Worklights: Who Else is Lying About Lumens as Much as Olight? 

As a mechanic, I can say that durability and run time is far more important that brightness. IMO the cyclops is a home run, on low mode it will last over 8 hours, I turn it on at the beginning of the day and don’t turn it off until I leave. I have broken one but they hold up pretty decent to drops. The plastic snap on is bright but run time is horrible, however I found it to be pretty durable. And I will say that Milwaukee light is hot garbage, run time not great but the magnet is horrible and I shattered to pieces in a couple of months. Good video as always, keep up the good work

In my experience if a Snap-On light even gets close to any brake clean the overmolding gets slimy and starts peeling

A test of 365nm UV lights for leak detection would be useful. We use black lights for testing welds on tanks, and I understand mechanics also use them for detecting leaks on engines and A/C systems.

*Update 5/10:* Okay, so purchased another Olight, this one reached 296lm i.imgur.com/Y9bCH1z.jpg. 26% off, still the most off from the bunch and what a weird light for this to be going on. This is the 1st time we don't have the next batch of lights lined up, so suggest what category of lights you want to see next! See our winner Amazon page here: www.amazon.com/shop/torquetestchannel Torque, who started TTC, is working in product development for Astro Tools who also makes the 100SL included in this test. If excluding those results makes the most sense for you, feel free. We encourage skepticism across all reviews. Always consider multiple sources when looking at a product!

Light manufacturers: Make more lights with REMOVABLE 18650 or other similar Lithium batteries. I absolutely love the $20 harbor freight light and my old vape battery charger has been repurposed. Have two lights, change out the batteries when one dies, shuffle shuffle, keep you going all night on a project. The only downside is that it's a Harbor freight light, and very blue.

I've had a couple of the Astro 700 lumen lights and I love them! I mainly use them to do suspension work and its perfect. I don't even use the high setting as its very bright. I bet that Astro 1000 lumen light is a beast! Nice reviews! Thanks!

I would love to see some braking fluid (DOT 4.1 or 5.1) durability test additional, brake fluid killed a lot more tools than Coolant or oil in my case

I know you’ve tested headlamps before, but I would like to see another round of testing using only hard hat mountable options. Klein tools, ergodyne, Milwaukee, nightstick, etc

I can't thank you guys enough for doing these tests. Getting gear and tools has been a crap shoot full of disappointment for a long time. Now we can at least spend our money wisely with these tests in mind.

Just watching the lights fly into the ground when spiking was hilarious. 11/10

Another quality series of tests. Thank you! Don't forget to replace those BBQ tongs.

Having a high CRI light is nice. The super cheap very blue lights with low CRI make it difficult to tell wires apart... Is that wire light blue? Grey? Purple?

Great content as always. I have a Nebo pen style light with many settings on it as well as the laser built in and love it, very robust and many great uses. Interested in how the new ICON light and some of the GearWrench lights stack up.

I have the 700lumen snap on light and it’s awesome. I brought it to work and stuck it to the ROPS of a mower (cause it didn’t have headlights!) and I could see EVERYTHING. I could see every stick, every golf ball, every pile of goose shit, everything. It made me able to start working before I normally would, which was great for days when we were prepping for a big event. The magnet kicks ass on it as well. I had no issues with it falling off no matter how fast I was hitting bumps.

Ive had the aluminum body Snorp on for a few years now and its my go to work lamp. A co worker dropped his 75' and it still worked afterwards.

I feel like if you're a mechanic just wear a hat and put a rechargable headlamp on. Stops from losing them and dropping them. Also you always have light where you are looking.

Love the cyclops lights. I've crushed one it still worked stuck that same one on the oder side of a car. Hit a bump at 40mph and it scraped the road came off and bounced for a while. And it still works great

What an amazing test guys thank you. I'm sold on that Astro. They continue to make very impressive tools and I'd be happy to spend my money with them. Keep Crushing the content gentleman!

Bless your heart for doing a comparison on worklights. Your channel continues to be the go-to for REAL product evaluations in a very confusing market. For about 8 years I have been using as my primary worklight a Streamlight Knucklehead. My inspection light is a Streamlight Strion, my every day carry. I also own that terrible Snap On light you reviewed. Check out a Knucklehead. They are physically durable enough to work in a production environment and they are Very good at being a worklight. I use one daily when I do alignments because it clamps to the rack so securely and throws a ton of light. BTW I sent you my CP717 have you broke it yet?

I love my cyclops lights…I did a clutch and rear main on my truck, but didn’t clean up the sealing surface between the rear main housing and the block very well so it pissed oil…put it back on the lift the next weekend to tear it apart again (you can imagine how pleased I was) and found a cyclops light that I had left under there the previous weekend. Under there for a week, having hot oil pissed on it, probably drove 150 miles that week, plugged it in, fired right back up.

Really wish the HF Braun magnet light would’ve been in this 😢

Love the Syclone reference. Buddy of mine had one, and boy did we surprise a lot of folks at stoplights. Good times.

I have the 700 lumen Snap-on metal light and it’s superb. If the pivot isn’t where I want it I just rotate the light to stick on the underside of the hood. The metal housing is a huge bonus (along with the USB-C charge port).

I have both of the Snap On lights. The aluminum one is far brighter (or at least lights up the area better making it seem brighter), but mine flickers badly when fully charged (my dealer is getting it replaced for me though). The magnet is the same on both and the added weight of the al makes it much easier to knock off (even easier once you get some gunk built up on it). Then there's the Snap On premium that you get the pleasure of paying for.

it's the quality of the brightness that matters for me . i have led shop work lights that are super bright but they are glaring and reflect off of surfaces so much that it becomes difficult to focus on one specific area . the best works light i have ever used were the halogen lights . super expensive to run and dangerously hot but the light from these bulbs created an even brightness throughout the room making it easy to focus on any object in any position .

Thanks for shedding some light on work lights.

I love your presentation, great vid and informative

Excellent comparison! While normally I don't like the SnapOn electronics and power tools, I gotta say the aluminum pod light has some benefits that aren't advertised. The Streamlights are always a great value with life time warranty of course. The SnapOn aluminum pod light is very user serviceable IF you know the trick to reset the battery management circuit. The SnapOn warranty for power tools is only one year. And you can't just give it to the truck. They need to send it back which as of 2022 has been taking average of about 2 months. So you only have the light for about 10 months in warranty considering the batteries fail about yearly. However they are built well and can handle being taken apart and serviced a few times easily. You can get a good quality 18650 cell to replace the stock medium quality one. I recommend the Sony Murata VTC6. Once you solder in the new cell with the old BMS circuit transferred to the new cell, the light won't work or charge. It has gone into under-volt protection from being disconnected, or as I call it "Planned obsolesce" mode. To reset it you need to jump the positive input to the positive output. I have also come across one earlier model that instead needed the negatives jumped together. You can do both as jumping the one that's common just won't do anything. Once this is done it should work normally until low voltage mode is triggered again.

You dropped other lights on the Nebo repeatedly during the drop test and it still worked. I like it.

Very interesting! My Klein 56403 worklight has been a brave soldier but I'm looking to add another, maybe higher powered, light so this is good knowledge!

Nice review. My only recommendation is to give some weight to CRI on your chart. There's a lot of misconception currently with the LED market, where people believe that brighter is always better. In the automotive accessory world, it's a huge problem. A high power 6K LED light bar with a low CRI becomes very tiring to the eyes. Not only that, but it's harder to recognize objects and takes longer to process what you're seeing. On the other hand, a high CRI light doesn't usually need to be as powerful which means you're blinding yourself and others less. It also ideally should be a lower kelvin rating as well. I'm sure we've all heard why blue light is bad. For some reason, it's incredibly difficult to find a 4300k-5000k LED with high CRI.

On the Nebo, having to cycle through the bright lights to get to the red light seems like a poor design. The point of the red light is to not mess so much with vision sensitized to low light. Turning on bright lights to get to the red light is counter productive.

The light...The light, thanks I couldn't see with out the light... Creative testing and taught me about chemical resistance as I had not thought about that. I'll stick with the Milwaukee lights as I have that batttery platform already, Unless TTC finds a "must own" light. Then we will think about switching brands.. Thanks for the "Enlighten" on Lamination!!

Long Live the gmc Syclone!

I already have the wireless charge pad for the Astro tools and was wanting another..... that SL100 is KILLER! Thanks for these.

You might consider doing this with hard hat mounted work lights. Milwaukee, Klein, + others. There’s many to pick from and obviously a big market for them.

Hello again Torque Test Channel Thank you for another Great Video. With all the testing you have performed. What light has been the overall success? I need one to work with me and not take a lot of charge time. I am just getting into the rechargeable lights. I have triple AAA batteries types. Which I want to move from. Safety is a Major Issue, I maybe in or near a aircraft fuel tank. Aircraft fuel is very volatile. No sparks allowed. As a Aircraft Mechanic, I maybe on a twelve hour shift. So at some point the light will need to charge. But I need to keep working. Again thank you

Another great video. Do you have a Dropbox or Google drive where you share that spreadsheet? Also I would love to see you add a column with your score so i can keep better track while watching (my memory is not what is used to be...). These are odd lights because they are not flashlights but they are also not plug in area lights - but i would use a light like the for quick unexpected projects like work in a garage, under a car, in a crawlspace, etc... and camping is always asking for long lasting, durable lights, that Oilight looks awesome for this, that runtime is a weeks worth of nighttime area lighting after hours... Cheers!

I have a Olight swivel and it’s kind of tricky for me to switch through the modes. That being said I believe the swivel was left on medium mode during your tests. Medium mode on the swivel is 160 lumens for 9hrs which is close what you got. And 400 for 5hrs. But if you made sure it was on high I’ll take your word for it! Love your videos man! Really enjoying the flashlight testing!

Great testing as always! If you are looking for lights to test; a range of "tactical" lights would be great. I work in law enforcement, so it would be good to know if we are getting what we paid for. Are the Surefire lights really worth that much vs the more reasonably priced models from Fenix or Streamlight like the ProTac HL-X.

Can’t speak for Streamlight’s other lights but I love my Macrostream. It lives in my pocket everyday at work for the past year or so and it’s held up to the abuse. Plus if I ever need a replace the rechargeable battery they’re only like $10.

Awesome vid and can't wait to hear if that olight was that low of lumens mine doesn't feel that dim but it definitely could be I think next Video should be like edc lights or tactical lights kinda different kinda similar

And here I am still using Grandpa's old 60-watt incandescent plug-in shop light. Filament bulbs don't like drops, but eh, it's been working fine for 70 years now and I'm just a shadetree so it's not like I'm having to rely on it for my paycheck. Also fits in nicely when I'm working on a 70 year old car.

Klein makes a work light very similar to the olight. After seeing that performance I’m glad I never got the orange one I’ve been waiting on. Astro also has a comparable light to the cyclops and snap on in 700ish lumen I think.

I love Olight’s products, EXCEPT for this one single model which is a huge disappointment in every way I can think of. I literally never use it while the 10 or so other models I have never cease to amaze both me and others.

Best light testing I've seen! Well done. But I think most people incorrectly get hung up on lumens. With a portable work light, how much light do you really need when working at arms length? For that type of work, durability and runtime are much more important. I've never had a light that put the light where I wanted it and thought, "I wish it was brighter." Will crazy bright get the job done any better? In some cases that extra brightness is a negative. It can hinder your vision, especially in flood mode when you are trying to see in a dark pocket and get an insane amount of reflected light from closer objects. My opinion, take it with a grain of salt.

Snap on used to make one like that maxion and I bought it years ago and it's awesome

First appreciate you guy’s channel. I have a suggestion on your drop test. I have on a couple of occasions dropped a light from a decent height (12ft) right on to angle iron or something like that.

Super helpful great work

Okay, but Harbor Freight has those great little lights for a dollar or two and they work well. Not rechargeable, but you can change batteries or just buy them by the case. I have my old Mag-Lite lights I still use, but I do use the HF puck lights...

Amazing video as always! You should have tried maxxeon new extra large cyclops though, it’s twice as wide as the standard and supposed to have about 1000 lumen

brutal testing... i loved it

I use the abs snap on light often and work and it’s been soaked in chemicals and dropped and still works like a champ! Feels like it takes days to charge tho lmao better off owning 2 to prevent downtime

A wurrkos dive light might surprise you. 6061 aluminum housing, waterproof to more than 100 ft and very bright for less than or around $100 depending on the model genwiss also makes some good lights

Rather unflattering result for the Olight, particularly the chemical resistance - will have to remember to be cautious about that. I have two of them, I don't do mechanic work by trade though I must say that stamina - chef's kiss. I don't need a lot of light when grovelling under and in my car at night, it just has to be consistent and there and having torches that will run from sundown to midnight is a bonus. Medium setting, two of them works great as is the option to point it in beam.

I like my Clore COB lights. Great light output and the battery output lasts a long time.

When I was at a dealership the cornwell guy gave me 2 cyclops for $28 a piece. Might not be the brightest light ever but with 2 put in different angles, I can see just about anything I need to. The magnets are super strong and they’re bright and durable for the price

thanks for this! disappointed in the olight lying about lumens but never seen a light last that long at 200 lumens. you might see that on a medium or low setting of 100 or less lumens im a budget guy but also love my lumens. astro won easy as its really the only one that even performed well in the runtime imo. the cyclops is a good budget option

i accidently left my walmart/harbor freight light up next to a differential over the weekend one time and came back to it still being on.Very much dimmed, but still on

Can you test magnet strength? My biggest issue with these types of lights is accidentally bumping it and having it fall into a bilge. Whatever I stick it to usually has thick layers of paint as well, so that doesn't help. Another good test would be to shoot sparks at it with a grinder. Some lights I've had I've even been able to shower with big gobs of weld spatter, others not so much.

What about the lights that use the batteries you already have? The 18v/36v that go on your power tools?

Would love to see the Streamlight Stinger 2020 compared to other lights in its category. I just bought one and I love it so far.

I work with a guy that has that Nebo, that thing is insanely durable. It's literally missing pieces and still works.

id like to see figures for light cone size at 1, 3 and 6ft wich are fairly typical application distances shud be pretty easy to measure using some graph paper or a tape measure that you shine the light at

Need to do some bargain-bin camping and/or worklight comparisons. The hardware stores, big box stores, and Walmart always seem to have something in this regard. Some of the COB strip lamps are good enough for less than $20, and probably make for a rather good deal when nearing the $5 point. Can't say much about most qualities, but they tend to be ok in terms of run-time and brightness. In terms of features, magnets and some kind of clip seem to be common. Might even be fun to see if any of those venture into the territory of the lights on this video's test run.

I'm a streamlight fan, use the Strion switchblade folder at work. Little UV is handy.

Loved the syclone reference 👍

Great video, would've loved to see the new Icon underhood light thrown in, hopefully in a future video?

Streamlight Knucklehead. I love mine. It is my "go to" light at the shop!

great review! im pleased with my Seeker2Pro and S1A Baton. i think that they failed with Swivel because they copy it after UniLite.

Just subscribed! Great channel

Would love to see you test 18-20v work lights from the major rechargeable tool lines.

Fun fact, (or assumption) the olight seems to be a rebranded no name chineese light, that can be had on eBay with a mircousb charging slot instead of USB c, but also for about $11

I've got a Nebo. It's bright but it doesn't last long at all, even on their highest setting. Was disappointed with that. I got one of those flexible led strip headlamps which does decent, and in my car I have a streamlight strion led and charger wired in, which are both my go to lights. Flashlights and knives. Gotta love em I'm actually surprised on how robust that Nebo was for you. I dropped mine from about 4 feet at work and it started being unreliable

We have a hand full off the snap on aluminum lights. Wish the battery life was little better but love them. They have taken some serious abuse.

I work slow so I like the olight but I'm not surprised at the bogus lumen rating, they're a cheap, decent light that lasts a long time, something has to give and in this case it's light output. That Rover does look good though, I may have to check one of those out next time I'm at the store.

This test would be also great for inspections lamps for surface treatments, also test if the true to life colour is also a real thing

I can’t tell you how many of those snap on lights I’ve left on customers vehicles. Those things are pretty good but now I buy the maxxeon

Great video, I would love to have seen the Braun 750 lumen from Harbor Freight included in your testing, I have several of them and they appear to out perform the snap-on lights at a much lower price point.

Olight…yeah, I bought a few of their cycle rear lights..pah! Brightness was great…not an issue, but they switch off if not detecting movement. Riding gently for a while I would come to a stop only then to find the rear light was off! Waiting to emerge at a junction for any time would also put the lights into sleep mode…making you vulnerable to any car coming up behind. At night you might realise the red glow behind has gone…but used as a daylight safety running light with no visible glow reflection, it was terrible. Plus the units are small…meaning small batteries, which are dead in under two hours. For nearly fifty bucks I expected better.

Did you guys test the stream light syclone Jr from the matco truck? I have one and really like it. Battery life is good on low, high isn't all that great. And it's pretty durable. From my testing.

Hello @Torque Test Channel, 5 volts 3 amps is considered the lowest rating for fast charge, while 5 volts 2 amps is highest rating for normal charge.

I was really interested in the NEBO for a camp light until I saw that the red light is only good for 4 hours at 8 lumens as compared to the low setting at 12/30. Kinda weird...

Would like to see the streamlight flipmate tested I’ve really enjoyed mine and am curious to see how it stacks up

Not sold on amazon, but you all should test some INTL-outdoor lights. They're quite popular in the flashlight enthusiast circles.

Glad i saw this because i was actually planning to buy a couple of those olights.

I have a nebo like this one and it works great! Very durable

@TorqueTestChannel - if you haven't tested Hood-Mounted lights, it would be great to see comparisons. I know you can't do lumens on something that big, but side by side comparisons would be awesome to see.

The harbor freight Braun/ snap on knock off would be nice to see tested I use them at work 1 on charge one in use they do the job but I feel like they’re not the 750 advertised lumens but for 30 bucks it’s hard to beat

Hey TTC enjoyed the video. How about doing some work with powertool batteries accessories like kobalt 24 lights with USB ports and other brands kobalt since that's what I have and could use it for night fishing. Thanks for your channel

I love the Nebo lights. I hate the one with the red light. I usesd it for tech work for many years! before I started to do You Tube, I now use it to spot light stuff on shots I could not get light on as it is small. You should test the cheap set lights they sell on amazon. like the newwer lights!

I went on a course of lighting tech, and I believe there is an error at 1:20 there abouts. To my knowledge the CRI is compared agains black body radiator (read: incandecent lightbulb) which would always have a CRI of 100. Not sunlight. Thus CRI can be thought of "how closely the light matches a traditional lightbulb in color rendering." The reason this bugs me is that I've sold LED-lights for 5 years, and clients usually want the highest CRI source just because number is bigger. Flat-ish spectrum lamps would be desirable, but CRI would be low because the number is comparing them to crappy light source: the incandecent bulb which has a triangle shaped spectrum. This is why I have usually adviced my clients to get CRI-80-90 LEDs. Those are more efficient and better light thatn CRI95 for example. But forget CRI70 stuff if you need to do work :D Please correct me if I am wrong, I don't want to keep faulty information in my head! Nice work with the testing setup!

I'd like to see similar test of the stick lights. Like matco MWL900, MHHFL600, streamlight switchblade, etc. The long adjustable stick lights are essential under the hood.

I have the aluminium snap on and can confirm that the fact that it doesn’t rotate all the way is very annoying. I prefer the older ecfhky which I’ve had for years. It’s better in every way

Manufacturers take note, there is NO excuse for making anything but junk-tier lights which do not laugh off sprayed solvents and liquid immersion. That's a deal breaker for mechanics and TTC doing the solvent test is very, very cool! Nebo ordered (which I'll back up with my Anker power brick so it can charge while in use).

Great video. Have you ever considered testing LED headlights for lumen claims?

I have a snap on I think 400ish lumen probably the same one in the video. It’s close in lumen rating to the fast charge version which cost a lot more but the performance of the two are totally different. The fast charge version is much brighter.

my aluminium snap ons stay on for about 15-20 minutes. they get really hot too. I used them for 2 years every day. The charging port broke on one and the other one is missing all the rubber around the light, the switch and the charging cover. Not really happy for the price and no warrenty.

Thanks for the new video

Olight just dunking on the run time contest was oddly funny to watch.