Olight Obulb Plus

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Olight Obulb Plus review

Olight Obulb Plus specifications

Brand/modelOlight Obulb Plus
LED?
Max. Lumens300 lm
Max. Beam intensity / distance? cd
Battery config.Built-in 2,000mAh
Onboard chargingProprietary charging
Modes7 main colors and ramping modes with App control
BlinkiesSome blinky modes
ReflectorN/A
WaterproofIPX7
Review dateApril 2023

Introduction:

Take note: the lamp is shipped locked.. You have to connec the charging cable to unlock the lamp before your first use!

Olight doesn’t just make flashlight, but also other kinds of lighting products. They are ranging from pens with built-in lights to RGB desk lamps. And right here, is the 5th generation Olight Obulb.

The Obulb is a small and portable little gadget that has evolved since the first generation to an app-controllable light with tons of interesting options. And since it’s a lantern, these features can be pretty cool. The the moment of writing this review, the Olight Obulb lineup consists of the orginal Obulb, Obulb Mc, Obulb MCs, Obulb Pro, and this Obulb Plus.

While the first Obulb had only 2 modes, the Mc (multi-color) had several, the MCs has a built-in sensor (S) and the PRO and Plus are controllable by App via Bluetooth.

Generally speaking Obulbs are great for atmoshpere lights, or bed side lights. But with the magnetic base, you can even use them while camping or hiking when you use the Osling.

And Olight upgraded a few more things. Here’s a quick list:

  1. You can touch the light for manual control, power, and mode switching (unlike the Pro)
  2. It includes a charging cable (unlike the Pro)
  3. It has a built-in music rhythm feature
  4. It has more color options, including some configurable scenes!

Package quality.

Olight doesn’t use generic packaging, but each flashlight has its uniquely designed and fitted box. And inside the Obulb box, you can get:

  • The Olight Obulb Plus (protected with a nice soft pouch)
  • Adhesive metal badge
  • USB-C magnetic cable
  • Manual

Olight included the USB charging cable again, since they got so many complaints about the PRO’s package not including one.

Flashlight in use

Since this is not your usual flashlight, the use case is totally different. The ‘throw’ of this lamp is only a couple of feet, so it’s great to use indoors, as a bedside lamp, or night lamp for the kids.

To use the Obulb Plus, you simply touch the top of the lamp. You don’t need clicking, and you don’t have to use the App to use the basic features! This includes increasing and decreasing output, which wasn’t possible with the Olight Obulb Pro. So that’s a huge improvement in my opinion.

It’s also much bigger which makes it even nicer and brighter.

To get full control, you have to use the Olight APP. With the App you get tons and tons of features which are a bit too many to explain in detail. I will add some in the UI section for you. In short, this could be an interesting camping lantern for the kids, with these features.

The touch sensor is now buit in, so you don’t need to press or anything. This is such a nice upgrade form the Pro.

The biggest benefit of the APP is probably the control from a distance. This is especially interesting when you use it for your kids’ bedroom or your kids’ tent. Simply change colors or brightness from a distance, without disturbing them.

Build Quality, and Warranty

The Obulb Plus is made of plastic, so be careful not too drop it on a hard surface. It is also quite a bit heavier than the original Obulb, Obulb MC, and Obulb MCs. It also includes a bigger battery, which is nice, but makes it heavier as well.

Evn though its made of plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap at all. It has some heft to it, and the touch sensor completes it.

The base of the lamp is the heaviest, and it’s flat. So you don’t need to worry of the lamp rolling around.

It’s good they also added a lockout feature. You can lock it out by 2 taps, while keep pressing at the second tap for 2 seconds. The light will briefly turn on to indicate the lockout mode is activated.

Olight’s warranty:

At Olight, we always care about your experience as a customer and want to ensure you have no concerns regarding after-sales service. On September 16th, 2023, we sincerely make the following important promise:

If you purchased an Olight® product from Australia, China, France, Germany or the USA after January 1st, 2023, the local service centers in these countries will honor your LIFETIME WARRANTY for your purchase. If your Olight® product (including its structure, built-in battery, LED, or lens) ever experiences any issues, we promise to take care of it. If we are unable to repair your product, we will promptly replace it with a product in perfect working condition, which will be of equal or better physical condition. If your purchase is a limited or discontinued edition of Olight® product, we will repair or replace it with another Olight® product of the same or higher value.

LED, Lens, Bezel, Beam, and Reflector

I can’t really say much about the make and model of the LEDs, simply because I can’t see them.

There is not just 1 LED in there, but multiple or RGB LEDs that are invisible from the outside.

Without the app, you can only turn the light on/off, and cycle through those modes.

I tested the bulb with the Opple Light Master III, at about 50 cm distance, and got the following measurements:

  • Color temperature: 3190K
  • CRI Ra: 82.4

Below are different kinds of effects you can get.

Dimensions and size comparison

Dimensions compared to the Obulb Pro

dimensionsOlight Obulb ProOlight Obulb Plus
Width65 mm / 2.6″80mm / 3.1″
Height60 mm / 2.3″73mm / 2.9″

Weight

WeightOlight Obulb ProOlight Obulb Plus
Total weight105 g / 3.7oz177g / 6.2 oz

Obulb comparison

Size compared to other obulbs

Image 1, from left to right: Olight Obulb, Olight Obulb MC, Olight Obulb MCs, Olight Obulb PRO

User Interface & Olight APP

Available modes:

  • Without APP: White, fire, colorful, aurora, fireworks, romantic, firefly (yellow), off
  • With APP: Gorgeous, Red Flash, Dynamic, Dream, Flow water, Gradient, Cheerful, FLoating, Bright color, Elegant, Passionate, Vitality, Autumn, Sunset, Blue sky
  • And it also includes a game: Whack a mole.

From OFF:

  • Tap once: to last used mode, mode memory
  • Double tap: to last used mode
  • Triple tap: to last used mode
  • Tap and tap & hold 2sec: lockout mode
  • Tap and hold: increase/decrease brightness

From ON:

  • Single-tap: change modes
  • 2+ clicks: turns off
  • 5 taps: configuration mode (bluetooth connecting mode)

Shortcuts:

  • To White: press and hold 2 seconds from off

Mode memory:

  • Yes

Blinky modes menu:

  • Color blinking menu
  • Red flashing
  • Firefowrks

Low battery warning:

  • Not that I noticed

Lock-out mode:

  • Yes, 2 taps and hold the sensor at second tap. To deactivate lockout mode, repeat. The light will turn in Low output to show it is locked/unlocked.

Olight App

If you want to use the Obulb Plus to its fullest, you have to install the iOS or Android App. This App gives you access to all the brightness levels, and all the available colors. You have basically access to an infinite (not really infinite) number of colors.

How to use:

Install the app from the Google Play store

  1. You have to turn on Bluetooth AND GPS/Location setting.
  2. Make a new account, and you’ll receive a verification code via email
  3. Select the permissions you want to give (service maintenance, and/or Personalized Recommendations)
  4. Choose: Add new device.
  5. Press and hold the Obulb PRO for about 10 seconds, until you see red flashing (which will soon turn into green flashes). You entered the network setting.
  6. Wait for the device to appear in your screen.
    1. If that doesn’t work.. double check if your Bluetooth and Location settings are enabled on your phone

When the light is connected you can click on the text Obulb Plus to see the advanced settings.

Once installed and connected, you will see the following screen

(Music Rhythm)

The app also includes a Music Rhythm feature.

It basically uses your phone’s microphone and listens to the music. So there is a slight delay between the music and the light. Also, when the music is like pop, there is too much audio to really work.

House music makes it look less ‘strange’ because there is so much noise in the audio, that you won’t be able to see if it’s working on rhythm.

So, in my opinion, it’s a fun feature, but don’t expect too much of it!

Other options

(Countdown timer)

One of the requests I had was a countdown timer or sleep timer. So if you want your kids to go to bed, you can simply set the timer, and let the light turn off by itself. Great feature in my opinion.

I actually hoped it would dim by itself coming closer to 0, but it just shuts off abruptly.

So, if Olight could build that in, that it would slowly dim to 1% for the timer, that would be even better.

(Whack a mole)

Inside the App, you can play a game: whack a mole.
You will see the light blink, and you have to touch the sensor.
It’s interesting to have, but it doesn’t add any benefits to the Obulb.

(Smart Scenes)

The App also includes some scenes that you can use. Unfortunately, I don’t have any other hardware to support this. You can only enter Scenes in the main dashboard,

But you could basically use the Obulb Plus to touch, to turn the lights on in your bedroom at a certain time, etc.

Other options:

  1. You can set the time when the light has to turn on or off
  2. You can let the light turn into a specific color mode with certain weather or temperature (it will pick up the local weather report, and turn on your selected scene)
  3. When you touch the switch on 1 device, it could trigger to turn on all the other Obulbs/devices.

Note: The App I tested was pre-production, and had regular connection failures. I expect the official App to work smoothly.

Batteries & Charging

One of the reasons that the Obulb Plus is bigger, is because of the bigger battery. The new Obulb PRO has a battery capacity of 2000mAh, instead of the 1650mAh of the Obulb Pro or the 630mAh found in the original Obulb.

Charging is done with the MCC cable (which is now included).

During charge the color of the charging cable is red, and green when it is (nearly) finished. After about 95% of charging, this light will turn green, but continues charging till it actually is 100% charged. It’s not a bad idea to remove the charging cable when it turns green.

Charging time was 2 hours 22 minutes (I tested it 2 times, with the exact same duration both times) till it turned green. At this point it was still charging, but below 300mA, and it took another 25 minutes before the charge current dropped to below 100mA.

Performance test

This is the gear I used for testing:

GearPurposeLink to buy
Hagner E4-XMeasuring beam intensity (throw)Inquire at Hagner.se
Extech SDL400Lumens and logging runtimesAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Leica Disto D2Distance for throw measurementsAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Asensetek Lighting Passport Pro StandardSpectrometer for LED measurements

Lumen measurements:

The output measurements in this review are based on my homemade integrating spheres, each equipped with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter. For consistency and accuracy, a calibration light (Convoy S2+ with 249lm and a Convoy S2+ with 261lm) is measured prior to each set of lumen measurements.
For high-output lights, one of the lux meters uses an ND camera filter to prevent the lux meter to max out. This is either the Kenko PRO1D ND16 up till about 80,000 lumens or Gobe ND32 for anything above.

Since I had to put the Obulb into the integrating sphere, it’s possible that some light hit the sensor directly, and wasn’t blocked by the baffle inside. And because of this, take the following measurements with a grain of salt.

In the App, I used the basic 3 modes, 1% 50% and 100%.

ModeSpec@ turn on@ 30 sec@10 min
122
50122121117
100300 lm244 lm239 lm225 lm

Runtime: Battery life

The runtime test was done with the 50cm integrating sphere, including the Kenko Pro1D ND-16 filter and Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

ModeSpecified runtimeMeasured runtime (ANSI FL1)Time till shut off
50%3h 15min3h 15min
100%2h30min2h 03min2h 03min

Lowest output would run for 49hours, so I didn’t test that

I’m a bit disappointed that 50% output still only had over 3 hours of runtime. Keep in mind that the brightness is much higher than with the previous Obulb models, but 3 hours is pretty short.

ANSI FL1 standards: The runtime is measured until the light drops to 10% of its initial output (30 seconds after turn on). This does not mean that the flashlight is not usable anymore. The last column shows how long the light actually works till it shuts off. If there is a + symbol, it means that the test was stopped at that particular point, but the light was actually still running. This happens on certain occasions, with certain drivers, firmware, or batteries.

Throw Measurement: Peak beam intensity and beam distance

Measurements were taken indoors with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. Measured with the top of the bulb pointing to the LUX meter, so not when it’s placed down! Keep that in mind.

There are no specs when it comes to throw.

ModeCandelasmetersyards
100%56 cd1516

I measured from the side.. so it would be 15 meters around the bulb. But the intensity was higher when measured from the top! So if you put it against a wall, the distance in 1 direction would be farther.

Extra info: Peak beam distance according to ANSI FL1 standards: The calculated value of distance in meters at which the flashlight produce a light intensity of 0.25 lux. (0.25 lux is about the brightness of a full moon shining on an object).

Beamshots

A comparison of all the Obulbs I have, including the lowest setting on the Olight Obulb Plus.

The others are set to highest brightness.

Left to right: Obulb, Obulb MC, Obulb MCs, Obulb Pro, Obulb Plus

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to me for review at no cost by Olight. I have not been paid to review, nor have I been holding back on problems or defects.

Final Verdict

Pros

  1. Nice number of interesting features, like fireworks, colors, candle etc.
  2. Can now change brightness without the app (which its predecessor could not)
  3. Turn on/off and change mode + brightness by touch, not clicking!
  4. Plenty bright for a lantern
  5. Increased battery capacity even more, over the Pro, for even longer runtimes
  6. Brighter than all its predecessors

Cons

  1. Music rhythm feature doesn’t work too well with all music styles
  2. Short runtimes of 50% output and above

Explanation on star ratings:

1: Avoid: my phone flashlight would be a better choice – 2: Poor: significant defect or issues; almost unusable – 3: Average: some defects or issues; but still usable 4: Good: recommended (minor issues) – 5: Great: highly recommended

Reviewer Marco
Author: Marco

4 stars: ★★★★

If you look at how the Obulb has evolved over time, it’s really an interesting way they have come. Starting from a simple 2 mode Obulb, to multi color, to include a motion sensor, to a bigger battery, App control, and now even music rhythm control.

From a logical perspective, I hope they will include something like a speaker or something inside. Because it already starts looking like an Amazon Echo Dot, lol.

I digress. The output is pretty good, but the runtimes are short. The app control and the built-in features are interesting.

I also appreciate the fact that you can control the brightness of the Obulb Plus without the App. That was not possible with the previous version, the Obulb Pro.

All in all, this is an interesting innovation, but maybe not for everyone.

Olight Obulb Plus For Sale

Use our exclusive 1lumen discount code to get an extra 10% off anything you order at Olightstore.com (USA). Coupon code: 1lumen

1lumen selects and reviews products personally. We may earn affiliate commissions through our links, which help support our testing.

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