Princeton Tec recently announced a new head lamp that has really piqued my interest. It’s called the Byte which is an obvious reference to its small size. It packs some huge functionality into its small frame.
The Byte has a white LED with a reflector that will give you the ability to light up objects at a distance and a small red LED that is useful for maintaining your dark adjusted vision and extending your battery life. It uses 2 AAA batteries to stay very small while still offering some decent output (35 lumens on high) and very good run time (80 hours). The white LED also has a low setting for even longer run times.
I confirmed with Princeton Tec that the Byte does turn on in the red LED setting. This is an excellent feature. Features like this allow the user to turn on their light without completely obliterating their dark adjusted vision and while staying discreet. Kudos to Princeton Tec for adding this feature to more of their lights. However, the light must still be shuffled through all the brightness levels in order to turn it off. Hopefully this can be fixed in a later release.
The street price on this full featured head lamps is going to be around $20 which is a great deal for Princeton Tec rugged construction and quality. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on one of these to try out.