I bought a couple of those Chinese jobbies a year or so back. The ones with a single focusable led at the front and a battery pack at the back containing two ultrafires.

I quite like them for camping etc but recently lent one each to the kids for a pre-tea scooter mission. I now have a small handful of pieces of “spare” plastic and have been driven to distraction by the kids faffing with multiple light modes, dazzling car drivers, pulling the focusing lens off etc.

So…..what cheapish, rugged, not-too-bright, not-too-faffy, preferably rechargeable head torch?

Alpkit

EDIT – https://www.alpkit.com/products/viper

Good call – cheers. Probably don’t need to worry about rechargeables with battery life like that!

Sweajnr has a black Diamond one that is designed for kids. Seems to work. No idea on battery life.

Was thinking the other week, I need to get my lads a decent headtorch each.
And here we are, a ready made thread. 🙂

Another vote for Alpkit, cheap enough for kids but good enough for adults.

Have you not got any old ones you can pass on?

My dog was using my old Zipka plus as a dog light/marker round his neck, but it died when he went in the water one too many times with it

I let my kids use my old Petzl Tactikka XP. Bright enough to use as a proper headtorch, not bright enough to blind anyone.

A simple version with one button that does high low off, no flashing or funny modes, would probably be a good thing

Have you not got any old ones you can pass on?

Well I was letting them use my current “old ones” but they’re too bright/too flimsy/too much faff potential. Hence the OP!

If you’ve got a Wilko’s nearby, they do a fairly decent headlight with red LED’s as well for a fiver. Nothing fancy, but perfectly adequate for kids to mess about with.
Can’t find them online, I bought one two or three weeks ago so worth checking out what’s in store.

There’s some on eBay exactly the same as the alpkit viper for less than £2 although you’ll have a bit of a wait for the postman