Rechargeable headlamp

It's time for a new headlamp. I'd love to stop having to buy/throw out single use AAAs. Does anyone have experience with the BD Revolt?

I like the idea of always keeping the batteries always fully charged by charging the batteries on the way to climbs every time... but I take it that will shorten the batteries' life?

You could just buy rechargeable AAAs and have some spare charged ones with you 

I've heard that rechargeable batteries don't tend to work as well as disposable ones on headlamps, they reduce the brightness after a few uses. I'm curious whether a headlamp that is designed to be rechargeable would work better. 

It seems to be a misconception that Nimh will be less bright in headlamps. The brightness of the headlamp has to do with how much voltage the battery is driving at. If you look at this curve the nimh starts off a little bit dimmer but won't drop in brightness as quickly as the alkalines.

http://eznec.com/Amateur/1.5_vs_1.2_Volt_Batteries.pdf

I like my Revolt. It's super convenient just plugging it into a USB cable. I don't use it often enough to comment on the durability/longevity of the batteries, beyond saying that I've had it for about a year and it still works like new.

I have the old (2015?) Revolt. I got it with the same intentions you did, that I didn't want to have to keep buying batteries & being wasteful. In all honesty, I didn't find the charging mechanism to be worth it. The lamp includes rechargeable AAA batteries that you just leave in, while you plug a micro USB to charge it when you need. The problem I found is that it was terrible at holding a charge. Within a day or two of a full charge, it started to noticeably dim & this includes it being on standby. I guess it's good if you remember to charge it before every outing, but I found that that generally wasn't reasonable for me.

I may have had some bum rechargeable batteries or maybe something faulty in the charging mechanism? Regardless, I actually still use this lamp regularly, but I just use regular batteries. The new 2016+ models may have solved this issue, so who knows.

ollieon wrote:

It seems to be a misconception that Nimh will be less bright in headlamps. The brightness of the headlamp has to do with how much voltage the battery is driving at. If you look at this curve the nimh starts off a little bit dimmer but won't drop in brightness as quickly as the alkalines.

http://eznec.com/Amateur/1.5_vs_1.2_Volt_Batteries.pdf

The other thing this chart shows is the sudden drop in power for Nimh versus the more gradual drop for alkaline. This is important for headlamps because if you don't have spare batteries, a sudden loss of light is less foreseeable with Nimh. You should try to always have spares I guess, but if you're just out running or something you might not.

This thread has relevant discussion. 

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/113603405/foxelli-headlamps