Home Australian Geographic Adventure OZtrail Ignite 1000L Rechargeable Speaker Lantern: Tested

OZtrail Ignite 1000L Rechargeable Speaker Lantern: Tested

By Mark Watson • 6 December 2021

The OZtrail Ignite 1000L Rechargeable Speaker Lantern has become a must-pack for the Aus Geo ADVENTURE gear test team over the past six months. Image credit: Mark Watson

Reading Time: 3 Minutes • Print this page

OZtrail’s cool new lantern is super-versatile, offering excellent camp lighting, the ability to recharge devices – and it can also play music.

The trick when heading out and about camping, is finding that perfect balance of having enough creature comforts to make the whole experience an enjoyable one, without having to pack and transport an entire truck load of ‘stuff’ in order to do so. One way to reduce the amount of paraphernalia you take without sacrificing the fun stuff, is some clever selective packing of items that are multi-purpose rather than single purpose.

Everyone has heard of a spork, but less common is the ‘spantern’… otherwise known as a ‘speaker lantern’. Combining not only light and sound, it also offers the ability to use it as a power bank to charge your phone. If only it could make cocktails as well…

Design

As OZtrail says, “Never be left in the dark or without your favourite campsite tunes with this rechargeable Bluetooth speaker lantern”. Enter the OZtrail Ignite 1000 Lumen (L) Rechargeable Speaker Lantern.
It goes without saying that unless you eat a lot of carrots, some form of artificial light is an essential item on a camping trip. A Bluetooth speaker is more of an added luxury than an ‘essential’ item, but it is certainly a more compact option than an acoustic guitar for some tunes around the fire. Combining the two together makes a lot of sense.

The top-mount speaker means the sound is clear but it doesn’t carry too far, so you won’t disturb your campsite neighbours.

We charged ours up before we left home using the USB lead that comes neatly tucked away in a hidden compartment in the base. This is a nice little feature that keeps everything together in one place and stops the endless dangling leads.
Once we’d set up camp, we connected a phone to the Bluetooth speaker and were pleasantly surprised to find it just worked straight away, none of the usual Bluetooth pairing faff of ‘device not found’. Hanging above the stove (there’s both a top and bottom hanger) it meant we had music while we cooked, and the multiple ultra-bright Samsung LEDs provided more than enough super bright white light (up to 1000 lumens in fact) to make sure we didn’t burn the dinner.

In the field

After our feast, we sat by the fire with a glass of wine and some tunes. The lantern comes with 5 adjustable brightness settings and we were pretty surprised to find that when we tried to turn the brightness down a bit, it was actually already on the lowest setting! It would be nice to be able to dim the lantern further to create a bit of mood lighting. OZtrail claims 32 hours of run-time out of the lantern when it’s on low, compared to only five when it’s on high. We didn’t stay up for 32 hours to test that theory, but we did use the lantern and the speaker solidly all evening for a good six hours without any issues. When sat by the fire, the speaker was plenty loud enough with a good clear sound that was warm rather than tinny, as is often the case with small speakers. Because the speaker output is on the top, whilst it is perfectly audible when you are sat near it, it also doesn’t project sound out too far around you which is great to avoid disturbing your camp neighbours.
The unit is splashproof with an IPX4 rating. For those who aren’t in the know about the IP waterproof rating system, this means that it is protected from splashing water, no matter the direction. (Yes, I did have to Google that). Happily for us, we camped on a beautiful clear night; unfortunately that meant no multi-directional rain available for testing purposes.
One of the niftiest features is the ability to use the inbuilt 4000mAh rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery as a power bank for charging your phone, which makes the whole unit even more multi-purpose.

The final word on the OZtrail Ignite 1000L Rechargeable Speaker Lantern

The OZtrail Ignite 1000L is lightweight and portable, super easy to connect phone via Bluetooth, and the speaker gives a decent sound for a small unit. The ability to charge your phone from it is a definite bonus. It does feel a little plastic-y and, even on the lowest setting, the light is still pretty bright so those looking for a muted illuminator experience may want to look elsewhere However, overall, it’s hard to fault this ‘spantern’. It does exactly what it says on the tin and then some – a lantern, a speaker AND a phone charger… Hmmm, now how about those cocktails?

RRP: $120 www.oztrail.com.au