
Princeton Tec Helix Li Rechargeable Lantern
Lanterns are invaluable pieces of kit for preparedness. Go a few nights without power and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
There's one problem though. Most of the cheap lighting out there is just that, cheap. Sure, you can pickup some huge lamp from The Home Despot for a few sheckles, but the nearly blinding, harsh LED lights from them will make you want to pull your hair out after a few minutes and you're really going to be depending on mass produced junk during an emergency?
What if you want to travel "light" (as in weight)? Then your options get even slimmer. However Priceton Tec has the perfect solution for us: the Helix Li rechargeable lantern. It packs a lot of power into a small package, and if we start talking about Bug Out Bags (we are aren't we?) then ounces equal pounds, and the Helix Li offers us solutions to real world issues.
Size & Weight of the Helix Li
I'm going to begin with the one thing that really makes the Helix Li stand out from the million other lanterns I have, and that's it's weight and size. Weighing in at 155g the Helix Li offers us a solution to a major problem we all have, that our emergency kits are too darn heavy.
155 grams is about the same weight as a smaller cell phone, or a decent sized apple, and can shrink down to about the same size when compressed (it compresses!) at 2.75" tall and 4" wide at the base.
This makes the Helix Li very attractive for 2 use cases: emergency kits and or hiking/backpacking trips where weight reduction is a priority.
As we'll see in a minute, that weight and size doesn't come at a compromise in functionality. This lamp still does what you need it to do, it just does it in a more petite manner, one could almost call it delicately tough!
I've constantly working on minimal weight backpack load-outs for multi-day camping trips and the Helix Li fits the bill perfectly.
An interesting design element of the Li is the collapsable rubberized lantern element. You can squish it down to make the lamp smaller. You can operate the lamp in this mode if you want or expand it open for a brighter profile.
It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to collapse the lamp - essentially there is a round clear plastic ring on the top side which locks into place somehow on the bottom end by pushing one side down and then the other into place.
Lighting Profile
So down to the meat and potato's: how does the Helix Li do lighting?
It has 2 lighting modes, white and red. White is obvious, red maybe not so much to some of you but red lighting is imperative, and all my headlamps and lantern lights must have red light capability. Why? Because at night in the field or away from civilization, red light helps you keep your night vision.
It takes about 30 minutes to fully acquire your night vision, did you know that? Every time you use white light you are resetting that timer, so once the sun goes down, unless I'm doing something which requires white light, it's red light from sundown until bedtime that way I can keep awareness of my surroundings outside of camp and out of the range of my lights.
The Helix Li can put out 300 lumens at full power white light. That's pretty punchy for a lamp this size, and can give you a nice work space of 10 feet or so.
Output has to be factored in with runtime, so full power depletes the battery after 6 hours. Luckily the Helix Li is dimmable, so you can crank that down. My general rule of thumb is to take a lantern up to full power, then back it off about 15-20%. The light output will be nearly identical as far as visibility foes but you get a major boost in run-time.
The red light is dimmable too! That's a huge bonus.
Here's the runtime specs Priceton Tec posted on their website for the Helix Li:
- White LED – High: 6h | Med.: 23h | Low: 110h | Strobe: 34h
- Red LEDs – High: 16h | Low: 200h
So if you aren't crazy with the lighting, you can make this lantern last for several days, unless you are up all night with it doing lord knows what. Go to bed early!
The Helix Li forgoes a traditional switching mechanism for a touch sensitive pad to operate the lights. At first I wasn't too sure about it but once I tried it a couple of times I got the hang of it, and it's pretty intuitive. My only issue with it would be that it might be easy to accidentally activate the white light when you meant to go red.
It's likely this design helps the keep the overall weight of the lantern down too by reducing knobs and switches.
Grab a copy of the user manual: Princeton Tec Helix Li User Manual
Helix Battery Power
There are 2 versions of the Helix: the Li and the Helix Backcountry. The Backcountry costs $20 less and uses 3 AA batteries to run, as opposed to the integrated battery on the Li.
Theres a positive and negative to either: yes, you can swap old batteries for new ones when the Backcountry needs them. Yes, you can use rechargeable eneloop batteries on the Backcountry so you get the best of both worlds in a sense - but now you need to carry around a AA battery charger, or spare batteries.
Having an integrated battery the way the Li does minimizes your load-out in terms of extra gear, but if the battery should go then so does the lamp.
Decide whats best for you.
Built In the USA
Princeton Tec is probably best known for making lighting solutions for the US military. For that reason they offer a 5 year warranty on the Helix Li. On some of their stuff they offer Lifetime warranty (for US customers.) That's pretty unheard of in the modern era.
Add to the fact that all their products are designed and built in the US, in New Jersey, and you have again something unique there in a world of off-the-shelf overseas copycats. So if supporting a domestic US company is important to you (it should at least come to mind when possible) well then there you go.
Nit-Pick List
This is just a list of my preferences, yours might be different and none of these take away from the Helix Li at all, its just my 2 cents.
The white light is well, white. I prefer yellower colored lights in the 2700k range, they are more comfortable to my old eyes and create a nicer mood. Some people prefer more daylight coloring and it makes sense for color reference at night so this is a preference thing.
The input to charge the light is Micro USB. I've become a USB C snob as of late, and really prefer all my portable internal battery devices to have USB C. I don't like carrying multiple cords with me anymore in the field. Now what I do is carry a few USB C cords and get USB C to USB Micro converters. I've ditched USB Mini and Lightning connectors for good.
There's no battery meter, so no real way of knowing how much charge is left in the battery.
Where To Get One
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Princeton Tec Helix Li Lantern
This lantern’s 300 lumen flood light is designed to illuminate your environment. With its innovative swipe control, the Princeton Tec Helix Li replaces ordinary buttons for a swift change between dimmable white and red light.
With its folding legs that feature hooks, this lantern has the ability to hang virtually anywhere, and its collapsible globe design makes for easy and space-saving transport, a must-have for camp lighting.
Runtime Information: White LED – High: 6h | Med.: 23h | Low: 110h | Strobe: 34h Red LEDs – High: 16h | Low: 200h