Popular Mechanics - USA (2019-09)

LED COLORS

white

R U N T I M E

2.5

to

100

hours

P R I C E

$120

M A X

LUMENS

900

BEAM DISTANCE

492 feet

WEIGHT

3.5 ounces

BEST TECH

PETZL SWIFT RL

COURTESY

for fine-tuning—both are easy even when

you’re wearing gloves. You can wear the

battery pack on the back of the head strap

or stash it in a backpack using the included

extension cord. A blinking red light on the

battery helps others see you, even when

your light is off.

This little lamp produces a ton of light with

an impressive run time, thanks to Petzl’s

Reactive Lighting tech, which helps save

battery life by automatically adjusting

light levels for your needs. The Swift also

comes with the most useful battery-life

display of any light we tested. While most

lamps blink when the battery starts to run

low, this one uses five LED dots to show

you exactly how much juice you have left.

P R I C E

$140

BEAM DISTANCE

984 feet

MAX LUMENS

1,000

LED COLORS

white

RUNTIME

4 to 40 hours

WEIGHT

12 ounces

waterproof by submerg-

ing them elbow-deep

into a bucket of water

and clicked through

all the buttons and set-

tings. Then we dropped

them from 7 feet onto a

concrete slab to assess

their impact resistance.

Finally, we ran, hiked,

and wore them around

the house in the dark,

just like you would, to

gauge their fit and overall

performance.

How

We

72 September 2019

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