If you think the Black Diamond Spot 400 headlamp is a necessity only for campers and climbers, think again.
Our pick
An easy-to-use, bright-enough option with long-lasting battery life and reliable performance, year after year.
What makes this headlamp so great is how easily it crosses over from specialty climbing gear to fixture of everyday domestic life. It’s lightweight, easy to operate, and waterproof, and you can aim it (by tilting it up and down) at whatever you need to examine.
I never considered buying a headlamp before I started working at Wirecutter—what am I, a salt miner? And now I own three.
I have one in my kitchen-stuff drawer, for plumbing under-sink depths. I have another one in my travel kit, for finding poorly lit Airbnb lockboxes. And the third one is in the garage, for checking my car’s oil.
My boyfriend’s Spot lives in his camping-gear box. My co-workers report stashing Spots in nightstands, for reading (in red-light mode) while partners are asleep, or on hall tables, for finding the poops on late-night dog walks.
Our favorite headlamp since 2012, the Spot was one of the first headlamps to combine such useful features as a red-light mode (to prevent inadvertently blinding one’s comrades around the campfire), a strobe setting (crucial for signaling rescuers in an emergency), and buttons that you could operate even while wearing thick gloves—all with a good battery-life-to-output ratio.
