# Review: Olight R50 PRO SEEKER LE



## Budda (Nov 11, 2016)

_I've looked under chairs
I've looked under tables
I've tried to find the key
To fifty million fables
They call me *The Seeker*_


I received the Olight R50 Seeker PRO LE from Olightstore.com for the review.
Olight makes a “simpler” version of this light, the R50 Seeker PRO, that doesn’t have many accessories.

The specs
Utilizes Cree XHP70 cool white LED; light output ranges from 50 to 3200 lumens
Orange peel reflector paired with a slightly concave, coated lens to create a balanced beam
Low power/lockout indicator under the side switch that glows red when the battery is running low or being hit under lockout mode
Chamfered design above the side switch leaving more room for the thumb to make it easier and more comfortable for easy operation
Easy and convenient operation: when the light is off, press and hold the side switch to access the low light mode, double click to activate turbo, and triple click to access the strobe mode
Built-in 3A fast charging circuit board to work with the R Dock. It can be charged up to 80% of full capacity within 1.5 hours
Emergency use. When the R Dock is suddenly powered off, it can immediately turn on the flashlight under the low mode through infrared communication
Convenient installation. With the installation kit provided, it can easily be mounted and charged up in a vehicle or attached to a wall indoors


The light comes in this big box with a convenient handle







Velcro secured closure










Light in plain sight




Strap is in the box on the left



Plastic D-Ring, molle compatible.




Under the first “layer” of goods:




I had to remove some items cause they won’t look good in the pics




As you can see everything is well displayed and packaged.

Car adapter




Wall charger




Mount, Velcro straps, screws and light holder





Ok, now the light
















Magnetic tailcap with recharging system




Anodized squared threads







The provided 26650 battery






GITD under the glass










In the hand (EU medium size).




The cradle is used for charging the light. It has a magnetic system at the bottom that recalls the other magnetic chargers from Olight.







The cradle can be attached to wall mounts with a clip on the back



A golden spring allows a good force to the clip




The wall mounts can be attached using female-male Velcro, glue, or screws and fishers. 
The wall mounts allow to securely hold the cradle, but the cradle can be removed from the wall mounts very easily.

















The light is well sit in the cradle tanks to silicon pads and a strong magnet. It won’t fall off easily.

There is a switch on the cradle (more on that later).









UI
Standard Olight interface.
The light turns on and off with a single click.
When the light is on, keep pressed the switch to cycle between low, medium and high mode.
Double click to access turbo.
Triple click to access strobe.
From off, keep pressed to turn the light on at low.
The light has memory for low, mid and high mode.
Lockout: from off keep pressed the switch for 2 seconds. Re-do to unlock the light.
When charging the light with the cradle, the charing indicator on the cradle will be red: charging, orange: almost charged, green: charged.
The integrated charging system can charge only the Olight proprietary 26650 battery.
Emergency Lamp function: The small switch on the cradle is for using the light as a blackout light. If you turn this setting on and let the light sit in the cradle connecter to the wall adapter, the light will turn on (At low mode) when the power goes out, and turn off (within 10 seconds) when the power returns.

Beamshots






The fence ends at 70 meters from the light.
The light has a wide and bright spill, but doesn’t have much throw. This is for close to medium distances. 
On my light the tint is slightly neutral.

Output and runtime
They have been both tested with the provided Olight 26650 4500mAh battery.













My thoughts
Fit and finishes are as you would expect from Olight.
Output and runtime are fine, and you can increase the runtime even more by using a higher capacity 26650, but so you will give up the charging capability. The magnetic charging system also allow faster charge and higher waterproofness compared to other micro USB port based systems.
UI is fine, considered also the philosophy of use of this light.
I don't like too much the way the proprietary battery is built. Having both poles on a single size with only a small gap between them can cause shorts if you try to charge them in other chargers. I'd like to see at least some bumps (as Olight does for their proprietary IMR 16340 battery)
The light comes with a lot of useful accessories, and all the other features make this light a great working light. A light for someone that needs a simple light with output, good balance flood/throw (a bit toward flood), and needs a robust charging device. 
For example you sit at your desk and you need to go check something, and put it back to charge when you are done and back at your desk. You can also leave the power adapter in your office or when you need the light, and have the car adapter in your vehicle. Detaching the cradle from the wall mount is simple, and the cradle mounts are versatile. The blackout light function can also be useful.

If you don’t need all these cradles and wall mounts and adapters, you can go for the non LE version of this light, that comes with the “standard” magnetic charging cable at a lower cost.

Thanks to AntoLed for the luxmeter and the camera.


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## DimmerD (Nov 12, 2016)

Nice review! Mine is out for delivery today can't wait.


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## StandardBattery (Nov 12, 2016)

Very nice images of the Cradle. Thanks! I'm liking it as I have lights everywhere, but I don't have one dedicated to emergency use always in a specific place other than my EDC lights. The others always seem to walk around a bit. Just waiting to hear about the possible charging issue as this is huge, and some more info if they have anything special so if I take the light out of the charger for 2 mins and put it back in the cradle is it going to try top charge it up to max right away? That's the one problem with cradles is that unless they are designed right since they can't detect a battery that is full enough they just start charging again. Ruins lots of batteries in hand vacuums, lights and other stuff. It's a tougher challenge for an emergency light which you basically always want very near maximum charge, but also keeping Li-Ion at maximum charge lowers their life expectancy. For LE this is not likely an issue since the light will get plenty of use, but for emergency use it may sit idle for long periods of time, so when the charger kicks back in is important. If they are trickle charging as is reported, then that's a disaster. Hmmm. maybe not the best idea for an emergency light after all.


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## Budda (Nov 12, 2016)

your concerns are right, but consider that this is a 10$ battery. Replace it once a year and you are good to go.


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## DimmerD (Nov 13, 2016)

It's a nice light way smaller than I thought it would be, the pictures seem to make it look larger than it is.
Got it charged and played a little with it last night, very bright almost full moon last night did not help matters. Anyway it's quite bright and I am liking the very floody beam, need more play time at night.


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## Budda (Nov 14, 2016)

I'm happy that you like it.
You know, as they say, the camera adds 30 pounds


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## vadimax (Nov 14, 2016)

One question (if you have a DMM): is there any voltage on the charging contacts of the light (when not charging, of course)?


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## DimmerD (Nov 15, 2016)

No voltage reads 0 for me I thought that was kind of odd.


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## vadimax (Nov 15, 2016)

DimmerD said:


> No voltage reads 0 for me I thought that was kind of odd.



Perhaps, there is a diode protection. Exactly what I wanted to know  Otherwise shorting external charging contacts would fry the battery and the light.


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## blah9 (Dec 28, 2016)

Thanks for the nice review. I just got an s2r Baton and I'm afraid this is going to turn into an Olight addiction lol. It's so small and I really love the magnetic charging for EDC usage so it's easy to top off. The R50's from Olight are looking really awesome as well.


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## gteague (Jan 4, 2017)

i got mine in about a month ago, tested it out, and put it in the charger. charger has a green light, but there's no indication it's charging. none at all.

so tonight i had a power outage. flashlight is dead as a doornail. i have no idea if the charger is working. i tried to charge the battery in two xtar chargers and no dice. i tried two of the olight magnetic chargers and no dice.

wtf is going on? why is there no charge indicator? that's just the height of stupidity for what is to be an emergency light.

/guy


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## scs (Jan 4, 2017)

gteague said:


> i got mine in about a month ago, tested it out, and put it in the charger. charger has a green light, but there's no indication it's charging. none at all.
> 
> so tonight i had a power outage. flashlight is dead as a doornail. i have no idea if the charger is working. i tried to charge the battery in two xtar chargers and no dice. i tried two of the olight magnetic chargers and no dice.
> 
> ...



Potential issues with your charger or cell aside, other members in another thread have explained that the customized cell should be charged only in the light and not in an external charger.


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## Budda (Jan 5, 2017)

@Gteague: have you read my review, or did you just felt like writing the issues of your R50 in my review thread?


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## gteague (Jan 6, 2017)

Budda said:


> @Gteague: have you read my review, or did you just felt like writing the issues of your R50 in my review thread?



first thing i did when i noticed the problem was to come here and read all the reviews. and where else would i post comments than in a review? and since your thread is now polluted anyway, here's some further info:

since i wrote this i've done a little further troubleshooting. i have the original r50 along with this new r50 pro le. when i got the pro i charged it in the dock, tested it, tested the emergency light function, and it has just sat here by my computer for 2-3 months with the green light on the dock. it wasn't until the power went off the other night that i noticed the light didn't come on although it had tested good before.

i put the battery from my original r50 into the pro and the light worked fine, so it wasn't the flashlight. next, i took the battery from the pro and put it into the r50 because none of my chargers would handle it and thus i charged it using the micro usb in the r50. but, the light was green indicating full charge and my volt/amp meter showed all zeros indicating it was fully charged. but now the r50 wouldn't work with that battery in it. so i'm very positive the battery is the problem.

i contacted michael at going gear and he said the symptoms indicated i'd put the battery in backwards and it's possible, but, as i said, when i got the light i charged and tested it and then haven't touched it since. so i distrust the charger.

michael offered to send another battery, but by then i already had one coming from amazon and when it gets here i can run further tests. and i do have voms (multitesters), but for the life of me i couldn't figure out where to place the probes to test for voltage. oh, and michael did say he'd had no other reports of such problems and he sells dozens if not hundreds of these.

oh, and to @scs: this should explain that the battery has only been in the r50 pro le and the light has only been in the rapid charge dock since i got it a few months ago. i only tried some other methods when it became apparent something was amiss.

/guy


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## TinderBox (UK) (Jan 6, 2017)

I really liked the look of this flashlight and considered buying one, But then i remembered you have to have special battery`s with the olight rechargeable flashlights and i bet they are expensive.

John.


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## Budda (Jan 9, 2017)

EDITED


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## Jhhuntr (Jan 10, 2017)

Thanks for the awesome review! I just got another Olight, and I might have to pick this one up too


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## tett (Jan 15, 2017)

Read review again and see there is no measured voltage across the tail cap contacts. This is good (probably diode protected as others have guessed) and no fears now. 



Any worries of shorting the battery since both polls are exposed on the rear tail cap? WHat if it gets dropped in dirty (conductive) muck?


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## gteague (Feb 5, 2017)

the charger has killed two batteries. there are some other threads. i would avoid this model until olight responds. i've emailed going gear and olight.

/guy


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## Liquidretro1 (May 8, 2017)

I was wondering if anyone had heard back from Olight about the reports of the Cradle continuing to charge the battery once full? Was this just an early production problem or does it still exist?


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## richbuff (May 8, 2017)

Liquidretro1 said:


> I was wondering if anyone had heard back from Olight about the reports of the Cradle continuing to charge the battery once full? Was this just an early production problem or does it still exist?


This just in today:



Olightworld said:


> We have verified that some of the batteries are the issue. We had a bad batch from our supplier where the protection circuit was not working so it would overcharge and overdischarge leaving it to not work anymore. If anyone has an issue at all with their battery, please email [email protected] and we will send you a replacement immediately. Thank you.


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## Spadboy (Jul 27, 2017)

After my original battery died, Olight sent me a replacement in June 2017. The replacement 26650 also died after leaving the R50 Seeker Pro LE in the charging dock.

I've sent customer service another message.

Oddly, I noticed you can "subscribe and save" on Amazon for the Olight 26650 4500mAh battery for R50 Seeker/R50 Seeker Pro /R50 Seeker Pro LE. LOL


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## cbxer55 (Jul 27, 2017)

Once again, thanks to Failbucket and their new extortion racket, a bunch of photos are MIA.


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## lumen aeternum (Aug 29, 2017)

What exactly does the LE package include that the regular Pro does not?
How far do you mean by "close to medium" distances?
Is a replacement battery really $10 (and probably $5 postage...)?


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## jrandom (Dec 31, 2017)

cbxer55 said:


> Once again, thanks to Failbucket and their new extortion racket, a bunch of photos are MIA.



No kidding right, frick'n jokers.


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## lumen aeternum (Jan 1, 2018)

This light has been intriguing me for a long time. Any improvements or a new model that does "more" now in 2018?


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## $Ed Case (Aug 21, 2019)

G'day enlightened peeps
First post, & I'd like to thank Budda for this thread & his amazing review. You're a champion.
I'd also like to thank Olight for their patience, & willingness to help.
I recently bought my second R50 PRO SEEKER LE on special, & thought I'd pass on what I've learnt.
I too had the problem whereby it didn't autostart while in the charger, for simulated blackout conditions, but I've since nutted it out.
To the haters, I accept that some will generalise that it's just a marketing ploy to label it as a blah blah professional light, but take a step back, if you will.
Here's the thing, law enforcement officers don't leave their flashlights in their charging docks (unused) or have it stagnating in a trophy display cabinet.
With that in mind, I took my origin LE out of its charger, pressed its ON button & let it shine for a *moment *(maybe 30 seconds). 
Now I must be the luckiest bloke on Earth, but its worked without fail, *every* time I did it. *WARNING*, don't do it long enough & it won't trigger the blackout mode.
Speaking of blackout mode, as Budda pertinently mentioned, it auto triggers in the LOW output setting, which is perfect. Placed judiciously in the home, it should be enough light for you to find your way there, for many many days & that's even if you left it on in the daylight hours. 
Try finding a purpose-built emergency light that has the smarts & stamina to do that.
If you've taken on what I've passed on, I'll be extremely happy. Life is too short to pass the time by whinging. 
In closing, why would any Candlepower forumer want a lanyard on a PRO flashlight, which incidentally costs a fraction of any mid-tier mobile (cell) phone, has replaceable batteries & doesn't force you into $X/month plan to use it? 
I'm prone to repeating myself, so forgive me while I thank once again, Budda & Olight.
Cheers from Downunder
John


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## CelticCross74 (Sep 29, 2021)

I have this light minus the cradle for the proprietary 26650's. The cradle got lost a long time ago. The light works just fine on my 5200mah Keeppower 26650's. The R50 at max is still blindingly bright. I use the Nitecore 8 slot charger for the Keeppowers and it works.


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