Acebeam H16 Review – (Nichia 519a, 650 lumens, Dual Fuel)

Today I am taking a look at the newest right angle headlamp from Acebeam with the H16. It’s a single emitter light with 2 available LED options, in the AA/14500 size format. The H16 shares a lot of design and functions with the similarly sized Pokelite AA that I have reviewed last year. Thanks to Acebeam for sending this one to me to look at and review. Any discounts or deals that I have for this light will be posted in the description below this video along with links to my social media pages. 

 

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See the H16 on Acebeam’s website https://www.acebeam.com/h16

 

Packaging & Accessories

The packaging is a white retail box with color photos and highlights of the light on the front, there are no technical specs on the back like you commonly see, just contact info for Acebeam. The light and accessories sit inside a plastic tray inside and it comes with the light itself, and Acebeam branded 900mAh 14500 battery with USB-C charging on board, a short USB-A to C charging cable, the headband, 2 extra orings, and user manual. 

 

Construction & Design

The light is made from aluminum and hard anodized in either a black or gray color. The black which I have here is the high CRI option and it’s only available in black. The gray body color is exclusive to the cool white emitter too. The design characteristics are pretty similar with the Pokelit AA model with a few differences. 

The tail cap is flat and has a strong magnet that easily holds up the light. It features nice knurling for grip for easy battery removal. The body tube has ribs in the center and places for the clip to mount at the front or rear. The body tube itself is glued to the head of the light.

The head has some fins cut opposite the emitter for heat dissipation. The electronic switch is sitting at the top of the head and is covered by a shallow rubber/silicon boot that’s smooth. The business end of the light has a shallow bezel, glass lens, and smooth reflector. Markings on the light are pretty minimal, with the CCT and CRI being marked on the side of the head, the brand and model being marked just under the bezel, and the export and battery marks on the bottom of the cap.

 

User Interface

The UI here is very simple with the electronic switch found on top of the head. With the 14500 battery, you have 3 modes without memory mode. Click and hold to come on in the lowest mode or double press from off to turn on in low.. Once on click and hold to go up in mode groups. Double click to turbo when on and triple click to a slow strobe. Single short click to turn off. It’s a very simple user interface that I think anyone can understand. Mechanical lockout is easy to trigger by just breaking the seal on the tail cap.

 

Retention

The Clip is an uncaptured dual-direction pocket clip that can mount two ways on the H16. You can mount it near the rear of the light to give you a very deep carry, since the clip actually goes past the end of the light. The downside of this is the button will be inside the pocket and in my opinion easier to accidentally trigger, although it does still require a long press to turn on and comes on in low. The other place it mounts is hear the head but a fair amount of the light will stick out when doing this.

The H16 comes with an orange elastic 2 strap headband. It has a nice comfortable silicone mount, but requires the clip to be removed before mounting. On the sides you do have some reflective markings and Acebeam branding, holes in the material for style and ventilation, and then on the inside you have silicone grip strips to help it keep in place on a helmet. I found it to be lightweight and comfortable to wear.

 

LED & Beam

The H16 I have here is using a Nichia 519A LED in neutral white. I measured this LED at 4912k and 97.9Ra on my Opple light meter, without any color casts in the DUV data. The beam here is fairly floody with a large well defined hotspot and not a ton of spill. Good for the application here, as it’s optimized for closer-up use. There is some PWM that I could measure on my meter when on High but it’s very fast and I can’t see it with my eyes. 

 

Output

Since this light is dual fuel and will run on both a Liion or NiMH battery, I will give some output data for both. One thing to note here is that light is available with a different LED that is brighter if you wish but you do give up the neutral tint and high CRI. All measurements were taken at the 30-second mark according to FL1 Standards. In general on the Li-ion battery that I measured on my Texas Ace Lumen tube was lower than Acebeam’s claims. If I had to guess they are listing startup lumens, not FL1 standards. For my Alkaline/NIMH tests, I used an Amazon Basics high-capacity AA battery. Acebeam doesn’t give official outputs for the use of this light with Alkaline or NiMH, and I think thats due to the extremely low outputs in the first 3 modes. The only one I got to give me a solid reading was medium at about 2 lumens. The light is only really useful on Turbo and that steps down pretty quickly which I will get to in the Runtime section coming up soon. My advice would be to stick with the Li-ion battery the light comes with and really only use a AA or NiMH in an emergency situation. 

 

Heat & Runtimes

I focused primarily on the heat and runtime on the H16 when using the included Li-ion 14500 battery since that’s really where the light is best. Turbo lasts for 2 minutes to complete the total stepdown to about 180 lumens while staying above 500 lumens for the first 55 seconds. From here it’s a pretty steady decline and looks to be somewhat unregulated. Peak heat was at 18 minutes at about 48C on the exterior of the light. High output is an almost identical runtime, with the only difference being a few more total minutes of runtime. 

The NiMH on turbo mode the H16 has a pretty minimal output time of less than a minute before stepping down to about 35 lumens. It will run at this state for about 9:10:00, and then continue to run past 24 hours at sub-lumen outputs. This really isn’t very effective light in most situations though. 

 

Recharging

While the H16t itself doesn’t have built-in charging, the optional Acebeam 14500 battery does have built-in charging via USB-C. I had no issues charging this via USB-C to C or PD. Charging here is at 0.5C about .45A at the maximum for most of the charging time. The overall charging time is 2:30:00 at which time the LED on the battery itself goes from red to green. The battery itself has LVP built into it. I measured LVP at 3.103v and full at 4.174v on the Liion. The NiMH measured 1.23v when the light shut off. 

 

Conclusion

The Acebeam H16 Fishing Headlamp is a decent light if you’re looking for small form factor, neutral white and high CRI. Just be aware that it doesn’t have the most output nor can it sustain those larger numbers for that long. I don’t think this is an issue as long as your use case is up close needs. I would recommend the headlamp for more specialized applications where light weight and size is of high importance. I wouldn’t recommend this headlamp if you plan to run it with a AA or NiMH batter. It’s performance and output runtime is really optimized for Li-Ion batteries. I would only use AA or NiMH in times of emergency. Keep in mind this does come in a different LED model where you can get up to 1000 lumens on turbo too if you’re needing a bit more output. 

Acebeam E70 Mini Review(Triple Nichia 519a, 2000 Lumens, 18650)

Acebeam has a new light, in the E70 Mini, it’s a smaller version of the E70 but this time it’s running on an 18650, and runs triple Nichia 519a LED’s. The Nicha 519a LED is the new hotness in the enthusiast flashlight communities. It’s the successor to the popular Nichia 219b, but the new version is brighter, and more importantly, has become known for being very neutral and rosy if you want. Thanks to Acebeam for sending this to me, and these thoughts and opinions have not been influenced by anyone. 

 

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Pickup the Acebeam E70 Mini from Acebeam Direct at https://shrsl.com/3m7bt and save 10% (on any Acebeam) with the code “Liq10”

Or get it on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3AUDYrF

Package & Accessories

The E70 Mini arrived in a white retail package with a clear window showing the light inside. Pretty minimal info on the package, but it is surprisingly compact. Inside the accessories and extras included, a 3100mAh button top protected 18650 battery with onboard USB-C charging, Short USB-A to USB-C charging cable, Acebeam Lanyard, spare o-rings, warranty card, and manual. 

 

Construction & Design

The E70 Mini for all intents and purposes a scaled-down version of its larger brother the E70 with a few minor exterior changes. For now, it’s available in aluminum that’s anodized matte black. It’s a premium feeling of anodizing, and the inner tube is the same blue aluminum we have seen on other E70 versions and the RX Ryder. I would expect to see different colors or materials of the E70 Mini at some time but for now just aluminum.

 

The tail features the same style of a flat metal button over the eswitch, it has a shiny finish that matches the clip well and is probably made of stainless steel like the clip. It has some interesting mounting options at the rear I will cover a bit later in the review. The light will tailstand too but it’s not magnetic.

The body tube has the same milled pattern as the E70, with a similar inner liner of blue aluminum and at the top 6 slots for 1 x 6mm tritium tubes, where the head has slots for 6 more. Threads on the body are square cut, and anodized. Inside you can see the spring at the tail, and head. Longer batteries or protected batteries are required, here, unprotected flat top 18650s are just too short to make contact. The bezel on the head is made from the same steel as the clip and rear switch. It has a crenulated bezel but it’s not sharp. The bezel does unscrew pretty easily too which should make maybe dedoming those LEDs (A popular thing to do with the Nichia 519s) possible without too much effort. The TIR optic sits behind an anti-reflective coated piece of glass with an o’ring keeping everything watertight.

 

Retention

The rear of the light has 3 wing like parts spaced out evenly around the light, and each is unique, you have the stock clip that comes on the light, with spacing that’s slightly wider than the more standard “Steel Flame” style clip, but to the left, there are threaded holes that fit the standard “Steel Flame” sizing, and then the third has larger unthreaded holes for the lanyard. 

The clip itself is stamped steel but slightly curved and uses a milled piece to make it stand out a bit. I found this to be a fantastic clip. It reminded me more of a custom light with this clip than a production light. It carries pretty deeply in the pocket too. I like the glossy finish here, it seems to almost take on a little color with oils from your hands. I carried this around the 4th of July holiday and found it to be nice and secure in shorts. 

 

Size & Weight

I measured the length at 111.34mm in length, 25.96mm at the head, and 23.39mm at the body. Weight with the Acebeam battery and clip installed came in at 124.8g or 4.4oz. It’s impact resistant to 1M and water-rated to IP68 (2 Meters). Here are a few photos of similar sized or spec’d lights that I have in my collection. 

 

LED & Beam

As mentioned the E70 Mini is using the latest LED from Nichia the 519a. This LED has quickly gained a cult-like following over on /r/flashlight and on the BLF forums because of its great neutral tint, that leans to the rosy side of things and high CRI. With my Opple meter, I measured 4973k and 97 CRI. The DUV of the light is very neutral as you can see. It’s the most neural emitter I have seen in a production light this year for sure. No PWM was observed either.

The TIR optic here produces a large even hotspot with basically no spill. It’s in that middle ground between thrower and flood, good for EDC type users, and the optic does a good job of diffusing that there are 3 LEDs here. I will be interested to see if people dedoam the light as that show make it throw a bit more, and rosy up the tint. I measured the parasitic draw at 72.1µA.

 

Outputs

I measured outputs in my Texas Ace PVC Lumen tube and came a bit short in most of the categories, but everything was within 80% of the claimed lumens after 30 seconds.

 

Heat & Runtime

I tested my runtimes with the optional 3100mAh Acebeam battery. Turbo was good for right at a minute before stepping down to around 500 lumens. The heat peaked at 57C (135F) at the 1:15 minute mark, so this is mostly a thermal-based step-down. You can trigger turbo manually again and I did this during filming some night shots a few times and the light did get hot enough where it was too hot to hold. Running from turbo after the initial step down is pretty flat for 1:45:00 then gradual step downs for another 45 minutes till it shuts off.  

I did runtime measurements for Turbo, High, Mide 2 and Mid1 as well and plotted them all on one graph here. Turbo and High give the same total runtime which was a little bit of a surprise. Mid 2 was good for 3:51:00, and Mid1 shut off just shy of 8 hours. 

 

UI

The UI here is as far as I can tell the same as what was in the full-size E70. It’s a little different from other lights but easy enough to understand once you know you have to double press to turn on and it’s this element that builds safety into not turning on accidentally. 

 

To turn the light on you can double press the tail switch to turn the light on in low, the light does have a memory so if it’s recent it will turn on in the last mode used excluding turbo. Once on, long press and hold to advance into the 4 available modes. Double press to turbo, triple to strobe. The light also has moonlight mode which you can access from off by long pressing, as well as lockout. Lastly, to turn off it’s a simple quick press to turn off.

 

Recharging

The Acebeam E70 Mini doesn’t have onboard USB charging. Instead, it has an optional Acebeam battery with onboard USB-C charging on its side. I had no issues charging via USB-C PD, or C to C cables on a variety of chargers. The battery is a 3100mAh button-top protected cell that I measured at 3049mAh in my Vapcell S4 Plus charger. 

I measured LVP of the cell at 2.931V and charged the battery to full at 4.131V in 3:02:00. Charging curve looked good and the battery charged at an average of around 1A, definitely on the conservative side. The battery does seem to have a powerbank feature, that I can charge my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with. With a meter and load, I was able to pull 2A without a problem. 

 

Final Thoughts

I had a positive review of the Acebeam E70, mine was in brass and has the High CRI LED, but it was too big and heavy for a front pocket EDC for me. The E70 Mini solves that problem, with the smaller size it still fits nicely into my hands, but the smaller diameter and lighter weight make it much more carryable. It’s still not a small 18650 light with its dual-wall construction but it’s a lot more doable. 

The best part for me might be the LEDs and beam pattern. The Nichia 519a LEDs live up to the hype for me. I have done LED Swaps on one of my Reylight LANs and a Reylight Pineapple Mini in Timascus where I dedomed it too and the result is just a pretty much perfect tint in my opinion. If you are a tint snob it’s a fantastic LED. It’s not the brightest LED available but it produces one of the best quality light/tints in my opinion right now. The TIR optic makes for a very usable beam too.

It’s not perfect, the UI here with the long press to turn on takes getting used to but it’s really only that small change. It’s not ideal in my opinion but it does provide extra protection so that it won’t come on accidentally in your pocket. It also doesn’t accept flat top unprotected batteries which I happen to have a fair number of. I do wish turbo lasted a bit longer before stepping down on its own too without retriggering, and the markings on the light don’t line up with the clip on my light. I do really like how they put some markings inside the battery tube to hide them.

This is probably going to be my new pick for someone wanting to spend between $50-100 on a 18650 sized flashlight with a tail eswitch, especially if LED and Tint is important to them. While there are cheaper ways to try a Nichia 519a LED this would be a great way to get into one with a great light around it. 

Pickup the Acebeam E70 Mini from Acebeam Direct at https://shrsl.com/3m7bt and save 10% (on any Acebeam) with the code “Liq10”

Or get it on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3AUDYrF