing, Adjustable Focus with Floodlight,Spotlight, Red Light and Organizer

I've owned a lot of headlamps in the last 30 years, mostly for backpacking and camping, with additional use around the house. I prefer a headlamp to a flashlight for all the usual reasons. This is overall the best headlamp I have ever used. It's not the lightest, or the brightest, but the feature set is well balanced and the user interface is excellent. 1. The physical on-off switch. This is a knob that turns, from Off to White to Red. It remembers your last power setting, so if you have White set to Medium and Red to Low, switching between them recalls that setting. It's also possible to turn the knob quickly to the Red setting and not turn on the white light, preserving night vision. Having a physical switch is significantly easier than remembering which combination of long and short button presses chooses which power setting, as another headlamp I own requires. 2. The power settings. When the light is On, pressing a button on the end of the physical knob cycles through the power settings, Low-Medium-High-Turbo for White, and Low-Medium-High-Flashing for Red. Medium is plenty bright for both Red and White light, while the High Red setting is exceptionally bright for a red headlamp and will be super useful for some folks who need lots of light but to preserve night vision. 3. The Flood/Spot choice. Turn the bezel around the white light LED to vary between Flood lighting and a hard Spot. Flood lighting is like a theatre light, with a defined circle of very even light that covers exactly my natural field of vision. An engineer clearly spent some time thinking about this. The Spot setting projects a bright point of light, and on Turbo mode it lights up things that are quite far away. 4. The rechargeable battery system. It charges from a USB C connection, which is great, but if the battery is dead it will take 3 AAA batteries in an emergency. The rubber cover over the charging port is thick and stays covered nicely. There are four small blue LEDs that show level of charge. I turned off the "hands free" option as I'l never use it. This light came as a "kit" from Amazon with a "tactical battery holder," which is a cheap plastic battery case that is the wrong size for any batteries this headlamp might use. But hey, it's "tactical" so now I'm ready for anything lol.

I'm very happy with this headlamp. Easy to use and the various power levels and ability to focus the light by turning the ring is a great feature. Easy to charge and battery seems to last a long time.

I use this light for deer hunting and I love it. The red light is actually bright enough to find your way in the dark without spooking deer. I use the red light on the way into the woods and the white light on the way out. The white light is plenty bright for navigating most terrain and I really like how it can change from a flood light to a spot light with a twist of the lense. The rechargeable battery has good life and it’s awesome that you can carry some AAA’s for backup power if needed. Packs easily and doesn’t feel heavy on the head. Only thing I don’t like is that the turbo mode turns off after five seconds once the light has been running for a while to keep it from overheating. If you want it back to turbo you then have to press the button again and then again it goes to the lower light setting to keep from overheating. The high setting is plenty bright for most night walking, but the turbo is nice to have when you need it.

The light functions pretty well. However, the plastic bracket that holds it to the headband broke the second time I used the light.

My fourth attempt at writing this review — apparently Amazon doesn’t allow the addition of our own cropped photos anymore, to compare and contrast different dimensions, without giving up permissions… Worse, it simply freezes the entire form making you have to start all over again from scratch. Bug, or inducement, either way, not good. Suffice it to say the HL 45R is more than twice the size and weight. Transitioning from an older Petzl Tactikka Core for the added lumen, distance, and battery life. Not too unexpectedly, they come at a cost of mass and volume. Mostly worth the trade off, but takes some getting used to — and something that could change with technological innovations and less overly engineered body materials. A little disappointed the after purchase options for their proprietary replacement battery gives you the impression it could be discontinued at any moment. Otherwise, customer service is pretty good at filling in the blanks.

This is my favorite running light because you could control the beam from spot to flood. It’s awful to run with a spot. The stride gets off and the spot keeps jumping. For running you need flood and only a strong flood will be bright enough. Hard to explain, but this is my favorite for night running. (6x marathon runner).

I use a headlamp daily for working on vehicle and for boondocking. I am extremely picky and this is the first headlamp I have been satisfied with after owning or testing 15. It's USBC, the UI is fantastic and probably it's great strength, hand wave bs can be disabled, and it accepts AAA as well as proprietary battery for USBC chargeing. Comfortable and light weight enough to where for hours. And has "ratcheting" angle adjustment. Really the only complaint is the battery door/latch. It's is hot garbage. Im sure after opening and closing a couple hundred times it will be toast. I don't trust any water resistants clams this makes. They need to design a much much more robust battery door. But all in all it is the best option available. Atleast for my use case.

I’ll start with I’ve anyways liked fenix lights, they out perform streamlight in my opinion. I own multiple fenix lights and they have all performed very well and this one is no exception. Videos of this light don’t do it justice at all! It throws a huge flood light that’s covers a very big area and even on dim mode you can see very good and when turned to the beam the flood area stays the same and it makes a beam in the middle that I can easily see an animals entire body at 150 plus yards across my field. Haven’t had it long enough to comment on the battery life, but if it’s anything like the rest of the fenix lights that I own then it will be great. I love the one turn of the knob to turn it on and super easy push button to change between modes. By far the brightest and easiest operating function headlamp for the money that you will find.

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