Goal Zero Lighthouse Mini Core Lantern and USB Power Hub

Video Transcript for Review of Goal Zero Camping Lights - Mini Lantern/ USB Charger - 287-32011

Michael: Hi, there. I'm Michael with etrailer.com. Today, we're going to take a quick look at the Goal Zero Lighthouse Mini Core Lantern & USB Power Hub. This lantern is going to provide a nice amount of light for you at your campsite or while you're hiking. It also has this USB port on the front here, so it can help charge up your headlamps or a phone, different things like that. So it gives you a backup power supply.

It is pretty small. When we have our legs folded in like that, it's only about four inches tall. And our diameter, I measure overall about three inches. So not very big at all. It only weighs about 0.8 of a pound.

So it's about the same size and weight as a can of soup. So it's not going to be very much for you to throw in your bag or to take with you while you're out on your hike or setting up camp. But it is going to provide a nice amount of light for you.If I turn off my lights in my studio here, you can see that we do have the option to light up just one side. We have control with this brightness dial on the front here. So we can go to very dim or very bright.

If we have it in its lowest setting on the one side, it's going to give us about 500 hours of power and light. If we turn it up to its brightest setting, it's going to give us about seven hours. And even just with this one side, not at full brightness, this is still lighting up my studio here. So I can walk around, don't have to worry about tripping over anything. So it's going to be great for a campsite.

And then we can also turn it to the full spectrum. So it's going to light up both sides, give us 360 degrees there.We also have the ability to adjust the brightness on that side. So if we have this with both sides working at the same time at its lowest power setting, we're still going to have about 400 plus hours of use. If we turn it up to its full brightness, it's going to last about four hours. So it's going to give us lots of light and a lot of time with that light. So it's going to be a great option for our camping trips. Hanging it from the top of our tent or wherever we need it. So it does have several different options for how to use it. You can have it stand up on the legs, like so. Just have it sitting around the camp site on a table or something along those lines. It's also got a hook at the top here. So you could easily hook this from your tent supports, have it hanging in the middle of your tent, providing light all over.It also has a carabiner loop there. So you could hook a carabiner on there if you want something more permanent, so it doesn't risk sliding off your hook. But it also has a magnet on the bottom here. So this magnet is going to allow it to adhere to a metal surface, like so. And that's a nice strong magnet that will work in just about any orientation. And it's not so strong that it's hard to remove, but strong enough to hold itself. So that gives you lots of options as to how to use this. So the light works great. The USB charger here, this is going to be an either/or situation. So if you want to use this as a charging device, it is going to cut down on the amount of power that you have for your light. But in an emergency situation, if you still have some power in there, you can charge up your headlamp or something along those lines. With the full power, it's going to charge your headlamp about three times, or you can charge up your point of view camera, like a GoPro or something like that, about twice.So give you lots of options there. Can also charge your phone one time. If you're charging up a tablet or something larger like that, it won't charge to its full capacity, but it will give you about 25% more power. So nice little backup energy source there. To get this charged, you simply unwind the USB cable here. You can plug this into any USB power source. It takes about four hours. If you have constant power, if you're using a solar panel, like the Nomad 7, which is sold separately, it'll take anywhere from four to six hours, depending on how much sunlight you're getting. So that'll be pretty easy to get all charged up, so that it's ready to go when you need it. This does come with a one year warranty. So if you we're to have any problems with it within that first year, you could give us a call.We'd be happy to help you out with that. Overall, I'm very impressed with this little guy, especially for his size, the amount of light that it's putting out for me here in the studio. I would feel very comfortable having just a small amount of light coming from this that I could walk around my campsite in low light conditions and not worry about stepping on something dangerous or stubbing my toe or something like that. So very easy to transport. Put a little carabiner on there, or just use the hook. You can take this with you as you're going out to use the restroom in the middle of the night or something like that. So nice little option here. If you are going to be out backpacking or camping, nice to have something like this on hand. So that's going to complete our look for today. Again, I'm Michael with etrailer.com. Thanks for watching.