REVIEW – What is one thing that everyone needs in their EDC gear collection? A flashlight! Do you have a favorite EDC flashlight? Say goodbye to it, because you’re going to be putting it in a drawer very soon. That’s because Olight has just released their Baton 3 Premium Edition and it’s something special. Let’s take a closer look.
What is it?
The Olight Baton 3 is a small LED flashlight that comes with a specially designed wireless charging case that will recharge the flashlight up to 3.7 times without cables, power outlets, solar chargers, etc.
What’s in the box?
- Olight Baton 3 flashlight
- Wireless charger
- USB charging cable
- Microfiber cleaning cloth
- User manual
Design and features
It might look like a tiny hip flask, but I assure you that it’s better than that. This is the first (to my knowledge) wireless charging case for a flashlight.
The case is a specially designed backup battery for the Baton 3. The case itself can be charged via a USB-C cable (one is included). Above the USB-C charging port is a charging status LED that will glow red while charging the charging case’s battery and will turn green when charging has completed.
Flip open the top of the charging case and you will find a miniature EDC flashlight snuggled in its perfectly designed magnetic charging slot.
The charging case has a built-in 3500mAh battery which as mentioned earlier can recharge the Baton 3 up to 3.7 times. The flashlight itself features a 550mAh 3.7V IMR16340 rechargeable (and replaceable) battery. Note that this flashlight is not compatible with any other batteries.
The bottom of the charging slot uses a magnet like the magnetic tail cap charging cables that come with the Olight Baton S2R or Olight Warrior Mini flashlights. In fact, you can use the same magnetic charger cable with the Baton 3 if you have other Olight Baton lights.
There’s a tiny status LED inside the charging case that shows the flashlight’s charging status. Green when fully charged, red while charging. FYI: the Baton 3 will completely recharge in 1hr.
How freaking cool is this little guy?! At only 2.48 in (63mm) long, it may look like a toy, but it will put out a max of 1,200 lumens on full brightness (turbo mode).
The Baton 3 is available in red, blue, or black, and comes with a pocket/cap clip that you can remove if desired.
The power button is on the side of the light. This side switch has an LED under it that glows green while the light is powered on and will change to orange when the flashlight’s charge goes down to 60%. It will then turn red when the charge drops to 10% and will flash red when the charge drops to 5%.
Although this light is small, I didn’t have any problems holding and using it due to the nicely knurled grip.
Brightness levels
The Olight Baton 3 has 5 brightness levels/modes:
LEVEL 1 Turbo (1,200~300 lumens), 166 meters, 1.5 minutes+75 minutes,
LEVEL 2 High (300 lumens), 82 meters, 95 minutes
LEVEL 3 Medium (60 lumens) 38 meters, 7.5 hours
LEVEL 4 Low (12 lumens) 18 meters, 33 hours
LEVEL 5 Moon (0.5 lumens): 20 days
This flashlight also has a strobe feature but it doesn’t have an SOS or beacon feature. Let’s check out some pics of it in action.
This is my basement living room at night with the lights off. You can see a few little blips of light which are from various electronics.
The image above shows the Baton 3 on moon brightness mode, which is the lowest level.
The pictures above show the brightness levels one after the other with the last picture showing the light in Turbo mode which is the brightest level.
What I like
- Comes with a charging case
- Small but mighty
- 5-year warranty
- Replaceable battery
What I’d change
- Add wireless charging capability to the charging case itself
Final thoughts
If you want to add a well-made small flashlight to your EDC collection, you can’t go wrong with the Olight Baton 3 Premium Edition. By itself, the Baton 3 is a great light that is small in size but puts out a bright beam that is perfect indoors and outdoors. With the addition of the wireless charging case, you won’t need to worry about finding an outlet when you’re mobile because the charger will be with you where ever you go. The Olight Baton 3 has quickly become my favorite flashlight.
| Flash sale 8:00 PM March 18th, 2021 – 11:59 PM March 19th EST SAVE UP to 35% offVIP customers(Silver and above) will have early access to the Flash Sale starting at 11:59 PM March 14th. |
Price: $99.95 regular price, but see flash sale info above
Where to buy: Olight
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Olight.
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No word on the emitter color rendering index. I have a bunch of Olight S1Rs but I hardly every use them any more because of the sub-par CRI
Fazal I am not a flashlight or lighting expert and have never heard of CRI. Can you please enlighten me (see what I did there?) as to why it is important.
Hi Julie,
CRI is a measure 0-100 of how faithfully light reproduces color. Sunlight is a perfect 100 by definition, and incandescent bulbs have close to 100 CRI. Sodium lights have an abysmal 20 because they have essentially one wavelength. Fluorescent tubes also tend to be bad because their light emission curve is not smooth but has a spike in green, hence the livid zombie look they have on Caucasian skin tones. LEDs are usually 80, but better ones can go as high as 97.
Flashlights with high-CRI LEDs like Nichia 219, or Luminus SST-20 just make for a more pleasant experience. Not everyone has a spectrometer at home, of course, but a simple rule of thumb is that CRI is not mentioned, you can bet it is closer to 80 than to 100.
Thanks for the info. I can see how knowing the CRI would be useful and important when shopping for home/room lighting products, but for a flashlight? I just don’t see the issue here. Do you really care what color temperature something is when you are using a flashlight?
Absolutely. The Nitecore TIP CRI on my keychain, the Zebralight SC64c LE in my jacket and the Zebralight SC600FcIVd+ And BLF FW3A on my nightstand are all high-CRI lights.
High-CRI LEDs are of course a bit more expensive than lower-grade ones, and there is some loss of light to the filtration that balances the colors, but it’s well worth it. Once you’ve seen the difference, you can’t unsee it.
Now I want to see it 😉 Thanks for teaching me something today!
I almost pulled the pin and bought it last night, but it is quite expensive and I already carry a different Olight as my EDC. I like the idea of the charging case, but my pockets are already quite full. I also carry a second light that I have a lithium 14500 in but will also ise a standard AA cell. I just don’t think I need this, and the price is too high to get it just because it looks cool.
so the flashlight uses a proprietary charger and the battery bank can only be used to charge 1 specific flashlight…? 🤔
Yup, believe so. It’s going to save me from carrying a battery pack and cable, but loose the ability to charge anything else.. Also a bit pricy considering its battery capacity.
I ordered one. It will be my forth Olight. I couldn’t pass this little guy up. I ordered the red, since my other 3 Olights are black I figured I’d change things up. I liked the gold accents on the red.
I can’t wait to try it out.
The products on Olight websites in different countries are the same. If you need to buy a flashlight in Canada, you should visit :
https://www.olightstore.ca/