Olight has introduced a new right angle light with the Perun. The name comes from the Slavic God of Thunder. The Perun makes some kind of odd design choices from the fairly popular Olight H2R it logically replaces, that I will go through during this review. Thanks to SkyBen on Amazon for sending this to me to take a look at and review. This will probably be a longer review so grab your favorite cold or hot beverages and enjoy.
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Packaging and Accessories
I think it’s fair to say Olight might just have the nicest packaging in the production flashlight world and one wonders what it adds to the cost of a light. The box is a heavy white cardboard with pictures of the light on the front, it’s a magnetic box that folds out from the side. On the back you have a nice summary of the light, along with features specs, and package contents. Inside your greeted with a quick start card that tells you to remove the protective battery spacer, and charge the light, new on the Perun are warnings to make sure to keep the lens free from mist and scratches or the lights sensor may prevent higher operating modes.
Standard accessories include 3500mAh proprietary Olight battery 10A capable (ORB-186C35), pocket clip, Lanyard and lanyard threading tool, and 3rd generation faster MCC charging cable. No headstrap comes standard with the Perun, like it does for nearly every other right angle light on the market. Instead Olight choose to make the strap an optional extra or part of a bundle deal. The strap itself is very similar to what was on the H2R with only some screen printing on the side being different. It’s a magnetic mount and it’s easy to get the light on and off, and it will even work with the pocket clip attached although I don’t recommend it.
Construction
The Olight Perun is made from black anodized aluminum as expected. The body and tail cap are all one piece like we saw on the Baton Pro. While similar in design these two tubes are not interchangeable as they as slightly different lengths. Patterns are different as well, the Peruns texture is larger pyramids with the points not milled off. I think it’s attractive and aggressive looking but interferes with the operation some as I will explain in a minute.
The head is a collar design, with the pocket clip only attaching here, While it is a dual direction clip, it’s quite far from deep carry. I measured 20mm of the light’s head sticking up out of my pocket, which for me is way too much for EDC in a front pocket. I could see someone clipping this on a vest, or backpack strap possibly. The backside of the head has some groves milled in for style and heat dissipation. The top of the light is where you find the large silicone button thats slightly domed and angled away from the lens. This is easy to operate with gloves and produces a good click for an electronic switch. It’s surrounded by a blue signature ring. The lens of this light itself is again surrounded by a blue ring. The lens itself is plastic, it contains a clear center so you can easily see the LED underneath. It doesn’t really have a reflector to speak of. On top of the lens is a blacked out section, when looking up at it you can see a sensor is mounted inside, and this is the IR sensor used to dim/turn off the light if something comes close to it. More on that here in a minute.
The strap is a high quality one with an over the head piece. The mount is magnetic to hold the light but it’s not strong enough to hold the light with any movement. There is a rubber/silicone strap that stretches over the light to secure it. It even allows for use with the pocket clip attached but it’s a stretch. Combine this design with the increased texture on the body and it makes rotating the light a little difficult, it’s best done so from the tail side, as if you do so from the head side it’s more likely you will unscrew the head from the light rather then rotate it.
Size & Weight
I measured the length of the Perun at 112mm, maximum diameter at the head at 25mm, and minimum diameter on the body/tail at 23mm. Weight with the included battery and clip came in at 115.7g.
The natural competitor here is the previous model, the Olight H2R. I measured the length of the H2R at 110mm, maximum diameter at the head at 25.3mm and minimum diameter on the body at 20mm. Weight of the H2R with it’s included battery and clip came in at 109g.
Next to my Nitecore HC35 the Olight Perun looks tiny, that said the Nitecore is running 4 LED, and a larger 21700 battery. Be sure to make sure your subscribed so you can watch the review of the Nitecore HC35 coming in the next week or two.
See pictures of the Nitecore in the video.
LED | Beamshot | Mode Spacing
Unfortunately Olight has not said officially what LED the Perun is using. I can tell you it looks like a quad package and is a fairly large domed emitter. My guess is it’s a Cree XHP 50.2 LED. It’s tint is pretty cool white, easily 6500k or greater. The beam pattern here is all flood with no real hotspot at distance thanks to the TIR optic. When I compare it to my NW H2R the first thing I notice is the huge difference in tint, and the second thing I notice beam angle. While both lights are all flood, the Perun is a little wider and slightly less throwy. Olight rates them at 12 meters of difference in throw, to the eye though it’s hard to perceive the difference. The IR sensor doesn’t seem to change the beam pattern here which is a good thing.
Olight has recently started adding runtime progressions in the manual which is nice to see a manufacturer being honest about what their lights will actually do. For my own runtime testing I tested with the included battery. Turbo mode was good for just at 2.5 minutes and then it started stepping down from there to about 55% relative output for roughly 10 minutes. From there I saw one more step down to about 35% relative output for 90 minutes, We then saw 3 more major step downs over the next 60 minutes or so before the light ran in moonlight mode till LVP kicked in. Total runtime was just at 165 minutes. Heat was pretty well controlled, the hottest I saw during my runtime test was 104F at the 5 minute mark..
Here is the official output figures and mode spacing.
- Moon – 5 Lumens
- Low – 30 Lumens
- Medium – 120 Lumens
- High – 500 Lumens
- Turbo – 2000 Lumens
My comment on mode spacing here is that it’s a huge difference between the 500 lumens of high and 2000 lumens in turbo. While I would prefer something in between the benefit is that high mode can sustain itself without stepping down for 3 hours.
PWM
I will insert some shots of my PWM tests here. There wasn’t any thing to see or find on my scope here.
UI
The Olight Perun has the standard Olight UI many of us have come to know, and I like with the slower fades from off/on and between modes. From off, long press to activate moonlight mode at 5 lumens. To turn on in normal modes single click the switch, to change brightness level hold the button and the light will cycle through the 5 available modes lowest to highest. Double click to access turbo. Triple click to access strobe. The light also features memory mode for normal modes.
Lockout can be accomplished when the light is off by pressing and holding the switch for 2 seconds until moonlight mode comes on and immediately shuts off. To exit lockout press the button for about 1 second until moonlight mode stays on. Personally I will just give the body of the light a ¼ turn to mechanically lock it out. The light features a short 3 minute timer, and a longer 9 minute timer. If these are setup (See the included manual) the light will automatically shut off when the end of the timer is reached.
The other thing the Perun has is an IR sensor that when the light detects it’s too close to an object it steps down in brightness to 30 lumens and if held there past the 60 second mark it will shut off the light entirely. Olight warns in the manual and the card right inside the package that dust or scratches on the (plastic) lens may affect the lights ability to run in high mode. There is no way to disable this sensor in the UI of the light.
In practice I found this interesting to use and experiment with and a little gimicky. Lighter colored object seem to make the light reduce output further away about 3-4 inches, where darker objects made that distance much shorter 1 inch or less. Angle of attack seemed to matter too, the distances were greater if the light was straight on to the object vs at an angle to it. For instance I could put the Perun right up to a wall at an angle and still get the full 2000 lumens, vs if I angle it straight on it turned off a few inches out.
I see the thought process behind including something like this, as you see people on forums burning holes in their jackets and pants sometimes with high power flashlights that turn on accidently. But I think it’s a design flaw in the UI to not be able to turn it off. A scratch in the lens, or a dusty/super heavy rainy environment reduces the lights output substantially and potentially even shuts it off after 60 seconds. Overall, I am not a fan of the IR sensor here when you can easily electronically or mechanically lock out the light instead.
Battery & Recharging
Olight choose to go with a proprietary 3500mAh 10A capable discharge battery for the Perun. However the somewhat exciting and unexpected news here is that you can use a standard button top generic battery as well in the light for everything except using the the magnetic charging system. I tested with a 3400mAh high discharge battery from Thrunite and the light ran well, even in turbo mode without a problem. The manual even points this out, it was all unexpected and quite nice to see.
Charging the included 3500mAh battery was accomplished with the new MCC 1.5A charger. I saw charge time take just at 4 hours from LVP at 2.88V and terminated at 4.17V. No voltage was detected at the tail cap and no charging speed issues.
Pro’s
- Slightly less output here in turbo means you no longer need a high discharge battery, but a proprietary Olight battery is still needed for charging.
- A standard button top 18650 will work in the light, but won’t charge.
- Attractive overall design, good head band if you purchase it
- High mode sustains itself for 3 hours, but it’s only 500 lumens.
- A little more runtime then the older H2R, and it can sustain high for longer.
Con’s
- Making the headstrap an optional extra
- Clip doesn’t make for a practical EDC due to how much of the light sticks up from your pocket
- Lack of a Neutral White Emitter and true moonlight mode
- No glass lens over the plastic TIR, meaning it’s more susceptible to scratches which can impact the performance of the IR sensor and potentially making the light only work in low.
- No setting to turn off the IR/Proximity sensor.
Conclusion
The Perun is just an odd mix of what seems like a step backwards combined with small upgrades that don’t matter much for actual use. The result is a light that in my opinion isn’t really better then the model it logically was set to replace with the Olight H2R which I was a fan of.
It’s nice to see Olight reducing the requirement of a high discharge battery being required here, allowing a higher capacity battery to be used. It’s also nice to still see and be mentioned in the manual that a normal button top 18650 battery will work, but not charge in the light.
The IR sensor seems kind of like a gimmick, this isn’t a very practical light to EDC in front pocket like the H2R was, or other right angle headlamps like the Armytek Wizard or Elf is. So dimming when something is near isn’t super needed here. I could see it being useful to throw it in a bag and it won’t come on and melt something but we have electronic or mechanical lockout for that too which is an easier and more reliable option in my opinion and doesn’t potentially compromise the light if the lens were dirty, or scratched.
The aggressive texture on the body looks good but again makes the light as a headlamp a little harder to use in the mount.
Admittedly these are mostly things enthusiasts care about, if you hand the Olight Perun to a non enthusiast they are going to think it’s a great product. It’s bright, comfortable, attractively designed, easy to use, and bright, but for many enthusiasts there are probably better choices. Mine is going to probably go to a family member who is in need of a headlight and doesn’t care about the things I mentioned, for them it will be a nice fit. So with that said let me know in the comments if this is the right headlamp for you?
Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/JlhEwYs
Purchase the Olight Perun on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2RLFKnT