I reviewed the Midas G2 Pro 12×50 over a year ago and found they produced some of the clearest images I’ve tested from a 12x binocular under $500. Over the course of the year, it’s helped me spot my targets at the range and been a solid performer. Last week I took it to watch a major league ballgame at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.
Watching a ballgame is a different experience with this optic. I didn’t have a tripod or mount to steady and it was constantly scanning the field, fast panning to follow the ball and plays. In this use case, I found that the Midas was a bit more finicky to find its best focus. I found myself adjusting the focus and diapoter. I also found the exit pupil’s sweet spot to be slightly past the maximum extension of the telescoping eye-cups, so I’ll probably add some extended rubber cups if I want to use these at another ballgame.
The Fenix SW05R is a compact wearable flashlight with a flat form factor It has a lightweight polymer body, with a magnetic tail, a broad belt clip, and a rotating emitter head. The head can turn over 180º to aim the beams giving the user flexibility in aiming the beams depending on where the flashlight is attached.
The unit is recharged via a USB-C cable and activated by pressing either the grey main button on the back or the red side-button. This flashlight comes in two versions, a red light and UV flashlight. To activate the flashlight, the button must be pressed for over a second, which prevents accidental activation.
The belt clip is a split design. The wider outer section is nearly the width of the flashlight (over 1″) and the thinner center clip is small enough to fit into a pen loop. The flashlight can be clipped onto a hat brim, backpack strap, or pocket.
The maximum beam output is only 150 lumens but its beam has a surprisingly long throw of over 120 ft. While wearing the SW05R, the 150 lumens is ideal for illuminating most objects being manipulated within arm’s reach. The flashlight has a secondary red LED light which is useful for preserving natural night vision, desired by astronomers, naturalists, and night hikers.
OLight has been branching out beyond EDC lights with products like gun red dot sights, lighting strips, tools, and pens. At SHOT Show 2025 they debuted something completely different: an automated AA battery charger.
The OStation X is a colored translucent box that reminds me of a Tangerine iMac knock-off PC from the 2000’s. This unit holds up to 32 drained AA batteries. Simply drop in your batteries—no need to check (+)/(-) polarity. It auto-detects battery type and offers both a standard 3.8-hour and fast 2.5-hour charging mode. It will automatically test them ancharge 4 of them at a time and drop the charged battery into a dispenser tray at the bottom. Any defective batteries will be kicked out and held in a reject tray for disposal.
The unit will only charge AA NiMH batteries. A different model changes AAA batteries. It should prove invaluable for working environments where AA batteries are often used for work comms, devices, and tools. They may also appeal to young families with kids and their many toys. But this should have come out 15 years ago before everything became USB-C rechargeable.
Win a Multixel 240w travel charger. Entries must be received no later than 12pm EST on 3/31/2025.
CONTEST INSTRUCTIONS
1. Subscribe to my travel channel on YouTube: Moondog Go to show you have the skill to navigate YouTube and prove you’re not a bot.
2. Take a screenshot of the SUBSCRIBED button for Moondog Go .
BONUS ENTRY: Make a donation (any amount) to the SHC High School National Youth Choir Festival fundraiser and upload a screenshot of your donation confirmation email.
3. Prove you have the skills to fill out a form and upload screenshots. 1 entry per social platform or donation (2 max).
PRIZES ARE AWARDED BY THE SPONSOR AT THEIR SOLE DISCRETION. NO PURCHASE OR DONATION IS NECESSARY TO ENTER. YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING DO NOT INCREASE WITH A PURCHASE. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.
1. Eligibility
Void where prohibited by law. Must be a legal resident in the USA. Moondog Industries employees, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising and promotion agencies, and employees’ immediate family members, are ineligible to participate in the contest/giveaway.
Entrants must be willing and able to appear on YouTube to discuss the contest and post images of the prize on their social feed should they win the contest.
2. Sponsors and Platforms
Multixel (known as the SPONSOR) is a US-based company that sells on Amazon. Moondog Industries (known as the CO-SPONSOR) is a video Edutainment producer and game promotor based in San Francisco, CA. YouTube, TikTok, Rumble, X and online video platforms (known as PLATFORMS) are not SPONSORS or in any way affiliated with the contest or content.
3. Agreement to Rules
By entering your contest, participants agree to abide by the SPONSOR’s Official Rules and decisions. The SPONSOR retains the right to refuse, withdraw, or disqualify entries at their sole discretion. By submitting an entry, the participant agrees to accept the decision of the SPONSOR as final and binding.
4. Entry Period
Contest email entries must be received between: 12:00pm EST 31 January 2025 and 12:00pm EST 31 March 2025
5. How to Enter
This contest requires your skill in navigating your phone or computer controls to screen capture an image of the following YouTube channels/Social Media accounts. Subscribe or Follow and make a screen capture of those pages showing a greyed-out Subscribe button or indicator that your account is Following that page. Send a screen capture image file of any of those sites to contest@moondogindustries.com . One entry per person or per Social Media account. Fraudulent methods of entry, photo retouched, or other methods of circumvention of the rules may result in the SPONSOR invalidating a participant’s entries.
6. Prizes
Winner must be able to receive the prize by e-mail or by physical mail. Prize may be substituted at the sole discretion of the SPONSOR. Acceptance of the prize grants SPONSOR permission to use the Winners entry, name, and likeness for advertising, promotion, and trade without further compensation or remuneration unless prohibited by law.
7. Odds
The odds of winning is dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.
8. Selection and Notification of the Winner
The winner will be chosen at random by the SPONSOR from among the entrants that demonstrated the skill to navigate the electronic entry and have met the minimum requirements. Winners will be contacted via the email used to enter the contest no later than February 25, 2025. Winner must have a legal address within the US to ship the prize.
SPONSOR is not liable for the winner’s failure to receive notification of winning if he or she provided the wrong email address or if their email security settings caused your prize notification to go into the spam or junk folder. If a winner does not respond within 24hrs of sending a notification, the SPONSOR will select an alternate winner. Receipt of the prize is upon the condition of compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
9. Rights Granted by the Entrant
The SPONSOR, upon submission of an entry into the giveaway or contest, has the right to use the participant’s submission, voice, likeness, image, statements about the contest, etc., for publicity, news, advertising, promotional purposes, trade, and so forth, without any further notice, review, consent, compensation or remuneration.
Participants shall defend or settle against such claims at their sole expense, and shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless the SPONSOR from any suit due to damage of or by the prize.
10. Terms & Conditions
The SPONSOR reserves the right to modify, suspend, cancel or terminate in the event that non-authorized human intervention, a bug or virus, fraud, or other causes beyond your control impact or corrupt the security, fairness, proper conduct, or administration of the contest/giveaway.
11. Limitation of Liability
Entry into this contest constitutes the participant’s agreement to release and hold harmless the SPONSOR and PLATFORMS, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, etc., against all claims liability, illness, injury, death, loss, etc., that occurs directly or indirectly from participation in the contest or use/misuse of the awarded prize.
12. Disputes
As a condition of participating in the promotion, the participant agrees to resolve all disputes with an arbitrator designated by the SPONSOR in the state of California, without resorting to any form of class action. Entrants waive all rights to punitive, incidental, or consequential damages, and waive all rights to have damages multiplied or increased.
13. Privacy Policy
Participants agree to abide by all privacy and NDA laws in the State of California and any federal laws of the United State of America.
14. Winners List
Participants may request a list of winners by submitting a request in writing to Moondog Industries for up to 30 days after the contest ends.
15. Social Media Platform Rules
Winners will agree to post a photo of the prize on their social media channels in such a way as does not violate any rules of that platform. The winners also agree to appear for an interview where they will discuss the prize and its performance. If there are functional problems with the prize, the winner agrees to make a good-faith effort to resolve all issues with the SPONSOR prior to posting reviews or opinions about the prize.
16. Affirmation of Acceptance of and Agreement to All of the Official Rules
By entering the contest, the entrant has affirmatively reviewed, accepted, and agreed to all of them.
The Multixel 240w charger is a portable plug power adapter with an impressive 8 USB charging ports: eight USB-C and one USB-A port. I plugged in the charger to my Macbook Pro’s USB 3.0 hub connected to a portable HD drive and an Amazon tablet to draw the maximum power from the charger.
In my testing, it could output over 100w of power from 100w port. I recorded a similar result from its 35w, 45w, and 20w USB-C ports. Having eight charging ports may seem a bit excessive to some. But if you travel with kids or family and their devices, eight may not be enough but it will be appreciated.
The Multixel comes in a standard variant and a version with a padded carrying case for $9 more. It’s a useful padded case with pockets for cables and other accessories but I don’t know if it’s worth the premium? I can confirm that the Maltixel lived up to its claims. Multixel is giving away a free charger in my March contest that you can enter for free. https://moondogindustries.com/multixel-travel-charger-contest/
Discovery Optics is known for making high-quality optics for ridiculously affordable prices. But what I discovered at their SHOT Show 2025 booth was something even more surprising than a new scope, it was a prototype of a budget thermal scanner.
It was closer to a pre-production model than a rough prototype. The body was milled aluminium and the controls and displays were well thought out. The unit was about the size of an EOTech holographic sight. It has a QD Picatinny base that mates with an included handle.
Its primary use is as a handheld thermal scanning camera to look for living creatures such as game or search-and-rescue. Because of its base, it could be mounted onto a rifle rail and has been recoil-rated to .308 and higher. There was a high-resolution and a cheaper low-resolution version.
After the wildfires devastated Maui in 2023, one of the many victims left in the aftermath were the pets. These animals were left homeless and separated from their families who were relocated to shelters or relatives homes; some on other islands. These house pets were thirsty and hungry out in the open.
My neighbor Jessica, traveled to Maui as a volunteer to help locate these abandoned animals. Traumatized, they often hid from searchers. Fortunately, Jessica brought a Helion 2 thermal monocular which helped them locate many of these animals.
The Helion 2 is a handheld thermal imaging camera that has video and photo capabilities. Its lens has a built-in base magnification of 2.5x. The images look like black-and-white high-resolution security camera footage highlighted by bright red objects which are heat sources (it renders temperature differences rather than raw heat). It is also able to magnify its footage to 5x, 10x, and 20x but this is a digital zoom, which in effect enlarges the pixels and renders less detail.
Thermal imaging is a huge leap in detecting living things at night and even in complete darkness. In some ways better than Gen3 night vision goggles. But it does so with the same >$3000 dollar price tag as military-grade night vision. It’s certainly not something I will be purchasing anytime soon but I’m glad volunteers like my neighbor had access to this technology to do good.
I bought a cargo cover for both my 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander and my 2019 Kia Sorrento. Both covers came in generic brown boxes from Amazon without any branding or instructions. By external appearance and function, they were essentially identical despite being sold by to “different” companies on Amazon. They are primarily black sheet metal tubular pillars with spring-loaded ends, allowing them to pop into the square indents inside the front of my SUV’s cargo compartment walls just behind the rear seat.
Once in place, it’s a simple matter to pull on the cover and notch it into the J grooves in the rear pillars of the cargo compartment near the cargo hatch. These cargo covers come in a variety of sizes for various car brands and models, including hatchbacks. Time will tell if these are durable but by all appearances, they are identical to the “factory” model at less than half the price.
Car break-ins and petty crime have exploded in cities around the country since the 2020 Summer of Love. Driven by souring economic prospects, lefty soft-on-crime laws such as California’s Proposition 47, progressive prosecutors not charging criminals, and Defund The Police Movements. San Francisco is notorious for this.
“Don’t leave valuables in the car” is a mantra I live by. When liberal laws also require you to carry reusable shopping bags, at a bare minimum, I store a couple of empty shopping bags in my SUV. These bags, first aid kits, emergency water supplies, etc. could be easily mistaken for tempting store-bought products to petty thieves and addicts.
Both of my cars have been broken into and burglarized, some multiple times. This is why I finally decided to buy a retractable cargo cover for my SUVs to obscure these empty shopping bags and whatever ends up in the back of my vehicle. These cargo covers are similar to retractable window blinds that you can pull back to cover over your entire cargo compartment or be retracted quickly when the full space is required.
The cargo covers often come with luxury or upgraded models of vehicles but alas, I am a miser and bought the basic model of both of my SUVs. As a dealer upgrade part, these covers easily cost over $200. However, when purchased as an aftermarket car accessory, they cost a fraction of that.
6500 lumens is a lot of light. Several flashlights now can output that much brightness or more, but typically they are the size of small water bottles. The Nitecore Luminblade is the first pocket-sized EDC that can output 6500 lumens.
I found out the hard way that 6500 lumens isn’t just bright, it’s freak’n hot! When I pressed the button to test out its max output “Lumen Shield” mode, I immediately saw smoke and smelt burnt plastic. At first, I thought the unit was defective and burnt itself out but upon closer inspection, I discovered a hole melted through the outer layer of my puffy vest, right through to the insulation. Damn!
The unit is made of lightweight metal alloy with a few plastic plates which look like heat dissipaters but the fact they are plastic makes me think otherwise. It has two activation buttons at the top, a smaller primary on-off/mode button, and a wider and slightly recessed multi-function button; which can be configured for Lumen Shield, Search, or Strobe modes. The flashlight has mode memory.
There is a small but very informative LED display near the activation buttons. This display shows the brightness mode, lumen output, estimated run time, battery level, and voltage output. Under a silicone cap near the buttons and display is a USB-C charging port. Opposite the charging port is a button lockout switch, which seems like a good safety precaution after accidentally burning a hole in my clothing.
Given its high output and wealth of features, it shouldn’t be surprising that the EDC29 has a decently long runtime. Nightcore claims a 2hrs runtime when started in High (1200 lumens). In my test, my unit exceeded 3 hours (stepping down to low mode after about an hour).
Overall this is an impressive EDC flashlight in most respects. The only disappointing thing is that it is only IPX5 water resistant, which means it is rainproof but won’t survive dropping into a toilet bowl. To be better Nitecore should add the option of a double-bend pocket clip to allow you to clip it onto a cap brim as a headlamp, and a magnetic panel to allow the unit to be affixed to metal and be used as a work light.
Max Output: 6,500 Lumens Max Beam Distance: 370m Max Beam Intensity: 35,360 cd Max Runtime: 61hrs (15 lum) LED Type: 2 x UHi 20 Battery: Built-in 2,500mAh LiOn Beam color: White Length: 133.5mm / 5.26 in Width: 34.6mm / 1.36 in Weight: 160g / 5.64 oz IPX Rating: 5/4
The OLight send me a special holiday limited edition OClip Pro, which has snowflake graphics on the front of an anodized candy cane red body. A large spring clip runs the length of the unit on its back allowing it to be clipped onto clothing, gear, and objects. Furthermore, the base of the clip contains an embedded magnet allowing the unit to be attached to metal surfaces.
The unit is about the size of an OLight Arkfeld if you cut off 2/3 of the length. The Pro model has a trio of LED emitters on the front side of the unit which face outward when clipped onto a pocket, lapel, or backpack strap allowing you to illuminate the area in front of you whilst leaving both hands free. The three emitters are controlled by a selector dial on the side with an integrated button.
The unit’s emitters include a long throw beam with a tight hotspot capable of illuminating objects over 100ft away. A wide flood beam which casts a broad defuse light, and a high intensity red LED. The flood and focus beams have a Turbo, High, Medium, and Moonlight mode (and strobe). The red emitter has constant or beacon mode.
The flood beam was able to emit about 455 lumens in Turbo mode, which aligns with the 500 lumens Olight claims when fully recharged. In my endurance testing, I was able to achieve a 120 minute runtime starting in Turbo mode. Unlike many of Olights flashlights, the OClip uses a standard USB-C port for charging which I find to be a welcome option. The USB-C port cover does not allow the unit to be submersible in water.
The only drawback to the right-angle design is that he clip and ergonomics do not lend itself to be used as a clip on headlamp. When clipped to the brim of my baseball cap, the majority of the light hits my chin and some of the spill does also blind the user. Despite this one mode of use, the OClip is a useful secondary light and is bright enough to be used as a primary and is compact and light enough to truly an Every Day Cary flashlight.
