About Honest Lumens
Honest Lumens is an independent buyer-guide site for everyday-carry flashlights, tactical lights and headlamps. The whole mission is in the tagline — real lumens, honest runtime. Marketing lumens are a peak number that lasts seconds; what actually matters is regulated ANSI FL-1 output and the runtime you really get. Too many people buy a light off a headline number, get burned when it steps down to a dim glow in ninety seconds, and write off the whole category. This site exists so that doesn’t happen to you.
The right light shows real output on your very first use, and holds it. We help you pick it.
What we do, in plain English
We gather the specs of the flashlights, headlamps and accessories worth knowing about — max lumens, runtime-to-10%, throw in candela and metres, IP rating, battery format, emitter and weight — and we organise them: by use case, by output and beam, by battery, by hands-free vs handheld. Then we publish the spec-led comparisons that should already exist but somehow don’t — there’s no "RTINGS of flashlights", and that gap is what we’re filling. We update our top picks regularly, and we don’t accept payment to position a product.
When we have a strong, honest view — marketing lumens vs FL-1 regulated output, throw vs flood, 18650 vs 21700 vs AA, rechargeable vs disposable — we say so and explain why. When the right answer depends on your use case, your budget and how you carry, we walk through the decision instead of pretending there’s one universal pick.
Our editorial method
- Source the specs. Max lumens, runtime-to-10%, throw (candela and metres), IP rating, battery format, emitter and weight — straight from manufacturer ANSI/NEMA FL-1 figures and current Amazon listings, with community-measured data where a maker doesn’t publish an FL-1 figure.
- Run the comparison. We line lights up on the specs that decide how they actually perform for a use case, not the ones that sound impressive on the box.
- Land the recommendation. Specific, use-case-aware, and updated whenever the product line changes. Figures like throw in metres are physics-derived from published candela.
When a light or accessory gets discontinued, we mark the page as updated and swap in the closest currently-available replacement. We don’t pretend a dead link still works.
Who writes here
Wade Holloway founded Honest Lumens and writes the blog himself. He’s a lifelong EDC and gear hobbyist in his late 30s, living in Boise, Idaho — real Mountain-West country, with hunting, fishing, camping and jobsites right out the back door. He has carried a pocket light every single day for 10+ years: a single-18650 EDC light with a pocket clip is his workhorse for pocket, work and dog-walks, a rechargeable headlamp handles hands-free jobs and night hikes, and an AA light lives in the glovebox because cells are everywhere. He knows the gear from years of real carry and the measured-output enthusiast community — not a lab.
The honest origin story: years ago Wade bought the brightest thing he could find on a marketplace — a cheap torch with "90,000 LUMENS!" screaming off the box. The first time he actually needed it, it blasted bright for maybe ten seconds, stepped down to a dim glow inside ninety seconds, ran perhaps 800 real lumens at best, got hot, and chewed through its battery. He learned the hard way that the headline lumen number is marketing and the ANSI FL-1 figures — regulated output and runtime-to-10% — are what actually matter. That’s the origin of "real lumens, honest runtime", and Honest Lumens exists so nobody else buys a hype number.
Wade is active in the measured-output flashlight community — the people who care about FL-1 figures, runtime graphs and community-measured data — and he’s the guy at a carry meetup who’ll tell you which "ultra-bright" torch is a toy. He writes as a longtime EDC carrier and site founder, not a lighting engineer, manufacturer or lab — and that boundary is deliberate. Where a first-person observation is genuine, from his own daily carry, he says so. Some articles also come from rotating contributors — tradespeople, hunters and longtime carry hobbyists. Each article shows its author at the top; when someone else writes, Wade’s name appears at the bottom under "Edited by".
What we don’t do
- We don’t claim hands-on testing we didn’t do. Product comparisons are pure spec aggregation from manufacturer ANSI/NEMA FL-1 figures and community-measured data — never a lux meter or bench test of a specific named light. Where a first-person carry note is genuine, from Wade’s own gear, we say so explicitly.
- We don’t soften Li-ion safety. Lithium-ion handling, charging and transport are stated as factual safety, always pointing to the cell and charger manufacturer’s instructions — never improvised-charger advice.
- We don’t chase marketing lumens. We’ll tell you that regulated FL-1 output and sustained runtime beat the headline number, and that the "90,000 lumen" marketplace torch is the trap that makes buyers quit.
How we make money
Honest Lumens is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, and participates in direct-brand programs (Olight, Fenix, Nitecore) where available. If you buy something via a link on this site, we earn a small commission. It costs you nothing.
We don’t tilt our recommendations to favour any single product, brand, or commission tier. You can read the full disclosure on our Amazon Disclosure page.
How to reach us
Tips, corrections, product launches we should know about, or just a hello — write to hello@honestlumens.com or use the contact form. We read everything. We can’t respond to every message, but we read.
If you spot an outdated spec, a discontinued product, or a price that’s drifted, those tip-offs are especially welcome. They keep the site honest.