The Olight Perun 3, now with 3000 lumens of output and an additional red light, is an upgrade to the popular and versatile Perun 2 released well over 3 years ago.
It’s a very useful worklight with its right angle head, pocket clip and magnetic base. But it’s also supplied with a headband which makes it a compelling head torch too.
I’ll run through its features and thoroughly test its claims to find out if this might be the perfect all round torch for you.
I’ve done a full roundup of keychain torches, pocket EDC torches and head torches so please do check those articles if you’re interested. The keychain torch article might be particularly useful for an introduction to some of the terms I use in this article if you’re new to all this.
So let’s take a closer look.
Overview
The Perun 3 comes with a 21700 battery already installed, a headband, a magnetic charging cable, a lanyard and a user manual. There’s also a removable two way pocket clip installed, which doesn’t have to be removed when used with the headband. (Note the mount has a recess for the clip – in some of my shots where I’ve quickly removed and replaced the torch, the clip isn’t sitting in the recess).
The biggest upgrade from the Perun 2 is the headband, which now comes with a metal mount and a much higher quality perforated strap with silicone grippers. And you can remove the top band for shorter stints which wasn’t possible with the Perun 2. It’s also fractionally lighter than the Perun 2 at just over 200g. And if you remove the top strap and pocket clip you can get this down to just 187g which is impressive for a head torch operating off a larger 21700 battery. It’s still a little heavy for vigorous activities like running but for walking and general use around the house it’s fine.
The Perun 3 is currently available in black and orange. It has the usual excellent build quality and finish of Olight torches, made almost entirely of an aluminium alloy and has an IP68 waterproof rating, up from IPX8 for the Perun 2. It’s also drop resistant to 1.5m.
The 5000mAh proprietary lithium battery charges inside the torch with the supplied super convenient magnetic cable at around 2A, with a full charge taking less than 4 hours. Unfortunately there’s no USB-C charging that Olight have introduced on some of their torches recently.
The Perun 3 now has a side switch which does make more sense when it’s on your head, compared to the Perun 2’s end switch. A single press turns the torch on. Holding the power button cycles through a 30 lumens 89 day low mode, a 120 lumens 25 hour medium mode and a 600 lumens 300 minute high mode which then drops to 120 lumens for 30 minutes. A double click accesses the 2 minute 3000 lumens turbo mode which we’ll verify shortly.
With the torch off, a double click turns on the 15 lumens, 70 hour red light mode. Double clicking again switches this to a 60 lumens, 14 hour high mode. Holding down the power button in red light mode switches to the flashing SOS mode.
There’s also a 5 lumens 20 day moonlight mode accessed with a long press of the side button with the torch off, and a triple click takes you to a white flashing SOS mode, not the more common strobe mode. If you hold the side button down until moonlight mode turns on and then off the torch enters lockout mode. Press and hold the side button to unlock the torch and turn it back on in moonlight mode.
Finally there’s a timer mode. Choose the brightness level and double press holding the second press. The torch will blink once or twice alternately each time you do this. One blink for a 3 minute timer, 2 blinks for a 9 minute timer. It’ll switch itself off automatically after 3 or 9 minutes. This is useful if you have the torch hanging in a tent or use it as a bedside light.
Another nice upgrade from the Perun 2 is a battery indicator on the side switch. This comes on for a few seconds in every mode except moonlight and lights green, orange, red and flashing red depending on the charge remaining.
You’ll also notice the lenses half moon proximity sensor, which automatically drops the output if it sees an obstruction, just like on the Perun 2. This is to ensure it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket. But the Perun 2’s proximity sensor couldn’t be disabled and was often falsely triggered. The Perun 3’s sensor can be disabled, by pressing the side button at least 15 times in quick succession. It can also be overridden temporarily by double pressing the side switch immediately after entering turbo mode.
Performance
There are now 3 LEDs on the Perun 3, behind a TIR (Total Internal Reflection) lens. Olight doesn’t specify the exact LEDs used and there’s only one option with a cool 5700-6700K colour temperature. I measured the colour temperature in Turbo at 6588K with a very slightly rosy tint of -0.0011 Duv.
Ideally you want this Duv value close to zero but a negative number resulting in a rosy tint is generally preferred to a positive number with an associated green tint. I like that Olight specifies the CRI or colour accuracy but a CRI of 70 isn’t much to boast about. I measured a CRI of 71 in Turbo mode with my colour spectrometer.
I tested the runtime in turbo mode with a fully charged battery in my calibrated DIY lumen chamber. I measured 3264 lumens at turn on, an impressive 3219 lumens at 30 seconds, which dropped to just over 800 lumens after 2 minutes. So it meets its spec’d 3000 lumens based on the ANSI FL1 standard – the output measured 30 seconds after turning the torch on. But it couldn’t hold this for the full 2 minutes Olight claim in their user manual. It held around 800 lumen for just over 90 minutes and then dropped further before shutting off at just under 2 hours. Decent runtimes but lower than Olight claim.
It’s worth noting that runtimes in real use, typically with a cooling breeze will be better. It’s likely the torch is dropping its brightness at a certain temperature. I did measure the temperature of the torch with a thermal imaging camera and the head doesn’t get over 50°C as you can see.
The Perun 3 has a very floody beam but still has decent range in turbo mode with its high output, at around 160m or 6400 candela.
The floody beam is useful for typical head torch use around the house, but personally I’d rather see a secondary more focused spotlight like on the Fenix torch above, rather than the red light. For hiking or even walking the dog you often want a little more range without having to carry another torch. I generally prefer to use the moonlight mode to preserve night vision and I rarely use the red light – but I know that a lot of people do.
Conclusions
I’ve used the torch mainly in its headstrap and it’s already become my go to head torch.
The effortless magnetic charging means the Perun 3 is the torch that is always ready to go. And I often need the longer runtimes of the 21700 battery for longer walks and jobs around the house.
For closer work 120 lumens is often enough and that lasts for up to 25 hours. I’m generally using it without the top strap (see below).
It is a little front heavy and ideally I’d prefer a wider strap like on the Fenix HM65R-T (see photo in previous section) that came out on top in my head torch roundup, but the silicone grippers do help it stay put.
Even with the top strap it’s too heavy and unbalanced for running unfortunately, so it’s not going to replace my Petzl Nao RL. That torch also has the rear red led which is a useful safety feature for road running.
With its right angle head even without the headband it makes an excellent worklight. You can attach it to your shirt with the pocket clip or the bonnet of the car with its magnetic base.
It is worth noting that the metal mounting bracket will scratch the torch to some degree if you’re taking the torch out of the strap regularly (the torch already has a few more wear marks since posting this article and video).
The Perun 3 is not a huge upgrade over the Perun 2. I still would have liked to have seen USB-C as well as magnetic charging, a secondary more focused beam and a warmer LED option.
But it’s still an extremely versatile everyday torch with a simple user interface and excellent build quality.
Don’t forget to check out my full roundup of head torches if you haven’t already. I’ll be including this torch in the next roundup, but let me know in the YouTube video’s comments if there are any others you’d like to see.
Don’t forget to take a look at my YouTube video at the top of the page, and again please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it. If you tap the bell icon when you subscribe you’ll get a notification as soon as I release a video, and there’ll be a link to my site here for the written article. YouTube is also the best place to leave a comment. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can!
Purchase directly from Olight:
(I get a tiny kickback which helps support this website and my YouTube channel at no extra cost to yourself!)
Olight currently have their Fall Event with some decent discounts. Olight’s sales are far less frequent now, so I’d take advantage of these offers if you’re looking to buy anything.
Perun 3 Headtorch 3000 lumens with red light:
UK: https://www.olightstore.uk/s/8ZVIKA (currently up to 40% off)
US: https://www.olightstore.com/s/IHUURV (currently up to 40% off)
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