Pocket Lightsaber

Tim the Russian

Streamlight announced a new keychain light at Shot Show this year: the Keymate USB. I had a chance to finger-bang it at their booth, and ended up preordering one few minutes later. Amazon is amazing.

The new Keymate USB is shaped like a key, and is meant to be attached to your keychain.

Although this light is not a powerhouse like keychain lights from Surefire, it excels in daily usability. First of all – activation. Many lights require a twist. Sometimes its easy to do, sometimes its not, like when you’re wearing gloves. Streamlight is pretty awesome in this aspect; it has a fairly large activation button, and is very easy to click on.

The purpose of a keychain light is not to become a tactical light, but to rather provide convenience lighting. This light does exactly that, with no delusions of being a taclight. It provides very diffused light, with very limited reach. If you’re looking to have any kind of distance, this is not it.

It’s dim. Well…by today’s standards, anyway. For example, Surefire keychain lights are well over 100 lumens; the Titan is 300. Awesome, but almost too much. Don’t get me wrong, Surefire makes incredible products. But in the past year of having a Titan on my keychain, I rarely used the hi-power setting. Dim, way-finding light is something I use much more.

For example, with night-adapted vision, trying to find my way to a head, five to ten lumens is almost too much. If I’m checking up on my three year-old daughter, 100 or even 50 lumens would wake her up. I know other lights have “low” settings, but it’s a pain in the ass to fiddle with when all you need is a simple dim light. Thus, Keymate’s low 16-lumen output is pretty much perfect for my needs. It has a higher-output setting of 35 lumens, along with an emergency flasher, activated by an additional click. Runtimes are 60 and 120 minutes.

Keymate is recharged by plugging into a USB outlet (with an included micro-USB cord). It has a charge indicator that turns green when fully charged, which takes about two hours.

When I was told this light would retail for an MSRP of less than $30, I had to immediately check Amazon. Indeed, the preorder price was $21.74. It’s one of the best deals in personal lighting on the market today. Of course I only had it for a few days, and long time durability is yet to be seen, but for the price and the initial performance it’s a smoking hot product.

-Timur

Mad Duo, Breach-Bang& CLEAR!

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About the Author: Timur Aleksandrovich is former taiga-frolicking proud bacon- and big-dog-loving American who ain’t from around these parts. We can’t tell you where he comes from, but we can say he grew up wearing a fuzzy hat, loves vodka (which he pronounces WODka) and never does anything without a plan. Though his profession has nothing to do with anything tactically sexy (that we’re gonna tell you about), Tim knows his way around guns and gear. Luckily he made so much money in the 90s selling off Sukhoi Su-47s, souped up BTR-90s and that one cherry MD-160 Ekranoplan to Jacobim Mugatu he can still afford all kinds of cool toys. Timka is an extraordinarily proficient shooter and prefers timepieces that weigh as much as a small child. He is evil genius smart, retard strong and easygoing as an Amish guy stoned on Sunday. You may have read about him in a couple things written by Tolstoy and Mikhail Sholokhov (or maybe it was Pasternak, we can never remember). We hang around with him not so much because we like him but because he sounds like Col. Strelnikov when he talks, and because he lets his Great Danes wear shemaghs. We’re still holding out hope he’ll someday show up to the range with an original 1983 Jatimatic 9x19mm SMG and lots of ammo. A desultory meteorologist and member in good standing of our “Everyman Tactical” element, Tim is a graduate of Grosse Pointe High School and is a Martin Blank cynicist in good standing. Most of this we’re just making up of course, but he really does look good in those shaggy hats and he really is gay for watches and knives. If you’re the stalking sort you can creep on him by watching him on the live webcam he has in his outhouse on the steppe right here.

Grunts: desultory.