Now that it’s spring, it’s time to start thinking about camping again. I know you can camp in the winter, but I’m not that hard core, unless by “winter camping” you mean sitting in a cabin stuffing logs into the wood burning stove. This camping season, I’m really excited to bring along my new UCO Arka Rechargeable LED lantern. As a bit of a disclaimer, I will admit that I’m a lighting geek by nature and that I’ve also been using UCO candle lanterns for years. So, it’s possible that this lantern is just in my sweet spot. Maybe if some other person were reviewing it they would only give it an A- instead of the A++ I’m about to lay down. Seriously. If you like to camp, or if you’ve been looking for that perfect lantern for your home emergency kit, check this baby out.
First things first, the weight. Just over 8 oz. Which, I know, is a little heavy. Maybe this isn’t the lantern you want to take on some multi week backpacking trip. But, for an overnight or even a multi day trip the weight shouldn’t be an issue. The Arka can be used as either a flashlight or a lantern, which is nice in that double duty kind of way. Sometimes gadgets that are designed to do multiple jobs end up doing all of them poorly, but that is not the case with the Arka. As a flashlight it’s fine. You turn it on, light comes out of one end and you can point it at things. Perfectly serviceable. The lantern mode, on the other hand, is really impressive.
When I first unpacked it, I did not quite understand how to convert the Arka from a flashlight to a lantern. I am notorious for not reading directions and was baffled until I noticed a littler arrow pointing up that was etched into the side of the flashlight. It had the word open printed next to it and as I pushed that section forward the entire sleeve of the flashlight slid up, becoming the canopy of the lantern. At this point I think I audibly said “cooool” as it slid into place and a nice even glow (in cool white, it is an LED after all) filled the room.
The lantern has five lighting modes, two white light modes that vary from high intensity to low intensity white and three red light modes. The red modes range from “tactical” which is basically just a steady red light (perfect for the hardcore stargazers), strobe which can be used as a kind of beacon and finally a pre-programmed S.O.S.* emergency strobe. The red light modes are great, although I hope to never need the S.O.S. and both white light modes are useful – the high intensity being helpful around camp, when you need enough light to see what you’re doing and the low intensity being bright enough to read by in the tent.
In addition to the slick design of the sliding canopy, there are two bent metal pins at the top of the lantern that flip up to form a kind of half ring. This can be used when you want to hang the Arka from a tree, that little loop of fabric at the top of your tent or from your review mirror while you unfold an actual map because your phone has run out of juice. Oh wait, that won’t happen, because the Arka also has a charging port for various USB devices. I was a little skeptical about this feature at first, but it’s a nice bonus, especially if you’re buying it for a home emergency kit. I did a little test with my phone at 25% and the lantern fully charged. I was able to charge my phone to 90% and still have over 6 hours of light at the low intensity setting. It probably could have gone on for much longer, but it was late and I was getting tired so I decided to turn it off and call it a night.
Under normal conditions, when fully charged the Arka should give you about 6-8 hours of light on the high intensity setting and up to 100 hours on low. This is more than enough time for you to read the instructions and find out that there are also three little feet that discretely fold out and extend from the base of the lantern for added stability. Hmmm, who knew? Maybe I should read the instructions more often.
The good
- exceptionally designed
- fully functional as a flashlight and lantern
- multiple lighting modes
- USB charger
The bad
- maybe a little too heavy to take on the pacific crest trail
Available from Industrial Revolution for $69.99
*The more you know: Although SOS is commonly thought to be an abbreviation for “Save our Souls” or “Save our Ship” it is actually just the commonly used description for the international morse code distress signal (… – – – …). The distress signal could also have been written out as VTB, but good thing they didn’t choose that one because it just doesn’t have the same ring to it now does it.
Boring stuff: UCO provided me with a free review sample of this product. This in no way influenced the opinions expressed in this review. All images via UCO/Industrial Revolution.