Review: LazerBrite

I've loved cyalume sticks for as long as I can remember, for festivals and parties as a boy, camping and LRPing as an adult, and as part of my bug-out-bag, and emergency kit in bot the car and at home. However, they are one-use-only. Even if you get more than a single night's light out of them, which in a pinch, and in a cold climate, you may, once the glass phial of hydrogen peroxide is broken, the chemical clock is counting down. This is a real shame be cause it not only means you need to replace the glow-stick, the waste builds up. Ask anyone who cleans up after raves or music festivals.
 Then along came the crazy folks from LazerBrite with their very ingenious product. Instead of a once off chemiluminescent mixture in a translucent tube, they fitted high efficiency LED's to a  translucent tube. Or rather, they fitted the LED to a nodule, which can be threaded onto a translucent tube.
These modular lights have threaded ends at either end, enabling the LED to be fitted either facing into, or out of the tube, lending itself to being used either as a traditional looking glow-stick, or with the fitting of one of the "glow-dome" ends, produce a diffuse, wide area illumination source. The added bonus of this is that the lights can be tailored to the need, and reconfigured at a moments notice. Simply unscrewing the heads and rotating the bulbs allows one, the other or both LED's to be facing in or out as the need requires. No tools required. Brilliant!


The second generation "Multi-Lux" version of the heads have three settings; Low, High and a two-flash pulse. This gives not only several options for both signalling, but endurance and light discipline purposes. Another awesome feature is the range of colours available in the LED's; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and White. They also offer an IR option, but due to ITAR regulations, were not able to ship me any (yet). Battery replacement needs a coin or flathead screwdriver to quickly achieve. There is also a lanyard end which warrants mention, allowing either the whole tube, or in fact just the LED head, to be fitted to a lanyard, or affixed to your kit. I plan on using mine as a "light grenade", sort of high-powered LED-Throwies for not only my Stargate LRP, but also just camping fun. Its also worth mentioning a key feature that several of the tubes can be daisy-chained together, as each head is threaded front and back, to make a sizable pole of illumination.

Modular, rugged, 10 year battery shelf life, small, lightweight, waterproof and reliable, with up to 75 hours of battery life per head, reported to be visible 1 mile away. Whats not to like?