I was recent­ly con­tact­ed by The Hybrid­Light Com­pa­ny.  I trad­ed emails with them for a day or two and asked them about a hybrid solar/battery pow­ered flash­light they sell.  Hon­est­ly, at first, I was­n’t that enthu­si­as­tic about review­ing a flash­light.  Every­one has their pref­er­ence of brands.  To me they are a lot like a pock­et knife.  There is a favorite in every­one’s kit.  In this case how­ev­er, I noticed a dif­fer­ence in fea­tures that I took inter­est in.

I asked Scott, at The Hybrid­Light Com­pa­ny to send me a flash­light to review.  He com­plied and it came to me in about two days.  I pulled it out of the enve­lope and noticed imme­di­ate­ly that this weighed just a few ounces at best.  It has a cou­ple of small solar cells cov­ered by trans­par­ent plas­tic, and a rub­ber­ized butt, on and off but­ton for thumb grip, and the head of the flash­light as well.  I think the ends are rub­ber­ized in the event that you drop it and it they absorb some of the impact.  Decent design.  It has three LED indi­ca­tor lights:

• One for when it is in the light charg­ing.
• One for when the flash­light is on run­ning under “Solar Reserve” and will run for eight hours straight in that mode.
• One for when the solar cell is deplet­ed, you can click over to reserve bat­tery pow­er that has about 50 hours of reserve pow­er for the flash­light to func­tion under.

• The spec­i­fi­ca­tions note that the lithi­um bat­ter­ies inside the flash­light are good for 7 years and will retain 90% of their orig­i­nal pow­er.
• I unscrewed the butt of the flash­light and the two lithi­um coin size bat­ter­ies popped right out and right back in again.

The excit­ing part, when the bat­ter­ies go dead, or in the morn­ing, sim­ply place the flash­light in the sun, and it recharges full.  Pret­ty cool.

The mod­el that was sent to me was Mod­el HL 40.  40 stands for 40  Lumens.  The LED 40 Lumen light is plen­ty bright though.  In a pinch or emer­gency it will do bet­ter than noth­ing, that’s for sure.

The spec­i­fi­ca­tions also say that the flash­light is water­proof.  I sub­merged it in my bath­room sink for lack of a pool to jump in with it in the mid­dle of win­ter here in NJ.  I clicked the light on, and it worked just fine.  When I pulled it out of the water, I inspect­ed it for any sign of leak­age and it seemed to look and func­tion just fine…

Oh, and it comes with a lan­yard to wrap around your wrist, a branch, etc.

First impres­sions, I like it.  I was a lit­tle tak­en back by how lit­tle it weighs.  I am used to MagLights, and as we all know with three plus D‑cell bat­ter­ies, they weigh a bit.  This is so light you can put one in every pack you have and for­get they are there because they are so light.  You could drop it in the water off the side of your boat and it will float, drop it in a pud­dle and it will still work, etc.  I think for the price it is a great val­ue.  The real bonus for me is that you don’t have to wor­ry about bat­ter­ies, either.

So that you are also aware, Hybrid­Light Com­pa­ny also has sev­er­al oth­er prod­ucts as well:

• HL120 — a 120 Lumen ver­sion of the HL40
• Hybrid Spot­light
• Hybrid Camp­ing Lantern
• Hybrid Com­pact Lantern

Based on my test­ing of the HL40, my gut tells me these are all good val­ues.  They do not seem to be over­priced, espe­cial­ly since you do not need to replace your pow­er source, and can all be used in an emer­gency, for camp­ing, and a mul­ti­tude of oth­er pur­pos­es.

Here are a cou­ple of videos about the flash­light as well:  http://goo.gl/MyI3j

In con­clu­sion, I am prob­a­bly going to pick up one or two more of these, and maybe one in 120 lumens and the Camp Lantern; my addic­tion to big­ger more pow­er­ful things.  If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing a look or pur­chas­ing one or two of these for your own home, gear bags, EDC, etc. you can go to The Hybrid­Light Com­pa­ny.  Ship­ping from The Hybrid­Light Com­pa­ny on prod­ucts their lights are free in the Unit­ed States.  Use the code “Sub­ur­ban” in the cart so they can track where the orders came from!