Our AED 59 Torch Beats It on Every Number — So Why Is the imini 2 Still on My Keys? (UAE 2026)

The Olight imini 2 costs AED 65. It puts out 50 lumens, reaches 21 metres, runs for 60 minutes, and is rated IPX6. Every one of those numbers is beaten by something else on our shelf that costs the same or less — including the AED 59 torch sitting one shelf below it.

We are going to spend most of this review explaining why we still stock it, and why one of us has had one on a keyring since April.

The 30-second verdict

The imini 2 is not a bright light and it is not a durable light. It is a present light. It weighs 19.5 g, it is 55 mm long, and the charger is built into the body — pull the magnetic cap off and there is a USB plug underneath. No cable, no spare cell, no adapter, nothing else to own.

That is the entire product. If your problem is “I own three torches and none of them are ever on me,” this fixes it for AED 65. If your problem is “I need to see something,” buy almost anything else in our keychain light roundup instead.

The catch: at 50 lumens it is roughly as bright as the torch already built into your phone. You are not buying more light. You are buying light that does not cost you your phone battery, and that is a smaller upgrade than the product page implies.

Who it is for

• People who lose the habit, not the torch. If the reason you are in the dark is that your good light is in a drawer at home, 50 lumens on your keys beats 1,300 lumens in a cupboard.
• Anyone who hates cables. This is the only light we sell that recharges with nothing else in your hand.
• Gift buyers on a small budget. AED 65, two colours, no learning curve, no manual to read.
• Second-car and handbag duty. Magnetic base, sticks to metal, hands free.

Who should skip it

• Anyone who wants output. AED 24 more buys the Acebeam Keylite 500 and ten times the lumens.
• Anyone near water. IPX6 is the lowest water rating of any keychain light we stock. More on that below.
• Anyone who needs it to last the night. One hour, one mode, no reserve.

The specs, as Olight publishes them

One small credit where it is due: the numbers are internally honest. Under the ANSI FL1 formula, 115 candela works out to 21.4 metres of throw — which is exactly the 21 m Olight claims. Nobody has rounded anything up. That is not true of every torch we have measured, as we found when we timed the turbo mode on every light we sell.

The uncomfortable part: it loses on every line

Here is the imini 2 against the other three keychain lights on our shelf, using each product page as published:

Read that table honestly and the imini 2 wins exactly one row, and it is the last row anybody looks at. The AED 59 i3E EOS is cheaper, brighter, reaches twice as far, is more waterproof, and weighs the same. On paper it is not close.

The one thing none of the others do

Look at the “cable needed” row again. The Keylite 500 needs a USB-C cable. The i1R 2 Pro needs a USB-A-to-C cable. The i3E needs a fresh AAA from the supermarket. Each of those is a small ongoing obligation, and small ongoing obligations are exactly how a keychain light ends up dead in a drawer.

The imini 2 has none. The magnetic cap is the plug. You separate the body from the cap — which is also how you turn the light on, so there is no switch to find in the dark and no mode to cycle through — and the cap goes into a USB port. That is the whole maintenance story for the life of the product.

For a certain kind of buyer that single design decision is worth more than 450 lumens. For most buyers it is not. We would rather you know which one you are before you spend the AED 65.

One thing to check first: our listing describes it as an “integrated USB plug” and does not specify USB-A or USB-C. If your laptop and your wall chargers have all gone USB-C — and in 2026 plenty of UAE households have — then the cable-free feature you are paying for may need an adapter, which rather defeats the point. Message us before ordering and we will confirm which port yours wants.

What 60 minutes actually means

An 80 mAh cell is the smallest battery in our catalogue by a wide margin — the i1R 2 Pro carries 130 mAh, and a Baton-class torch carries 5,000 mAh. Sixty minutes at 50 lumens is all of it.

Crucially, there is no low mode. The i1R 2 Pro drops to 5 lumens and runs 12 hours. The Keylite 500 drops to 1 lumen and runs 12 hours. Both of those are genuinely useful during a power cut, which is why they appear in our home blackout kit. The imini 2 has one setting, and when it stops it stops.

In practice that is fine, because a keychain light is used in 10-second bursts — a keyhole, a dropped card, the back of a cupboard. Sixty minutes of 10-second bursts is weeks of real use. It is not fine if you were expecting it to get you through an evening. If you want the longer explanation of why small cells behave this way, we wrote one: why the cell decides your lumens.

IPX6 is the weak point, and it is worth spelling out

IPX6 means protected against powerful water jets. It does not mean submersion. Drop the imini 2 in a sink, a pool or the sea and you are outside its rating, and you have no user-replaceable battery to dry out and swap.

The awkward comparison: the i3E EOS at AED 59 and the i1R 2 Pro at AED 95 are both IPX8, meaning tested for submersion. The cheapest keychain light we sell survives a dunk that the imini 2 is not rated for. If you fish, boat or spend time around water, this is the wrong light and we would rather sell you the other one. Our plain-English guide to IP ratings covers what each code actually promises.

Where it sits in the pocket-light reach ladder

We keep a running ladder of how far every small light we sell actually throws, cross-checked against the ANSI formula — the same method we used when we worked out the LOOPDOT candela figure LOOP GEAR does not publish. Where a maker publishes candela we use theirs; where they do not, we calculate it and label it.

The imini 2 is the bottom rung, and it is not a close bottom rung — the next light up reaches more than twice as far for six dirhams less. Twenty-one metres is a corridor, a parking bay, the length of a majlis. It is not a street and it is definitely not a wadi. If you want to know why candela matters more than lumens for reach, that is explained here.

What we would change

• Give it a moon mode. Even 3 lumens for six hours would turn a one-hour novelty into a real emergency light.
• IPX8, or at least IPX7. Being out-sealed by the AED 59 model is hard to defend.
• Say which USB plug it is on the box. In 2026 that is not a detail.
• Sell the port cover as a spare. Olight ships two in the box, which tells you what they expect to happen to the first one.

So should you buy it?

Buy the imini 2 if the honest diagnosis is that you do not carry a torch, and the reason is friction. It removes every excuse: nothing to charge with, nothing to replace, nothing to switch on. AED 65 to fix a habit is good value even at 50 lumens.

Buy the i3E EOS at AED 59 instead if you want the cheapest sensible answer — more light, more reach, IPX8, and a battery you can buy at any Carrefour at midnight.

Buy the Keylite 500 at AED 89 instead if you actually want to see things. Five hundred lumens, 70 metres, and a 1-lumen moonlight mode that runs 12 hours.

Buy the i1R 2 Pro at AED 95 instead if you want the best all-round keychain light we stock: 180 lumens when you need it, 5 lumens for 12 hours when you need it longer, IPX8 either way.

Skip all four and buy the Baton 4 at AED 210 if you have accepted that you will carry something pocket-sized rather than key-sized. It is 26 times the lumens of the imini 2 for roughly three times the price.

The Olight imini 2 is AED 65 in Black or OD Green, in stock in the UAE, genuine Olight with warranty. It is the least impressive torch we sell and one of the most used. Both of those things are true.

Keep reading

• Best keychain flashlight in the UAE — all four compared head to head
• Best budget EDC lights under AED 200
• Olight i1R 2 Pro review — the 22-gram one that charges like your phone
• Best rechargeable flashlights — and the charging catch nobody warns you about
• How many lumens do you actually need?
• How to choose a flashlight in the UAE — the beginner guide
• The torch that fits Dubai city life
• Can you leave a torch in your car in a UAE summer?