Wuben G2

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Wuben G2 specifications

Brand/model	Wuben G2
Category	keychain flashlight
LED	Osram P9
Max. Lumens	500 lm
Max. Beam intensity / distance	540 cd
Battery config.	built-in (280 mAh)
Onboard charging	USB-C
Modes	5
Blinkies	N/A
Reflector	TIR optics
Waterproof	N/A
Review date	May 2022

For many companies, even some of the big name ones, keychain lights are little cheap things with basic internals. They’re essentially promotional items “free! (just pay shipping)” or “free when you spend $20!” that serve to help get their name out into the market. The Wuben G2 is not one of those keychain lights. This is a full-featured little light with a built-in battery, slim design, 5 modes, and USB-C charging. As a small light, this is probably best suited for short walks to the car or doorstep, around the house at night, or searching for a dropped item around the home / office. Think of occasions where you might be tempted to use your phone’s “flashlight” but you need a bit more oomph!

Package quality.

The Wuben G2 comes in a clear, square plastic presentation box. There’s no cardboard to be found! The clear top provides a glimpse of the G2 inside. Part of the top is taken up with a blue sticker displaying a few key specs. A matching sticker on the back provides necessary information like contact numbers and addresses, barcodes, certifications, etc. The case is lined with a soft-feel foam cut out perfectly to hold the light and accessories. All told, the package contained:  

• Wuben G2
• Pocket clip
• Keyring attachment (pre-installed)
• USB-C cable
• Manual

With as thin and flat as it is, the Wuben G2 can easily disappear in your hand or pocket. It’s only 9 mm thick which is less than the width of a AAA battery by itself. Without the clip installed (more on that later), the G2 is very slippery. There’s no knurling or other grippy machining to speak of.

There is a single e-switch situated at one end of the light, right next to the USB-C charging port. The button is similar plastic to the end cap, and sits mostly flush. This makes it hard to accidentally activate, but might also make it harder to find until your muscle memory learns the button position.

There’s a keyring attachment that comes pre-installed and looks like it’s just part of the flashlight. But you can easily twist it to remove its plastic base from the end of the flashlight. That way you can quickly disconnect the G2 from your keys (or backpack, purse, or whatever you have it attached to) either to use it on its own or to charge it up. You can also choose to just never use the keyring attachment piece, the G2 looks just fine without it. And when you remove it, you reveal a strong magnet in the end that can be useful for positioning the G2 on ferrous surfaces (car hood/panel, metal desk, etc).

A plastic pocket clip is included, but not pre-installed. It attaches easily to the back of the light, firmly gripping little cuts in the sides of the G2. The clip seems to hold tightly and doesn’t give me any cause for concern of it coming off. I really appreciate that there is a clip, but I really wish it were deeper carry. When using the clip, 30% of the light sticks up out of your pocket.

As mentioned in the intro, with this being a keychain light, it’s best suited for small tasks like finding the right key at your door, navigating through a parking lot or around your house at night, etc. I find that the beam is a bit too “throwy” to be used for reading books. But for other short to medium-short range tasks, the Wuben G2 fits the bill.

The body of the Wuben G2 is made of a solid piece of aluminum with a plastic cap at either end. While I can’t find a rating for the anodization, it comes in three different colors: black (of course), blue, and green. Wuben was kind enough to send all three colors for me to take a look at. I’m not great at naming shades of color, but I would say the blue is a little darker than a “sky blue”, perhaps closer to a “cerulean”? The green is minty green.

There are no threads, knurling, or other machining really to talk about. Everything is smooth and clean. The clip and the keyring attachment piece both seem well made. I do question how many times you can twist the keyring attachment off and on before the plastic gets worn enough that it might accidentally come undone. It’s not at any immediate risk of doing so, but mating surfaces can eventually wear out.

Wuben provides a nice warranty:

• 15 days replacement: Within 15 days from the date of purchase, if the product has quality problems, customers can request free replacement.
• 1 year warranty: Within 1 year from the date of purchase, if the product has quality problems, WUBEN will offer free repair.
• Battery warranty: WUBEN offers a 1-year warranty for the rechargeable batteries but other included accessories are not covered by the warranty.
• Lifetime maintenance: From the date of purchase, if the product has problem after 1 year, WUBEN will offer paid repair for WUBEN registered customers.

Wuben likes to use the OSRAM LEDs in quite a few of their lights. The G2 uses one of the OSRAM P9 LEDs behind a very shallow TIR optic. It very well may be the same optic used in their H5 headlamp / multifunction light. It makes a pretty tight hotspot with a very wide spill. The H5 is advertised as having a 175° beam angle, and I bet the same thing is seen here. The hotspot is a bit squarish, but not too bad. The TIR optic appears to be held in place with a press-fit ring (I might explore that a bit after the review is wrapped up).

Measurements according to the Opple Light Master:

• CCT: 5992K
• CRI: 70.5 Ra
• DUV: +0.0054

Dimensions: 

Dimension	Millimeters	Inches
Length	58.5	2.30
Depth	27.0	1.06
Height	9.2	0.36

Weight: 

Weight	Grams	Oz.
With battery	28	1.0

Flashlight size comparison with its competition

Keychain lights with built-in batteries, left to right: Rovyvon A11, Rovyvon A8x UV, Rovyvon A3 Pro, Rovyvon E3 Pro, Wuben G2 (black), Wuben G2 (green), Wuben G2 (blue)

With AAA keychain lights, left to right: Jetbeam Jet-u, Astrolux A01, Wuben G2 (black), Wuben G2 (green), Wuben G2 (blue), Lumintop EDC01, Sofirn C01

With AAA keychain lights, left to right: Sofirn C01S, ThruNite Ti3 V2, Wuben G2 (black), Wuben G2 (green), Wuben G2 (blue), Olight i3E EOS, Skilhunt E3A

Keychain lights with e-switches tend to have UI’s that are a bit out of the ordinary when compared to full-sized flashlights. But that’s for a good reason. The goal is to prevent the light from accidentally turning on, but still keeping it quick and easy to turn on when you want to without needing to lock and unlock it all of the time. I would say that Wuben did a pretty good job with the UI in the G2. It’s not exactly how I would design it, but it works.

Available modes: Moon, Low, Med, High, Turbo

From OFF:

• Press and Hold: turns on
• Double click: Turbo

From ON:

• Press and Hold: change brightness (Moon > Low > Med > High)
• 1 click: turn off
• Double click: Turbo

Mode memory:

• Yes, for all modes except Turbo

Shortcuts:

• To Turbo: double click

Low voltage warning:

• The charging indicator LED also serves as a capacity indicator LED.  The breakdown is:
  • Solid blue: >= 90% battery (lit for 5 seconds)
  • Flashing blue: between 90% and 40% (lit for 5 seconds)
  • Solid red: between 40% and 15% (lit for 5 seconds)
  • Flashing red: between 15% and 0% (stays flashing)

Strobe/blinkies

• none

Lock-out mode: 

• none

PWM

• While it wasn’t visible, my photodiode picked up a 21.3 kHz PWM in all modes except for Turbo

Additional info on the UI: 

• The UI is really straight-forward and easy to get the hang of
• I would have appreciated a shortcut to Moon mode though

The Wuben G2 uses a built-in 280 mAh lithium-polymer (LiPo) battery. It is not user accessible for serviceable. If you manage to wear out your battery, reach out to Wuben if it’s within the warranty period.

On the end right next to the button is a small USB cover that hides a USB-C port. I hooked it up to my USB PD adapter. It charged at 0.33 amps (1.75 watts); finishing a full charge cycle in 1 hour and 9 minutes. While charging, the indicator LED glows red. It switches to blue when charging is done.

You can use the G2 while it is charging, but only in Moon, Low, and Med modes.

Lux was measured by a UNI-T UT383 BT at 5 meters. Lumens were measured in a homemade lumen tube using a TSL2591 sensor, calibrated with a Maukka calibration light. The temperature was monitored with a MLX90614 IR temperature sensor.

Lumen measurements (for each mode)

Mode	Specs	turn on	30 sec	10 minutes
Moon	1 lm	1.4 lm	1.4 lm	–
Low	15 lm	13 lm	13 lm	14 lm
Med	65 lm	57 lm	58 lm	58 lm
High	200 lm	188 lm	187 lm	188 lm
Turbo	500 > 200 lm	444 lm	287 lm	188 lm

Parasitic drain:

• N/A (can’t measure due to internal battery)

Runtime graph

There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the G2 runtimes. We can see that it is very well regulated and really close to specs… except for Turbo mode. This is a bit unusual for a Wuben flashlight, but my Turbo reading missed the spec by 11%.  That’s not terribly far off, but worth noting. Also, it doesn’t wait before it starts ramping down. Basically as soon as you turn it on it Turbo, it starts ramping down instantly. This seemed a bit odd. I re-ran the Turbo test 2 or 3 times with the black model, and then ran it with the blue one. Each test was within a few lumens of the other and acted in the same exact manner.

Mode	Specified	Measured runtime (ANSI)	Time till shut off
Moon	70 hr	–	–
Low	6 hr	9 hr 24 min	9 hr 24 min
Med	1.5 hr	1 hr 58 min	1 hr 58 min
High	35 min	40 min	40 min
Turbo	30 min	39 min	39 min

Throw numbers: Peak beam intensity 

Measured at 5 meters after 30 seconds unless otherwise noted

Mode	Specs	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Moon	0.05 cd	–	–	–
Low	9 cd	–	–	–
Medium	48 cd	–	–	–
High	184 cd	775 cd	56	61
Turbo @ 0 sec	–	1,725	83	91
Turbo @ 30 sec	540 cd	1,175	69	75

I’m not sure why, but despite the lumen measurement on Turbo being low, the intensity measurements are considerably higher than spec. Like more than double the spec.

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).

Beam shots of the building are taken at 15 m (16 yd) using a Pixel 6 set to ISO 200 with 1/10 second exposure time.

• Wuben G2
• Rovyvon E3 Pro

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