u/EDC_glowngears

When the first Wuben X1 Falcon (LightOK) came out, I was fascinated. A compact light pushing 12,000 lumens felt wild, and then I saw how Wuben pulled it off. They built in an active cooling system that pulls in cool air and blows it across an internal heat sink, wrapped around 3 Cree XHP70.2 emitters. The engineering had me wanting one badly.

Two things held me back. The battery wasn't replaceable, which is a hard sell on an expensive light, and it was flood only.

Then around July or August 2025, Wuben announced the X1 Pro on Kickstarter, and it basically erased both of my reasons. Sleeker design, user-replaceable 21700s, a cooling fan you can swap yourself, bike and tripod mounts, and proper beam control with selectable channels for spot, spot plus flood, and flood. That was it, I was sold. I backed it right away, and when it arrived, I grabbed an extra cooling fan "just in case" and the tripod mount.

This thing is sweet. I call it a mini sun in the pocket, and honestly, the X1 Pro could tan anyone on the planet. Jokes aside, this slab has earned its keep, and I'm happy with the roughly $120 I put into the whole kit.

A few things I've loved so far:

• Wuben tucked a USB-C to C cable into the lanyard, and it supports fast charging and doubles as a power bank, so charging other gear in the middle of nowhere is sorted if you carry both.
• I took the White version. The black and white dual tone gives me Star Wars vibes, and it matches my white X4. The finish is holding up great on both, and it cleans up easily. A little glass cleaner on a microfibre cloth and it's back to new.
• The tripod mount surprised me. I assumed the weight would make it pointless, and I was wrong. I stuck the X1 Pro on a 4 foot tripod, set it to flood on medium, aimed it at my motorcycle, and did a full throttle body clean and calibration. About 3 hours start to finish, and at some point I forgot I was working under a flashlight and not a ceiling light.

It genuinely raised its own value on the utility side and stayed rock steady the whole time. Right tool, right time, no regrets.

So, what do you think? Do you rock one, and would you call this the right upgrade over the original X1?

A little while back I posted about my first Fireflies Z1. This is the follow-up, and it got a bit out of hand in the best way.

I picked up the Z1 Artemis Void White with the FFL5009D 5000K the day it went live. I already love my other Fireflies lights so I was excited going in, but holding it still caught me off guard. I expected an 18650 host to feel a bit chunky, and it just isn't. It's really compact and seriously well made.

The Void White finish surprised me too. It's not MAO white, it's a smooth powder coat, and it's finished cleanly with no visible compromises anywhere. Pair that with the TIR lens and the aux lights glowing through it when the light is off, and the thing looks dead gorgeous just sitting there.

I hadn't even had it a couple of weeks, still going gaga over it, when Fireflies dropped a Brass version. That was it for me. I've never owned a brass light, so I was already half sold, and using the white one the way I had sealed the other half. So I ordered the Brass edition with the FFL5009R 3500K, and honestly it looks exquisite in person.

My one worry is oxidation. I'm hoping the brass doesn't patina like copper does, or at least not anywhere near as fast. If any brass owners have long-term photos, I'd love to see how yours has aged.

Sharing a few shots here. Void white next to brass, aux colours, the works.

So, what do you think? And for those with brass lights, how has the finish held up over time?

A little while back I posted about the E2 Pulse from Wuben's teaser. Since then a bunch of you have shared real photos of it out in the wild, worn on chains, clipped to keys, sitting next to knives, and honestly it's only made me want one more.

The size is the big thing for me. I knew the dimensions on paper, so I expected something small. But a good friend who already has it sent me a photo of it side by side with his Wuben G5 in yellow, and seeing it next to a light I actually know the size of made it click. It's properly compact. Smaller in person than the numbers made me picture.

So now I'm sitting here thinking about grabbing both colours, and if Wuben lands on a decent price I might pick up a few extras for friends and family too. It just looks like the kind of little thing people would actually enjoy carrying.

Big kudos to everyone who posted their shots, the necklace and keychain pics especially. That's what pushed me from "interested" to "okay I need this."

So, what do you think? Anyone here carrying one yet, and does it live up to the hype in person?

Back in 2002 I was a kid getting my ears checked, and the ENT doctor pulled out this plain little pen light to look inside. Nothing fancy, just a simple pen with a bit of white light at the tip. But for a kid already weirdly into flashlights, it blew my mind, and it stuck with me for 20-odd years.

Fast forward to now, with a small pile of EDC lights already, and I finally went looking for a proper pen light of my own. My checklist was simple: a reputed brand, good build, a high-CRI emitter, a battery that's both rechargeable and replaceable, and cheap enough that it wouldn't feel like a waste if it flopped. I wasn't chasing max lumens or throw. A pen light isn't meant for that.

The Wuben PL01 ticked every box. High-CRI neutral white, a dead simple tail-click UI, and a USB-C rechargeable cell you can also swap for two AAAs. Build feels great for the price.

And I love it. It lives in my daily to-do diary, and I sometimes flick it on for no reason at all, just because it's a lovely thing to use. If Wuben ever makes a PL02, it's going straight into my rotation.

So, what do you think of the PL01? And if you know a pen light with great build that's still budget-friendly, drop your recommendations. I'd love to hear them.

Quick heads up before anything else. Sorry for the screen grabs, I couldn't find much detail on this one yet, so I had to grab these straight from Wuben's official teaser post.

So Wuben has been quietly killing it in the ECL (Easy Carry Light) space. The G5 was the one that really put that segment on the map for a lot of us, and that thing was already small. Now they've gone and made the E2 Pulse, and somehow they shrank the whole idea down even further while making it way easier to carry.

The size is what got me first. It's roughly 41 mm tall, 19 mm wide, and only 14.6 mm thick, and it weighs somewhere around 10 grams. That is basically nothing in your hand. You can tell Wuben actually sat down and worked out how to fit a proper little EDC light into something you'd forget you're even carrying.

And it isn't just one light either. You get the main beam, a softer side light for ambient use and close-up tasks, and a red and blue warning mode for when you need to be seen. Throw in the magnetic tail, USB-C charging, and a clip, and it covers a surprising amount for how tiny it is.

The bit I like most is how you carry it is completely up to you. Clip it, pocket it, or drop it on the chain and wear it like a little locket/pendent around your neck. It genuinely looks good enough to flaunt, whether you're walking the street or standing around at a party. The name comes from the rhythm of a heartbeat, and the whole thing is clearly built to just live on you every day.

It's refreshing to see a brand take the "easy carry" idea this seriously and actually make something you'd want to wear, not just toss in a drawer.

So, what do you think of the E2 Pulse? Would you rock one? I am already in the queue to grab one or maybe both colours when it drops!

Sofirn HS21 - opened mine after reading these two posts and found the same thermal paste issue (fixed it myself)

Wanted to share this after reading through these two threads:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/1v8til7/sofirn_hs21_burning_led_issue_update/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/1v7wy9r/sofirn_hs21_bad_batch_burnt_phosphor/

Both posts got me worried enough to open up my own HS21 and take a look. Sure enough, I found the same problem: there wasn't enough thermal paste under the MCPCB to make good contact with the base plate, so the heat wasn't getting transferred out properly.

For what it's worth, I love this headlamp. It does everything I need from a good light and then some. But after seeing how serious this issue can get, I didn't want to just wait for it to overheat and die on me, then deal with a warranty claim through Sofirn.

Here's what I did:

I cleaned off the old thermal paste, and there was also way too much flux on the emitter side, so I cleaned everything up with 99% IPA. Then I applied fresh thermal paste and put the MCPCB and base plate back together. I pressed down from the center with a gentle circular motion so the paste could spread out to all the corners. The excess squeezed out through the cutouts where the wires route from the back to the front of the MCPCB, so I cleaned that off.

After that I put a thin layer of thermal paste on the outer edges of the base plate too, so it can transfer heat out to the body of the headlamp. Without that, the base plate is basically isolated from the body and the heat has nowhere to go.

That said, I would strongly recommend NOT doing this yourself if you're not comfortable with modding, soldering, and that kind of work. If you're unsure, reach out to Sofirn or someone who can fix it properly for you. I only felt confident doing it because I've started getting into flashlight modding. Not worth risking your light or hurting yourself otherwise.

Big thanks to PiercingTheDarknesss (big fan of his work), who posted the original threads. His post helped me (and I'm sure a lot of others) catch an issue we didn't even know we had, one that a lot of us would probably run into eventually if we didn't look now.

Attaching before-and-after photos-

I've been using and following LoopGear for a while now, and the SK06 is a fresh new idea that has taken inspiration from all its elder siblings' hero features. It takes the stuff people already liked from their available flashlights and puts it in a plain tube body that actually fits in a pocket, which the flat ones never quite did for me.

Here's the way I'd trace it. The SK03 was the one that started the E-Tritium side light, that dim electronic glow that sort of mimics real tritium and lasts forever on a charge. People loved it, I love it. Then the SK03 RGB made that side light do full color, and that took off too. The SK05 II Pro made the side light properly bright (100 lm) and kept the RGB, I love it as the side light is so much more usable. The UV version of the SK05 II Pro threw a UV emitter in. And the SK07 was the tactical one, solid-looking tube, long throw, mechanical lock, that drilled-out skeleton look.

The SK06 basically grabs a piece from each of them. You get the tactical tube and the throw (2400 lm, around 260 m), the bright RGB side light, the E-Tritium tube, UV, and there's even a Class 3R laser version if you want it. On top of that, a 4000 mAh cell, IP68, 1 m impact rating, and it's only about 107 mm long.

What sold me though, is that none of it makes the light annoying to use, rather makes me more interested in how all the hero features brought together can elevate the user experience. Looking at the UI, I am happy that LoopGear kept the UI simple click pattern (on/off, mode, brightness) and that's it. No memorising some 7-click secret handshake to get to the mode you want.

So, what do you think of the new SK06?

Astral White | Z1 | FFL5009D | 5000K | Samsung 35E