Gear Review: Guyot Designs Firefly Bottle Lantern

Since I bought it about two weeks ago, I have begun to think that this item, while being cool and gadgety, is a little extravagant. It's a Guyot Designs Firefly Lantern Bottle Lid for Nalgene-type polycarbonate bottles. It replaces the lid of the bottle, takes 3 AAA batteries, and when switched on, emits a warm, bright glow from the three LEDs inside doubling up the usefulness of your bottle from just bottle to bottle and lamp, ta-dah! The LED compartment shines down into the bottle illuminating the contents or just the empty bottle itself.

The lid is pretty sturdy and is attached to the bottle by a black nylon cord locked around the neck of the bottle with a little grub-screwed plastic cinch doohicky making it all nice and secure. Batteries are fitted in a waterproof compartment in the top of the lid secured by three small screws. All the parts are chunky and feel pretty robust as you would expect from an item in this price range. The only problem I've found so far is that the on/off swuicth doesn't always work first time, which is a bit lame for something this expensive, but not the end of the world.

It's pretty cool if you want to travel light (no pun intended) meaning that you no longer have to carry a camping lamp with you although, to be honest, you could just take the normal nalgene bottle (or any other bottle that takes your fancy) and carry a head torch too. You'd be £18 richer, but would have no gadget-nerd fun.

Seriously, this is useful, but at nearly £18, plus the price of the bottle (which can be anywhere between about £3 and £10, you'd probably be better off (in both senses of the phrase) buying a '58 pattern bottle and a cheap head torch, but this is pretty high tech and gadgety, so if like me you're a bit of a sucker for that sort of thing, go for it.



The Firefly was bought from Wilderness 1-2-1. The bottle took just over a week to arrive, which was longer than I'd have expected, but this was over Easter so is entirely forgivable. Wilderness 1-2-1 were nice and friendly, with a personalised typed letter in with the item, which is a nice touch that you don't often get. The letter also suggested that carrying coloured fruit squash in the bottle could be less detrimental to your night vision. Good tip.