PSA: My $12 headlamp beat my $90 one on a 3 night trip in the Ozarks

Everyone keeps saying you need a fancy headlamp with 800 lumens and a rechargeable battery, but I used a cheap $12 one from a hardware store bin on a 3 night trip in the Ozarks back in April and it did everything my $90 light does. The expensive one died on night two because I forgot the charging cable, while the cheap one just took AAA batteries I grabbed at a gas station. I get why people like the fancy ones, but for car camping and short hikes I don't see the point of paying that much. What's your setup for backup batteries when you're out for a few nights?

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tessacarter1mo ago

Something I read a while back said most people never even use half the brightness on their fancy lights, so all those extra lumens are just sitting there. Your point about batteries is the real thing though, because a dead light with no way to charge it is just a paperweight. For backups I just carry a little ziplock with a few spare AAAs and a couple AAs depending on what my gear takes, plus one of those tiny coin cell lights on my keychain as a last resort. Batteries are cheap and they don't care if you forgot a cable or the power went out at the campground. Rechargeable is nice at home but out in the woods I want stuff I can swap in two seconds. The gas station thing is real too, you can find AAs almost anywhere but good luck finding a USB-C cable at a random stop.

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