AllOutdoor Review: LED Lenser H19R Core Headlamp
Nicholas Chen 08.12.21
When you are outdoors at night it is helpful to have artificial illumination. Flashlights are the most common tool to illuminate the darkness; however, you need to use your hands. Headlamps make navigating and interacting with the outdoors in the dark a lot easier. We got a chance to try out LED Lenser’s H19R Core headlamp. It has a fusion beam and claims to have 3,500 lumens. Let’s see how it does.
Headlamps @ AOD
H19R Headlamp
The H19R headlamp has two main white LEDs and a red LED that doubles as an indicator light and can be used for preserving your natural night vision.
The H19R is rather big and needs a decent sized battery pack to power the 3500 lumens.
The battery pack acts as a counter weight for the H19R headlamp. Total the H19R weighs 13.2 ounces. The battery pack is rechargeable but it uses a proprietary magnetic USB cable. See the two circular contacts just below the power cable? That is where the USB cable attaches.
The rechargeable battery is removable so if you have a spare battery you can swap them in.
The battery is proprietary. It is a pair of 21700 li-ion cells combined in a single battery pack. Be careful when installing this battery. It has three terminals; T, +, -. You need to look inside the battery pack housing for a white sticker that tells you the proper orientation of the battery cell.
On the right side of the headband is a carabiner so you can hang the H19R on your pack or anything you want to hang it off of.
Flood LED is on the left (right side if you are wearing the H19R), with the throw LED next to it. The small triangle just above and between the two white LEDs is the red LED.
Operation of the H19R is pretty simple. There are three buttons on top of the light. The center button turns on both white LEDs and it starts at full brightness. If you double tap this button, the light goes into turbo mode. This is how you achieve 3,500 lumens.
On either side of the middle button are buttons that independently control the white LEDs. If the headlamp is turned off, these side buttons will turn on and control the LED on that same side. So the right button controls the flood light. Pressing the button after it is on will cycle through the brightness. There is a medium and low brightness setting.
The left button controls the hot spot LED for longer range throw. Just like the middle button and flood button, you can press the button twice for turbo mode. Otherwise pressing the button will cycle through the brightness. High, Medium, Low, & OFF.
If you turn on both lights with the middle button, the side buttons will independently control the brightness for their respective sides.
Hot spot mode.
Flood mode.
Both LEDs on. You can see the hot spot inside the wider flood light.
How Does The H19R Look At Night?
In the photo below I am looking at steel targets about 100 yards away. The closer one under the tree on the left is 50 yards and the targets on the right are 25 yards away.
Below I have just the hotspot on. It illuminates the orange Jeep but you do not see much else around it.
Here is the flood only on turbo mode. It lights up a much wider area.
According to LED Lenser the battery pack will fuel the H19R for 4 hours on high. If you set the light to low power it will stay on for 4 hours. If you use the lowest power settings then you can extend the run time to 20 hours. However instead of 3500 lumens you will only get 200 lumens of white light.
Final Thoughts On The H19R
While the 3500 lumens does sound impressive, I found it was not all that useful. The light did not see to light up an entire field or throw light some ridiculous distance. At least that is what I was hoping for with lumen ratings of 3,500. The headlamp does have some interesting features. Like there is a bluetooth battery pack so you can control the headlamp via their App. I must say though, I have used other headlamps that had app/computer based connectivity and I rarely used that feature. While it is neat to have more control over your devices, I am not sure I really need nuanced control over a headlamp.
Another issue is the price. The H19R is one of their most expensive headlamps. It retails for $249.95. I have a headlamp that is almost half the price and while it is not as bright, it does have the wide flood led and far throwing led. What sets it apart is that it has a built in light sensor so when you look at something close, the light bounces back, the light senses this and adjust brightness accordingly. I would prefer the H19R did the same thing given the cost and size of the headlamp. It is not a small headlamp by any means. While it does have a decent 20 hour battery life on low brightness, the battery pack is huge. I suppose if you are doing a lot of work in the outdoors and need a ton of light in your immediate area then the LED Lenser H19R will do the job. I just think this headlamp is a bit much for casual outdoors men especially if size and weight are a factor.
