Jake Frith tests the Nebo Mycro head torch and cap light to see if it is worth its £20 price tag
Nebo Mycro head torch and cap light: tested
The Nebo Mycro tiny USB-rechargeable torch is capable of providing up to 400 lumens of light is something that will definitely earn a place in one of the 30lt drybags I use for my windsurfing ‘cruising and camping’ trips, where weight and volume of equipment is a major factor.
We live in a world where you can now buy a usable, if not great, head torch from Poundland, for a pound, so a £20 (£14.99 with Amazon Prime delivery) head torch needs to be pretty good.
The stats of the Nebo Mycro are impressive though with six light modes and intensities, including a dim red light mode for preserving one’s night vision, and perfect for night-time chartwork.
The torch’s functionality has been cleverly thought out.
The torch can be clipped to a hat too. Credit: Jake Frith
For example, if you turn the device on with a long press of the ON button, it goes directly to red light mode.
This means you don’t have to select through the super bright white light modes, potentially dazzling yourself and ruining your night vision for the next 20 minutes.
The 400 lumens ‘Turbo’ mode is something of an emergency party piece, limited by the circuitry to 30-second bursts to preserve battery life, but likely to be of great use for pinpointing a tender on a mooring on a dark night.
For less exciting marine tasks such as looking in the corners of dark lockers the medium intensity (50 lumens) white light provides a useful balance of adequate brightness with a decent two-hour battery life.
It’s got no zoom function, but the size of the light pool is a sensible compromise, one that seems to be good at spotting distant objects while also fine for looking at things closer to hand.
The head band is fully adjustable to suit all head sizes, and there is a red light for working on board at night. Credit: Jake Frith
Waterproof credentials are only IPX4 (splashproof, rather than full immersion), which is more than likely due to the presence of a charging port with a push-in rubber protector.
It looks to me like it would be fairly impervious to moisture providing the charging port protector is well pushed in.
The device comes with a dinky metal spring clip for clipping it to the peak of a cap or hat and an angle adjustment ratchet with a stiff, quality feel.
This ‘cap light’ functionality works really well on a baseball cap because at just 45g, you don’t even notice it’s there.
RRP £19.99.
Buy the Nebo Mycro head torch and cap light from Amazon (UK)