Best Case: We liked it for navigating tricky waters with rocks and bars because the wide beam can pick up obstacles outside the periphery of other lights. It’s capable as an underwater dive light. Bully netters will like its wide beam.

Best: This light had an efficient selector lever to choose high, medium or low illumination without toggling through those settings with the trigger. All the others required the user to toggle through high, medium and low to shut off the light. Also, a stainless-steel ring at the back allows it to hang with a downward-facing beam. A ring at the top allows it to hang as a trouble light, and an adjustable foldout bracket makes it a useful hands-free light for service work.

BrightestRechargeable Spotlight

Best Case: This light is compact and powerful, ideal for spotting targets at long range, and it has a broad enough beam at close range to offer some peripheral illumination. We liked its heft.

Streamlight and Goodsmann brought the best lights to our test. Streamlight has been a workman’s and sportsman’s brand for decades, and has proven reliable for all those years. Goodsmann manufactures all types of lighting for decor, landscaping and security, as well as a number of spotlights.

Its Amazon-advertised 160,000 lumens is disputed by package specifications listing 800 lumens. However, it did illuminate our distant target almost as well as the Streamlight. A near-blinding floodlight beam on the side is handy for camping and emergencies, and an included tripod makes it easy to use. There are separate triggers for the spotlight and floodlight. A green LED charge indicator on the back below the silicone door to the charge input port is a cool 5-volt charge output port for phones. $36; amazon.com

Brightestspotlight on Amazon

Best: It’s bright, lightweight and can float. Its pencil beam lets users focus on distant objects. The phone charge port is great, making it a good buy at the price. A trouble light on the side is useful for service work.

Best Case: We liked it for running the inlet with a straight row of markers and for finding distant markers by scanning the horizon from side to side. Frog giggers (you know who you are) will like this light.

Worst: It’s water-resistant, not waterproof. However, the battery door and switches appear waterproof. A longer battery life on high would be appreciated, but the low level still lit the waterway for safer navigation. This light doesnot float.

Brightest12v spotlight

Beam Me Up: Mount this light by the helm and use it to spotlight into the boat slip or pick your way through weeds, timber or other obstacles.

This high-lumen light is designed with a durable, compact, portable aluminum body. Though it is among the highest-lumen lights we tested, its reflector is designed for a broad flood of white light rather than an extremely long beam. It barely reflected from our 1.2-mile target, but its lighting is impressive inside of 100 to 200 yards, and on high it provided ample light to illuminate a half-mile series of navigation reflectors. It fits comfortably in the hand. It has high, medium and low settings. $159; amazon.com; Cabelas.com

Third, we took the lights out on Charlotte Harbor in Florida and illuminated the inlet markers at Punta Gorda’s Ponce de Leon Park inlet. All the lights produced a bright reflection from the farthest marker more than one-quarter mile away.

Worst: That annoying trigger toggle-through setting to get through high, medium and low to turn it off slows down operation.

When looking for a spotlight for your boat, review your priorities. On smaller, familiar waters, you likely won’t need a blinding pencil beam and would benefit from a wider beam to find gear in the boat or dropped overboard. If your light will double as a camping or hunting light, a pencil beam can be helpful and so is a trouble light. We found the built-in light stands extremely useful, and not having one would be a deal breaker for all but standard flashlight designs.

Brightesthandheld spotlight

Imagine a transparent sphere with a circle in front of us. The surface of a sphere is a surface called a sphere. The spherical lens only means that one surface of the sphere is selected as the lens.

When you look at the world through the lens, the difference will be more obvious. When looking around the spherical lens, distortion occurs. Due to the aspherical lens design, the aspheric lens can minimize the difference between the edges of the lens. Seeing objects is more natural, less deformed, and more real.

Beam Me Up: Its design advantage is an extremely bright and impressively wide beam that illuminates an arc of roughly 150 degrees, but it doesn’t have the long reach of the Streamlight. While it didn’t illuminate the post at 1.2 miles, it did illuminate the reflective channel marker on it.

For friends with mild myopia, the spherical and aspheric lenses are almost the same, there will be no aberration problems, and the lens thickness is similar. Considering the price factor, you can choose spherical lenses.

Brightestspotlight for hunting

The surface of an aspheric lens must not be part of a sphere or cylinder. The curve of some parts of the lens surface changes to better focus the light. This change in the surface corrects various aberrations.

Bright Spotlight for backyard

Worst: Its ABS plastic bezel rim is unarmored and could be fragile. Touted to be waterproof to 1 meter, but ours took on water immediately. Toggling through high, medium and low to shut it off is annoying. The same goes for the trouble light on the side.

This light is rugged, watertight and floats. We selected this model for its high-lumen rating. Because it looks suspiciously like West Marine’s 3,000-lumen rechargeable light, and the specs align, we felt we could knock off two reviews in one product. It has high, medium and low settings, along with an SOS function. It is made of rugged plastic, with rubber armor on the aluminum bezel and handles to protect the device. There are three LED chips to make the total 3,000 lumens. Each is in its own reflective bezel, which creates a wide, bright beam. $79.99; amazon.com

Copyright © 2024 Boating Firecrown. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Best: It has a trigger lock, so it won’t turn on accidentally, avoiding wasted batteries at best or fire from heat buildup at worst. None of our other test lights could boast such a feature. We liked the phone charger.

The curve is the same across the entire surface. If you draw a straight line to follow the curve, it will form a circle. Because the design is simple, the spherical lens design is usually cheaper.

What is a spherical lens? What is an aspheric lens? What is the difference between the two? Why are aspheric lenses recommended? Let's talk about the difference between the two.

All the listed spotlights are rechargeable, and all include charging equipment. All but one of the selected lights floated. Though all are advertised as waterproof, we found one that was not.

In appearance, spherical lenses are "big belly", but aspheric lenses are relatively flat, so from an aesthetic point of view, aspheric lenses will look better. There are many aspheric lenses advantages. For example, aspherical lenses are precisely designed and optimized for the combination of lens powers, so they are thinner and more resistant to collisions than spherical lenses. Therefore, people with higher power usually wear aspheric lenses.

Brightestspotlight in the world

Beam Me Up: Lumens don’t tell the whole story. This one lit the marker post from 1.2 miles away in spite of its middling lumens rating. However, it is a pencil beam and required a spot-on aim to illuminate a dock or marker.

Best: Its rechargeable batteries are removable and replaceable, extending its useful life. We loved the rock-solid wall-mountable charger holder.

Fourth, we secured the boat 1.2 miles away from an Intracoastal Waterway marker and hit it with all the lights, one at a time. All of them produced a reflection of that marker, an attribute we thought made each a useful navigation tool. But—and this is an interesting but—some of our lights illuminated the marker post, and did so clearly. And it wasn’t always those with the most registered lumens.

The Waypoint is rugged and feels that way the second you touch it. It’s got an IPX8 rating for shock and is waterproof and floats. High-, medium- and low-light settings conserve batteries when maximum illumination isn’t needed. It is the second-largest light on our roster, which is not surprising considering the shock-resisting capability. $140.67; amazon.com; streamlight.com

In addition, for a small number of people who are particularly sensitive to colors, such as wearing aspherical lenses will feel the rainbow phenomenon, you can try to replace the spherical lens.

Best: A watertight cap (secured with a small lanyard) twists off on the back, revealing the charge port. Its battery life is impressive.

First, we illuminated the CM/3 light sensor on our meter. Every light, whether 1,000 or 3,000 lumens, overpowered the meter.

Best spotlight for long distance

The spherical lenses have a spherical surface, and the radius of curvature of the entire lens is the same. On the contrary, the surface of an aspherical lens is more complicated, and the curvature gradually changes from the center to the edge. These design differences can reduce the number of elements in the assembly and result in thinner and lighter lenses.

Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen. Boating may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site.

Each LED emits an amount of light measured in lumens. You’d think 3,000 lumens would be brighter than 1,000 lumens and would illuminate more at a greater distance. Our tests proved that hypothesis wrong. Lumens matter, but the geometry of the light bezel and dome matter equally. We found that a lower-lumen light could illuminate a target farther away than a higher-lumen light—it was all in the geometry of the bezel and reflector.

This light is built tough, with an armored lens bezel and an aluminum bezel mount for durability, longevity and heat dissipation. It’s waterproof and floats. Removing the screw-on base cap at the back of the light requires a strong grip, but it gives access to the recharging port and a USB output port for device charging. We liked its compact, stout feel in the hand. The built-in stand on top folds out for road-hazard work or to prop it up at a campsite. A lanyard is available. It lit our target at 1.2 miles, but not as distinctly as the Streamlight Waypoint. $60; amazon.com; goodsmanngroup.com