Headlamps have always been in vogue for campers, cavers and miners for many years but I have found in the last year or two, they can be a valuable aid in some of the activities we carry out to live a more sustainable life. Headlamps started out with candles and oil wicks, moved on to carbide lamps and eventually got to the electric models of today.
They are comparatively cheap to buy, but you still need to get the right type. It is not a sustainable light source if you have to keep buying batteries for it, but they do make rechargeable ones. The one I bought has a 4.25v 1300mA Lithium-ion battery, which is rechargeable with a USB cable with has the same plug which is required to charge my phone. It is not such a big thing for us because the place is powered by solar, but if you were looking for something small scale a solar phone charger would be taking your lighting off grid!
My suggestion is that, in the same way that it is more efficient to heat yourself rather than the whole room by putting on say, a wearable blanket, by using a solar headlamp to illuminate what you are doing, you don’t need to light up the whole room and it reduces your energy needs considerably.
Features we have found handy –
• Rechargeability (obviously)
• Ability of the light to tilt forward (ours goes to about 20⁰)
• A number of lighting modes, including red light.
A headlight can be used for –
1. General navigation – when you need the toilet at night, but don’t want to turn the lights on and wake everybody up, or you just want to save power and money by using the headlight as you move from room to room rather than switching lights on and off.
2. Task lighting – if you are cooking, reading or eating you can use the headlamp and not have to worry about general lighting. The light we use has two white light settings so if one is too bright you can dial things down a bit.
3. Outdoor night work – if you are having issues with slugs and snails, nipping out the back after dark to track them down and despatch them is made easier by the headlamp, leaving both hands free to commit pest mayhem. This is made considerably easier also if the headlamp tilts forward, allowing you to see downward without having your head constantly bent over. Also, our wood pile is not the best lit place in the world either, so in winter I use the headlamp when I need to grab an extra log or two to keep the fire crackling.
4. Checking the chooks – if you need to inspect or treat your chooks for pests, check out their general health or clip one of their wings to prevent escapees, the headlamp makes things easier. If you need to look them over, a sleepy chook is much more cooperative. Also, our headlamps have two red lights which we can use and this seems to wake them up less than a strong white light, although it does make pest identification somewhat more difficult.
5. On yer bike! – if you are riding your bike at night then the headlamp can improve vision, but also ours has a setting where the main white light and two side lights flash. Not much good for seeing where you’re going but for enabling passing motorists to see you it works very well. Not to mention using it to interrogate any suspected felons you may come across!
6. Repair work – A short while ago I had an issue with the MPPT in the solar system which we run. It is in a part of the garage which is quite dark, even during the day and I just couldn’t focus on the problem. The headlamp brought sufficient light to the project that I was able to find and fix the problem quickly. It has been very handy also when work is required under the house or up in the roof, providing focussed light just where it is needed.
The headlamp we bought was not the cheapest on the market but it has been in use for several years and we have found it to be invaluable for certain jobs and uses. In fact, I bought one for my brother for Christmas and his comment a couple of months later was – “I have used it every day since Christmas, and am now wondering how I got along without one for all these years!”
Sometimes it can be the small things that make our life easier!
