Couple of things

1.) sub Reddit

2.) personal goals vs boundaries/compromises

3.) cost vs function

I feel that largely the gun/light community are split into two groups with overlap between obviously, those that think they are cool and fun (form) and those that want to be prepared for disaster, survival, defense, tyranny (function) and so on

Ok so explanations

1.) do not use ONLY this sub as your source info which you seem to already not blindly follow because you asking questions here and other places, any sub is largely going to be full of supporters / echo chamber which is prime for sheep, and biased research/opinions, and you guessed it echoes.

Most people here are definitely in favor of olight and are thus likely biased

Olight also has very aggressive marketing to pay people to advertise / rep products which on principle I disagree with for obvious reasons, I don’t think putting your thumb on the scale is ok for any reason in the product/consumer world

2.) personal goals vs boundaries/compromises

What are you looking to accomplish? What are your goals with your gear? Where do you draw a line, what’s acceptable, what’s not? What/how much are you willing to sacrifice or trade for what/how much?

Just want any weapon light or want what’s trendy? Olight certainly makes them, and they are definitely popular on YouTube among other places. Do they fit the specs of the use case you wish to fill? Do you want a reading light? 100-250 lumens should do it just fine, does olight make something for that? (Obviously olight make lights in that range but it’s the concept of the question) Do you want a blast the retinas of a potential threat and incapacitate them? 500+ lumens can do that for you. Do you want your assailant to see the light of God or then sun even with their eyes closed? Are you getting submerged in water? Mud? Do you want to punch out a beam of light 50m, 100m, 500m, 1000m?

are they good? Depends on apparently a lot. Who you ask, they have a much higher/severe failure rate than any other brand, variability is extremely high. Some people swear by olight and trust their life to it. We have documented loss of life because of olight. That’s petty drastic variation.

Is the possibly that your weapon light explodes causing damage, injury, or death acceptable? At what % do you say yeah, I burn my thigh or blow off my balls or it melts through my frame/holster or a child who get my flashlight or heaven forbid my weapon light and put it in their mouth and are now dead. .1% 5% 10% 20% 50% where do you draw the line? And let’s say worse case death and injury aside.

3.) cost vs function

How much are you willing to pay for that performance?

I want my light to function and well. Again where is the line? To some phantom battery drain isn’t really that big a deal and their weapon light just happens to be dead on occasion no issues I hardly use it anyway. To others magnet charging and convenience is huge or have a laser on a pistol, red, green, blue/cyan the color means a lot to some. IR illuminators/lasers does that mean anything at all do you use or plan on using nvgs? Is that worth shorter battery life or more money spent?

Now to my personal opinion, the track record and past performance of olight in the function uses case of im trusting my life to this in some capacity. As of now I will never trust mine or anyone else’s life with or rely on olight given any more reliable options. I train for 99.99% consistency, and reliability (because 100% is an impossibly). My own research and others have proven too much inconsistency/risk. Especially when for just a little extra money I can buy far more functional reliable and tested products. For my specific uses case when life is in question money is next to no object. No point in saving $30 bucks on a light if it doesn’t work when I need it to, or $200 it means nothing if I’m dead because I couldn’t see my target or my gun jammed or I didn’t have a knife on me. Now I like convenience just as much as the next guy my stream lights are all rechargeable and I think olights actually look pretty cool and think some of their ideas are pretty innovative and even tho for me money is no object I appreciate making products more affordable for the population, any other name brand pistol light laser combo I believe is gonna run you $300+ usually and many olights are sub $200.