“Everybody…My name is Ben Royer. I’m a firefighter EMT here at Auburn fire and rescue protection district in Auburn, Illinois. And I was deciding on whether or not to purchase a guardian angel light. I was browsing their website and I saw that they have a massive collection of review videos. However, uh, I was trying to find folks in my area that have had these lights and I was also trying to find folks uh, do something similar to what I do, which is I work at the fire department on an ambulance as well as I work in the utility industry for my full-time job. And so I wanted to give a thorough review. I want to give the best review I could possibly give to everybody out there that’s trying to decide whether or not to buy one of these guardian angels.
So hopefully you enjoy. So first off, I want to talk a little bit about the guardian angels that I chose to purchase. Um, as you can see on my radio strap here, uh, what I usually, uh, had before I had the guardian angel was I bought this little, uh, I called my lipstick. Um, it’s basically this little, uh, extendible glow light.
The main reason I w I had it on here and zip tied it to my radio strap was for filling out paperwork and Alola area whenever I’m running EMS calls, but this video is all about the guardian angel. And so I went with actually two guardian angels and my reasoning behind that was I wanted to keep something small and lightweight on my shoulder for EMS.
And, uh, if I’m doing utility work, which I also carry a radio. Um, and so with that, I bought the micro series a with the micro series, it’s a very low profile. Um, it’s, you know, easy to just throw in your truck, charge it up, whatever, uh, and it’s not, not bulky or heavy or anything like that at all. With that said, uh, the Archangel, the, the elite series here.
Uh, really not that much bigger. I mean, not a huge difference. Uh, Going a little bit more detail up close, but not, not a whole lot of difference in size thickness, a little bit different, uh, charging, uh, port set up and everything else. But, uh, I wanted to give both kind of a try. Uh, so what I did on my, um, my micro is I went with just a traditional.
Uh, white and Amber, um, white and Amber setup. That’s so I could use it both in EMS world and in the utility world. Um, on my, uh, larger one, my elite series, I went with a red and white, um, that’s for fire specific. Um, so I tried to go, I was trying to debate, you know, did I want all red, all Amber all. Why mix it up?
Um, I decided on white and red, because I think. I was thinking of the, um, NCAAs. And so if it was a situation where there was a lot of different people and maybe a handful of people had these, I wanted to set myself apart from, uh, say, uh, salvage guy or officer who might have blue and red. And so I thought, uh, most traditionally red and white is pretty, pretty obvious for a firetruck or a fire fighter.
So I went with red and. So this whole video, uh, it’s a little bit lengthy. I tried to keep it short as possible. I try to talk fast so I can get as much information in, but like I said, I want to make the best possible review I could for you guys and hopefully help somebody else out, uh, looking to possibly buy one of these guardian angels.
The first thing I wanted to talk about was the form factor. So, uh, as you can see here, I’ve got the micro and the elite. Very small form factor, very nicely built. Um, they feel very durable. I’m sure they are. I’m not going to go into detail on how destructive I can be to them. Um, the charging port is on the bottom, on the Archangel or the elite it’s on the side of the micro.
Um, both of them, you know, pretty good little cover clips down pretty well. Not too worried about that. Um, I do wish that they shipped these with a little bit longer charging cord. They only send you about a five or six inch charging cord. Um, but other than that, they’re, you know, not a big deal. I’ll get more, I’ll get into more on the charging.
There is one thing about the charging. I don’t like, and that’s. So, as you can see when they’re charging, they went with a blinking white light and it’s one of the LEDs blinking. I don’t like that feature at all. Um, mainly because I have a whole charging station in my truck. So at night I clip these to the little magnet rack that I have in my truck.
I plug them in and then they sit there and. The whole time they’re charging. Um, I wish they would have went with like maybe a, just a small led on the surface or something that would blink a little dim, you know, Amber or green county has charged instead of the pulsing light. Um, but you know, maybe in future revisions, otherwise charging is really quick.
Uh, it’s very easy to do and you can pretty much charge it anywhere. You have a USB port, so good job on the. Next, I’m going to talk a little bit about the mounts. Uh, so the mounts, I love the Mount. That’s one of my favorite features about this, the best thing I got, uh, two different types of mounts. Uh, I went with the deal that if you order one, you got two mounts that came with it.
I went to clip Mount and I went with the strap Mount. The only thing I didn’t like about the strap Mount was the screws were almost too short to fit around like a traditional leather strap. So, I mean, I really had to compress this down. Probably deformed my leather a little bit. Um, but I guess it’s secure that way.
Um, the nice thing I like about it, I mean, literally if I want the small one just popped on with the magnets, really solids not going to come off. Same thing with big one. If I just want to upgrade to that one, I can do that and it’s got kind of teeth to it. So if I want to have it configured in a side or at an angle or whatever, it kind of locks in and doesn’t want to turn or anything like that on you, it’s a great job on the mounting off.
Um, the other one, as I mentioned is a clip. Uh, here’s a picture of it. So the clip Mount, uh, I bought that. So if I had my bunker gear on and I just want to clip it on real quick or down through a pouch or some other thing other than my radio strap, I can just throw that on real quick and throw one of these on, in an emergency.
So that’s kind of the form factor of them. They do have like a little, uh, Oh, I mean, there’s screws here. I’m guessing that’s for some of the more, uh, solid mounts. I did not order those, but if a guy wanted to, they’ve got all kinds of Mount options. So a lot of good options, but for fire and EMS, um, you almost always have a radio strap on you if you don’t, you should, but if you don’t, uh, get the clip, get, you know, some of the other options, the thing that this comes with is a magnet backing and it’s designed, I believe to just say, go under your clothes and then clip.
That would probably hold just as well. But I really liked the idea of having a Mount permanently on you, that you can just throw that on. And so when this is sitting properly, instead of having this, I’ve now got this guy and I’ve got the little work light. So I have plenty of light in front of me to bandage someone or do documentation or anything like that.
So it’s really a nice, a nice idea having that. So now let’s get into the meat and potatoes of why you’re looking at this. Uh, you know, hopefully I’ve touched on a few things about like the map. Um, about, you know, some of the form factors, the charging methods, things like that. I love the magnet. Like I said, cause even in my truck I can just throw it on, plug it in and charge it.
So the magnet is a fantastic idea. Um, but the reason why you’re probably looking at this is for obviously the light. I love the setup of having the front light for work. Um, I use that all the time. Um, I, I don’t necessarily see the need for the front or back, uh, alert lights, which as you’ve probably seen on the website already, you can turn on just the front cycle through the different options or just the rear.
Um, for me, it’s a, if I’m going to have it on, I’m going to have it all the way on and let people know. So this is the, uh, elite. And then if I turn on the micro, obviously you can see the micro, um, Not a lot of good. It tells you anything standing in a lit room. So let’s go on out onto a roadway and tell me what you think.
Okay. So here I am wearing the micro at about 200 and twenty-five feet under a streetlight. I do a 360 here. And, uh, just trying to give you a good idea of what it looks like in the real world. Uh, I do switch over to the elite, uh, doing 360 as well. Really? This video doesn’t do it. Justice. These are super bright.
Um, this was shot on an iPhone 13 promo. Uh, but really, I mean, somebody coming down the road, they’re going to see you standing there. I then move on down to about 475 feet down the road. So really good distance down there. It’s pitch black out. And this is the micro that I’m wearing. Again, I do a 360 and I switch out, I go to the elite and obviously a noticeable difference in the elite from the micro at a larger distance.
Uh, that’s the elite right there that you can see. So both really good there. In person and, uh, really, uh, do the job. Another thing I want to add real quick about the guardian angel, if, uh, they were looking for new ideas about new developments and how you’re going to go forward with this particular product.
You know, it’s a great product. So it’s hard to say that there’s a whole lot to improve on. Like I already had mentioned previously in the video longer cord changing the charging indicator. Um, one thing you might consider also is maybe audio to this, uh, the SOS function. So, uh, just like a pass device on a firefighter, you know, if I get a, to where I gotta put an SLS out on.
I’m going to be trying to make as much noise as possible. So maybe even a loud beacon that, uh, goes up, uh, in frequency and, uh, audio, you know, the longer the lights on or something like that. That would be kind of a neat idea. Uh, but otherwise, I mean, you’ve done a really good job. The only other thing in purchasing that I would have liked to see to.
Is the option to have the top light be, uh, both side-by-side and infrared and visible light. And the reason for that is I was really deciding whether or not to go with an infrared light on the top because every now and then we’re in a rural part of Illinois. We might have to land the helicopter. And if it’s at night, they’ve got night vision goggles on, I are a handful of IRB versions of this would be off.
But short of buying a bunch of IRR versions that we wouldn’t use all. But for that, I would like to have the option to just have an eye on top of the one I’m going to use every day. So that in the off chance I have to lay in the bird, I’ve got that option. So that would be one thing that I would also recommend for future developments of this particular device.
Okay. So that pretty much wraps it up. Uh, let’s review, uh, the guardian angels are. Um, I’m also an alderman in my community and our police officers and some varsity workers just have these purchase forum and they seem to like them. Um, so they’re really a nice tool to have on you for a number of reasons.
Obviously, number one is personal safety. That’s, uh, what we’re looking for on every scene. We all want to come home. So having this for personal safety, it really lights up well, as you can see. Does a fantastic job. Next thing for me is utility. I use it for the light, having an actual flashlight on you at all times.
But you don’t have to dig for in a pocket. You don’t have to make sure you grabbed it or had to charge up. You literally just throw this guy on here, hit the button. You got a flashlight. I’ve used it. I can’t tell you how many times just to do either paperwork or, you know, a quick bandage out, out in the rural area or something where I don’t have a lot of light.
So the little utility light is a fantastic feature. Uh, I also really liked the mounting as I talked about the magnet is awesome. Even if you just want to click, you know, clip it to something that’s metal and just knock it on there and away you go, uh, downside. The only thing, uh, the only real problem I had with it was the little blinking white light.
Um, as you saw it lights up the truck, if you’re charging in your truck, even if you were charging that on your nightstand or something, that would be kind of annoying. So I was hoping, you know, someday they’ll fix that. Um, but otherwise it’s all around a really good. And it’s something that I would highly recommend to anybody in fire service, anybody who’s doing, uh, EMS or utility work.
So, uh, hopefully this review has been helpful. If it, uh, you know, help somebody make the right decision, then that’s all I was looking for. Otherwise. Thanks for watching. I appreciate the opportunity. Appreciate you listening to me, drone on about a light, but get yourself a guardian angel. I think it’s going to be well worth your money.”
