When navigating at night, a boater’s best friend can be a powerful, reliable spotlight. But as we discovered in our testing, what makes a light “best” isn’t as simple as picking the one with the highest lumen count.
The geometry of the light’s bezel and reflector proved just as important. In our on-the-water tests on Florida’s Charlotte Harbor, we found that some lower-lumen lights could illuminate a target farther and more clearly than their higher-lumen counterparts.
All the lights we tested were rechargeable and included charging gear. We put five models through their paces, illuminating markers from over a quarter-mile out to an Intracoastal Waterway marker 1.2 miles away, to see which ones truly stand out.
Streamlight Waypoint 400
Rugged and solid from the moment you pick it up, the Waypoint 400 is waterproof, floats, and has an IPX8 shock rating. Its key advantage is an efficient selector lever for high, medium, and low settings, which saves you from having to toggle through modes with the trigger just to turn it off. Multiple rings and a foldout bracket make it useful for hands-free work.
Its beam is a focused pencil, requiring a spot-on aim, but it successfully illuminated the marker post from 1.2 miles away despite a middling 1,400-lumen rating. This makes it ideal for running an inlet or scanning the horizon for distant markers. The only downside was a charge port that required pliers to close properly to ensure it was waterproof.
- Price: $169.99
- Max Lumens: 1,400
- Weight: 1.5 lbs.
Goodsmann Sirius
Selected for its high 3,000-lumen rating produced by three LED chips, the Sirius is rugged, floats, and is fully watertight thanks to a screw-off cap that protects the charge port. Its design advantage is an impressively wide and bright beam that illuminates an arc of roughly 150 degrees.
While it didn’t have the long-range reach of the Streamlight—it illuminated the reflective marker at 1.2 miles but not the post itself—its wide beam is perfect for navigating tricky waters with rocks or other potential obstacles just outside a narrower beam’s periphery. Its impressive battery life is a major plus, though having to toggle through high, medium, low, and SOS to power it down is an annoyance.
- Price: $99.99
- Max Lumens: 3,000
- Weight: 1.08 lbs.
Goodsmann Artemis
The Artemis feels compact and stout, built tough with an armored lens and aluminum bezel. It’s waterproof, floats, and lit our 1.2-mile target, though not as distinctly as the Waypoint. Its standout features are a trigger lock to prevent accidental activation and a USB output port for charging a phone, making it a versatile tool.
It offers a great balance between a long-range spotlight and a beam broad enough for some peripheral illumination up close. Like its stablemate, it suffers from the need to toggle through settings to turn it off.
- Price: $59.99
- Max Lumens: 2,000
- Weight: 1.97 lbs.
Streamlight Stinger 2020
Built from a durable, compact aluminum body, the Stinger 2020 feels milled from solid bar stock. Though rated at 2,000 lumens, its reflector is designed for a broad flood of white light rather than an extreme-distance beam. It barely reflected from our 1.2-mile target but is impressive inside 200 yards.
It is water-resistant but not waterproof, and it does not float. Its best features are removable, replaceable batteries and a rock-solid, wall-mountable charging bracket, making it the perfect light to keep by the helm for docking or picking your way through close-in obstacles.
- Price: $179.99
- Max Lumens: 2,000
- Weight: 12.3 oz.
Yierblue YB 953 Rechargeable Spotlight
While its advertised 160,000 lumens is disputed by the 800 lumens listed on its packaging, the Yierblue performed surprisingly well, illuminating our distant target almost as well as the top-performing Streamlight. It’s lightweight, floats, and is packed with features for its low price, including a side-mounted floodlight, a tripod, and a USB port for charging a phone.
However, its unarmored plastic bezel feels fragile, and our test model took on water immediately despite being advertised as waterproof. The company offers a no-questions-asked lifetime guarantee, which may compensate for reliability concerns.
- Price: $37.79
- Max Lumens: 800
- Weight: 1.7 lbs.
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