Customer Reviews

Freeplay Indigo Lantern

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I purchased one of these on a whim a couple of years ago. It looked interesting, and I figured that when it broke I would be able to scrap it for parts. Well, that original Indigo is still going strong. Since then I've purchased 4 more of these - 2 for my sons, and 2 more as gifts to my father and nephew. All absolutely love this flashlight/nightlight/lantern. No need for batteries - EVER.

It is quite durable - my boys have dropped theirs down the stairs, off the bunk beds, on the concrete outside; they've tripped over them, fallen on them, and spilled water on them and their lanterns still look almost as good as new (and better yet, they still work like new!). I may never get to scrap one of these for parts, since they just don't seem to break down!

Bought this and was pretty excited for our first camping trip. Worked for roughly 4 hours, and then suddenly we saw a flash of light behind the plastic and the LCD's stopped working. The spotlight still worked. Reached out to Freeplay customer service (they are out of the UK, so you have even less influence) and they were no help - return it to where you bought it. Unfortunately we were beyond the 30 days policy (yes - I bought in advance of the trip!), so we are hosed on $50. Don't buy it! When a company selling a more expensive product has such a lousy approach, avoid them like the plague.

As another reviewer stated, was very excited with the idea and jumped at the chance to buy one. It worked great on my first camping trip, but by the second use, the LED lamps would not light. Even after a full charge from an external USB source and additional hand-cranking, the LED just flickered on then quit. The thumbwheel control for the LED is obviously defective, as fiddling with it back and forth can sometimes induce the LED portion to work (but inconsistently). Meanwhile, the spotlight works (more-or-less). though ifyou squeeze the lantern the wrong way, the lamp flickers. So, I'd say it's a product that is based on a good idea, but there are either some engineering or manufacturing issues. An email to Freeplay was not returned.

The Indigo is the best lantern for emergency needs especially when power is out for several days and the crank keeps you lit up indefinately. It is light and compact for use in your 72 hour emergency kit. The LED reading light is bright so it works great for a flashlight also. The best light using the latest light and battery technology. I reccomend it to anyone. Dennis Cox

Wonderful lantern for camping or power outages. It's VERY lightweight, the crank works fast for charging it up and it's BRIGHT at it's highest setting. Bright enough to read by when the power went out in a storm a few nights ago. I highly recommend it for camping or emergency use.

I love my Freeplay lantern. This is great because we don't camp that often but, I can leave this in the bag and never worry about batteries or bulbs. With a little self power you won't need to use the USB port because, it works for a decent amount of time especially with just the night light. The night light with is rather bright. I think the USB cable should have been supplied that is the only reason I didn't give this product a 5 star.

This is the second lantern I purchased. I bought the first one about a year ago, and it is a yellow color one. I liked it so much that I decided to buy another one, so that when I go camping I'd have two lights instead of one. When I received it, I was surprise that while everything else looks the same as my yellow one, the charging outlet is different. This green one uses a USB inlet for charging, and a charger is not included. My existing yellow one uses a regular charging inlet with an included charger. Now when I go camping, I would need to bring 2 different chargers - one for the yellow one, and another USB charger for this green one. This is so troublesome for me.

I've only had the product a short while. It's still works, that's a plus. The down side is they do not provide a charger cable for this lantern quoting that they are some how environmentally responsible because they don't provide a charging cable, but you can purchase one from them. Who in there right mind wants to rotate a crank handle for fifty minutes to fully charge a lantern if you don't "have to". It's nice to be able to hand crank in an emergency, but in normal operation its more than work. Try it and see what I mean.

This is a nicely constructed battery free lantern. You turn the handle to charge the battery or connect the mini-usb port to a computer or car charger. The lantern has two sources of light. A very small LED on the side and a cluster of 5 or 6 LED's at the top. The cluster has a dimmer switch. Each light source can be operated independently. One minute of turning the hand crank produces about 5 minutes of light from the single LED source, but only a few seconds of light are produced by the cluster at full brightness. In fact, even if fully charged by the mini-USB only about 2.5 hours of light are produced at the cluster at full brightness. This is very frustrating as the cluster will abruptly turn off when out of power. The dimmer can be turned down so that the cluster lasts a bit longer.

This lantern can really only be used as a last resort as it does not have enough staying power. That being said, based on what I've read, this is one of the best units out there.

Works well. Flashlight and lantern are quite bright. Small, light, and compact.
Hand crank works well. It would be nice if a charging cable was included instead of having to scrounge for a mini usb cord to outlet charging cord.
Glad I made the purchase