Great things come in small packages. At least the HELIO Light camping lantern by Flextail does! This lantern is smaller than an egg and weighs less, too. It can hang from your tent by the hook or attach to the side of your car or RV with its integrated magnet. It packs a bright light and takes up almost no space in your pack.
A little over a year after the idea was conceived for this tiny lantern, Flextail launched HELIO on the crowd-funding site Kickstarter. As of July 5, 2017, Flextail is focusing on production and delivery of “The World’s Smallest Camping Lantern.” We’ve had the opportunity to try out the HELIO and have to say it is certainly small but it puts out the light big-time.
In a nutshell – which is about the size of the HELIO, by the way – this little lantern weights 45 grams (that’s just 1.59 ounces), produces up to 220 lumens of output, and is quick to charge.
Think of all the ways to use the HELIO Light. Of course, it works at the campsite. Its hook attaches to the ceiling of your tent for instant daylight. You can hang it from a tent pole or a tree branch or simply set it on the picnic table to light up the area. But you can also attach HELIO to the hood of your car if you need to do a quick check of the oil at night. Or attach it to your bicycle so others can see you. Clip it onto your pack if you are hiking in the dark or onto your clothes if you are running in the early morning.
Wherever you want your light to be, the hook and the magnet will allow you to place this bitty lantern. The HELIO has two brightness settings. The first press of the power button produces a bright light. Once on, you can hold the power button for a couple of seconds to insanely intensify the light. It could, at the least, momentarily disorient someone which could come in handy in a dark alley.
The HELIO lantern is rechargeable, but thankfully for extreme backpackers it doesn’t take heavy batteries. The HELIO can be charged up with an ordinary USB port and it only takes 20 minutes to fully charge.
When I think back to the good old days camping with a bulky kerosene lantern or even the struggle with keeping four (or more) D-sized batteries from falling out of the plastic Coleman lantern, I am amazed at how far some products have come. Smaller, lighter, and more powerful. This is what you get with the HELIO by Flextail.
To find out more about this great product, visit www.flextailgear.com.
