Lumintop Glow I

Lumintop Glow I review

Introduction:

Having a nice little flashlight on your keychain is 1, to be able to use it without your keychain is 2. If you don’t know what I mean, you should definitely read this review!

It’s such a lightweight and tiny EDC flashlight, that you’ll not even notice it while hanging on your keys.

What you’ll get:

The package quality is the same as with the other Lumintop product. Good! Inside the box you can find the following accessories:

• Lumintop Glow I
• Keychain clip
• User manual
• Micro USB charging cable

Brand / Model	Lumintop Glow I
LED	Osram
Lumens	40 Lm
Beam intensity	120cd
Battery config.	1*10180
Material	Aluminum
Modes	1
Blinkies	n/a
Reflector	TIR
Waterproof	IP68
Review date	February 2020

Handling of the light

It’s basically a great little keychain light. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s too small to really ‘grab’ though. It’s really, really tiny. Please have a look at the following pictures to really understand its size.

The Lumintop Glow I has 2 parts that can be taken off each other. The tailcap, that can be attached to your keys is held onto the body of the flashlight with a magnet. Please have a look at the pictures below in the next section. You can simply pull the light from your keys, while the keyring is still attached to your keys. I hope you understand what I mean. The magnet keeps both parts together.

You have to twist the body from the tailcap to turn the Glow I on. The plastic ring around the bezel is actually made of Glow In The Dark (GITD) material. Once you turn the light off, there is a nice glow. I guess that’s where they got that name from.

Build Quality, knurling, threads, and anodization

Please don’t think that knurling isn’t important on such a small light, because it is. The tailcap and body have little knurling, but just enough to turn the light on and off.

Anodization seems to be great, as well as the threads. Threads are only visible when untwisting the body, to reveal the Micro USB port for charging. There is also a little plastic o-ring, just to keep water out of the USB port.

The body is made of aluminum, and inside the tailcap is a small piece of metal to attach it to the magnet on the flashlight body.

You can also use the magnet to attach the flashlight to metal, which can be great for emergencies!

LEDs, Lens, Bezel, and Reflector

Lumintop simply calls it an Osram LED, without going into details. I really have no idea what type of LED they used. The specs don’t really tell.

The TIR optics produce a very smooth beam without a real hotspot. Have a look at the pictures at the bottom of the page. The beam seems rather natural and doesn’t look too cool.

It doesn’t have an aluminum or metal bezel, but it’s made of a Glow In The Dark, type of plastic.

Dimensions:

• Length when turned on:  45.42 mm (  1.777”)
• Head diameter:  16.06 mm ( 0.626 ”)
• Body diameter:  14.52mm (  0.571”)

Weight: 

•   16.2g ( 0.57 oz)

Size compared to other keychain- and EDC and mini flashlights.

From left to right: Lumintop Glow I (10180), Olight i1R 2 EOS (10180) , MBI HF-R (10250) and Lumintop EDC05 (AA)

Driver & User Interface:

The User Interface is very easy and straightforward because it has only 1 mode.

Whatever you want to call the output: high, low or medium. It’s supposed to do only 40 lumens and we’re going to measure that! Twist for on,
Twist for off.

No PWM detectable by eye.

Batteries and charging:

You can charge your Glow I by using a micro USB cable. Fortunately, they included one, and the cable is really short. I kind of like that, because it doesn’t take much space.

After the runtime tests, I couldn’t get any readings on my USB meter. It didn’t show how many Amps it was charging the battery. At 1 point I saw something like 0.08A.

Unfortunately, you can’t replace the 10180 battery in case it dies. I’ve heard that these lights will stop working before long. You might be able to open it with force or heat. Or if you have children, lend it to them for a while, they will end up breaking it open :–)

Performance:

I couldn’t do any Amp testing, but I did some Lumen Measurements.

Lumen measurements:

All output numbers are relative to my homemade Integrating Sphere. It is now set up with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter for measurements. The base measurement is done with a Convoy S2+ that has been tested at 137 lumens.

Lumintop Glow I	Manufacturer	Lumens measured
	40Lm	34.90 Lm

Runtime:

From the runtime graph, we can see that the output drops pretty rapidly. At about 55 minutes, the Glow I produces only a few lumens and continues a 1lumen output for another hour and a half. I stopped the runtime since I’m afraid it will damage the tiny 10180 battery.

Throw measurement:

Measurements were taken indoors at a distance of 2 meters, using a professional Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. 
Using the only mode it has, I get:

• Indoors (2m):  130cd =  23 meters / 74 ft throw

That’s just a little more than they advertised at 120cd.

Beamshots

For the following beamshots I compared it to the Olight i1R 2 EOS at 120 lumens. You can see that the Olight is quite a bit brighter. The beam of the Glow I is really smooth and pretty wide.

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to me as a gift with the Lumintop BLF GT90 at no cost, by Nealsgadgets. They have not paid me to review, nor have I been holding back on problems or defects.

Overall conclusion

Pros:

1. Built-in charging
2. GITD bezel
3. 1 mode
4. 1 hour runtime
5. Strong magnet

Cons

1. Not very bright, but still as bright as an old 2d or 3d maglite
2. Battery not replaceable

Rating: 5 stars ★★★★★

The Lumintop Glow I is so lightweight and tiny, that you soon will forget you have a flashlight on your keychain. The output of 34 lumens isn’t that great, but for most tiny tasks this could be a lifesaver. I wouldn’t use it to count my life on though, but it is really a nice little flashlight to play with. The Micro USB port makes it easy to charge at any time and anywhere. If you’re looking for a very tiny flashlight, consider the Lumintop Glow I!