REVIEW – My wife and I enjoy hiking in the Appalachians, and sometimes we take the “road less traveled” and trek on obscure trails where we don’t see anyone else. After reading a few stories this summer about hikers who had a mishap and spent longer in the outdoors than expected, I decided to add a flashlight to our hiking kit. Just in case. In this review, I’m testing the Wuben X1 Pro to see if it’s a good choice for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $119
Where to buy: Kickstarter
What is it?
The Wuben X1 Pro is a flashlight that is “engineered for adventure.” It has dual beams, 13,000 lumens, and a pair of replaceable 21700 batteries.
What’s included?
- Flashlight
- 2 batteries
- USB-C to USB-C cable
- Manual
- Bike handle mount
Tech specs
- Max Output: 13,000 lumens
- Modes: Spotlight (1 LED) and floodlight (4 LEDs)
- Batteries: A pair of 21700, rechargeable, 4800 mAh, li-ion
- IP Rating: IP65
- Max Range: 377 m (less than ¼ mile)
- Size: 2.4 x 1.2 x 5.4 inches
- Weight: 383 grams with batteries
- Material: Aluminum alloy
Design and features
Most flashlights are built around their batteries and thus are tubular in shape. The X1 Pro is built around a pair of batteries, but instead of making it longer Wuben made it wider in order to accommodate the dual beams. This gadget is essentially a pair of flashlights housed side-by-side in a short, rectangular box. It’s a practical if not elegant design.
This flashlight is solid and sturdy. The extra wide design feels good when gripped in my hand. It’s fairly short, not intended for tactical or rescue situations. It doesn’t have an ergonomic design, as there are plenty of sharp edges that are hot spots. For an extended emergency situation – say my wife and I got lost in the woods and spent a few hours trying to find our way back out – I would prefer a design with rounded edges.
Although Wuben bills this as a flashlight for outdoor explorers and adventurers, keep in mind that this is a heavy flashlight for its compact size. It’s more than twice the weight of this Speras tactical flashlight that I reviewed last year. For that reason, it’s not really a great choice for hiking or wilderness camping, where every ounce counts.
Assembly, Installation, Setup
The X1 Pro arrived in a sturdy box with custom inserts. I opened the battery housing and removed two thin plastic strips that prevented the battery from discharging during shipping. The batteries were already charged, so the X1 Pro was ready to go!
Note: Wuben sent me a trial production unit, so features may change for the finished product.
Performance
The X1 Pro has two buttons:
- The Mode Switch button changes the beams.
- The On/Off button does everything else.
I mentioned that this gadget is essentially two flashlights side-by-side, but it’s not the same flashlights. One of the beams is narrow (aka spotlight mode); that is, it’s brightest right in the center and less bright around the edges. This beam is the normal beam that you will find on most tactical flashlights. The other beam is wide (aka floodlight mode); that is, it’s equally bright everywhere. The difference between the two is quite noticeable. The Mode Switch button allows me to switch between the beams or, even better, turn on both at once! This button is large and easy-to-use.
The On/Off button has a host of capabilities:
- If I tap it, it turns it on and off. It remembers the previous brightness though not the strobe pattern.
- If I press and hold, it cycles between eco, low, medium, and high brightness.
- If I double-tap, it sets it to turbo, which is very high brightness.
- If I triple-tap, it strobes rapidly. If I triple-click again, it strobes in the SOS pattern.
- If I quadruple-tap, it locks the flashlight until I quadruple-tap again.
- If I quintuple-tap, it turns the internal fan on.
I’m not a fan of this interface, as it’s overly complicated. If I get into an emergency situation, there’s no way that I’ll be able to remember how many clicks does what; furthermore, it’s just plain annoying to try and click 4 or 5 times in a row to activate a feature. For more normal use, just turning it on and adjusting the brightness, this interface gets the job done. Additionally, I would prefer that the On/Off button have a more tactile feel to it, making it easier to find by touch in the dark.
Here’s a YouTube video that demonstrates some of these features:
In the center of the On/Off button there’s a small LED that is the battery indicator. This is activated when the flashlight is charging and when it’s turned on.
The Wuben X1 Pro has two internal batteries that can be charged via a USB-C port right above the On/Off button. The port is protected with a rubbery plug that is hard to push down into place; it seems like it’s slightly too big. This charger supports PD fast charging up to 30W. The manual says it takes two hours to charge, but I found that it only took 90 minutes (and that without PD).
The manual says that the battery will last 1.8 hours on high and 1.7 on turbo, so I decided to test that. First, it’s important to understand that this flashlight has a built-in fan system. Yes, this flashlight gets so hot that it needs a fan to help cool it down. The picture above shows the air inlets; the outlets are on the opposite side. On high, the fan automatically kicked in after two-and-a-half minutes, while on turbo, it kicked in after only 15 seconds. The fan is loud indoors, though not so noticeable outdoors.
Second, the fan is not enough. When testing both high and turbo, the fan quit after an hour, which caused the flashlight to get very hot. On high, I could still handle it, though it was uncomfortable; on turbo, the flashlight was way too hot and burned me. I could not hold it or use it until it cooled down. Wuben obviously knows that this gadget has a heat problem, but they were not able to design a mechanism to mitigate it. This flashlight is dangerous – no wonder there’s a way to lock it – and should not be kept around children. For me, I will normally use this flashlight on medium and switch to high or turbo only for short periods of time.
The batteries are removable, which is a great feature. Even better, Wuben sells spare batteries on their website.
The battery switch has a small lock that prevents it opening. Once I click the button to the unlocked position, I can put my thumb on the battery switch and push it downward. This pops open the battery door, which is the entire bottom of the flashlight. The batteries slip out easily for replacement.
There’s a rope hole near the bottom of the X1 Pro for a lanyard, but the opening is very narrow. It’s too small for a paracord lanyard like this, but it works fine with a nylon one like this.
The X1 Pro comes with a two-piece bike clamp. The first piece mounts on the side of the flashlight with a pair of screws. The second piece wraps around the handle bar of the bike. The second slips onto the first and is held in place with a very small knob. To release it, I push up on a tab that pops the knob out of a slot. This mechanism is poorly designed. The tab and the knob are both plastic and will easily wear out; I would not trust a nice and heavy flashlight, like the X1 Pro, to such a cheap mechanism.
A friend of mine took the X1 Pro on a night bike ride to test it out. Overall, he liked it a lot and would be happy to use it again. He kept it on medium brightness with both spotlight and floodlight modes, as this gave a reasonable amount of brightness while having a battery life of 5.5 hours, more than enough for a good ride with plenty to spare. He noted two small problems, both of which I’ve mentioned above: It’s a heavy light for a sport that counts ounces, and the rubber plug for the USB-C charging port doesn’t fit properly.
Final thoughts
The Wuben X1 Pro is a very bright outdoor flashlight. It has a sturdy aluminum alloy body, dual beams with 13,000 lumens of max brightness, and plethora of options for the shape and brightness of the light. It is more than capable of lighting up your backyard or campsite. This flashlight does have a heat problem, one that Wuben tried to address with an internal fan; even so, I found that on turbo with both beams the fan failed and flashlight got hot enough to burn me. I can’t really recommend a gadget that’s dangerous, but if you use the high-powered options sparingly, this could still be a useful solution for dark nights. If you’re interested in learning more, head over to Kickstarter or Wuben’s news page.
What I like about the X1 Pro
- Two flashlights in one!
- Very bright output on dual beam turbo
- Hefty, durable design
What needs to be improved?
- Design a better cooling system
- Reduce the complexity of the interface
- Round the edges for an ergonomic design
- Build a better bike handle mount
Price: $119
Where to buy: Kickstarter
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Wuben. They did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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