The Affordable Light You Can Find At Harbor Freight You'll Want In Your Toolbox

Harbor Freight's budget-friendly tools are well-known, as this retailer has a reputation for selling all kinds of tools and handy gadgets for extremely low prices. However, the discount retailer may have surpassed expectations with its latest inexpensive combination work light and flashlight offering. The Harbor Freight 144-lumen portable LED worklight/flashlight checks in at $1.79. You might spend more if you grab a candy bar at the checkout lane. Even more impressive, Harbor Freight began offering this version of the mini-LED for $1.79 in October 2021, so the price has remained constant for a few years.

This cordless unit has LEDs in a panel on the top that will illuminate a larger area as a work light, and a focused LED on the front to use the tool as a small flashlight. It includes a magnetic base and a 360-degree swivel hook, so you can hang it and work on a project with both hands. It runs off three AAA batteries and offers up to 48 hours of continuous illumination. 

Unfortunately, 144 lumens isn't enough for much more than a nightlight, a reading light, or a close-up task light. To illuminate a 10-by-10-foot room for working on a project for example, you might need about 1,500 lumens. With this in mind — and although the low price is amazing — is it worth a trip to Harbor Freight to pick up this super-inexpensive LED unit? Learn more about its pros and cons and whether it fit your needs.

If reviews are any indication, customers love the Harbor Freight 144-lumen worklight/flashlight. It has more than 46,000 posted reviews on the Harbor Freight website with an impressive 4.8-star rating. Among the reviewers, 99% of them say they would recommend the LED flashlight to others. One Harbor Freight reviewer says the device's simplicity and low price make it a no-brainer to purchase: It's an "awesome little light for the money. I really like that it comes with a hanging hook and magnet."

The unit's compact size is another major advantage. At 3 ⅞ by 2 ⅛ inches by 1 ⅜ inch in thickness, It fits easily in a pocket or small toolbox. This way you'll have it with you anywhere you might need some extra light.

The biggest advantage of purchasing this Harbor Freight light is its low price. Other retailers appear to carry the same or a similar tiny 144-lumen light, but none of them come close to matching the Harbor Freight price. Harbor Freight doesn't list the brand name of its LED unit, but based on product descriptions and photographs, Amazon seems to have the same light for $4.59, while Walmart charges $9.99 for what appears to be the same light.

The biggest disadvantage of the Harbor Freight 144-lumen worklight/flashlight is that it doesn't produce as much illumination as most traditional work lights. If you're looking to illuminate a room to work on a project at night, you might want to consider the LED cordless DIY workspace lights from Ryobi or other similar brands. The Ryobi PCL631B multi-panel LED generates 3,000 lumens, for example. Then again, that light costs $61 even before you buy the 18-volt rechargeable battery. 

If you want to save a bit more money, Home Depot has a cordless work light for DIY household repairs and other tasks that offers 500 lumens of brightness. With 500 lumens of illumination, you'd have enough for task lighting for use in a small workshop. At $9.97, the Home Depot device costs more than five times as much as the Harbor Freight LED. However, if you need the extra illumination, it may be well worth spending more.

Most of the negative customer reviews on the Harbor Freight website discuss the lack of reliability with these cheap LED work lights. "This light did not work at all, even after I changed the batteries," one reviewer says. "No wonder it was [cheap]." Even though there are dozens of 1-star customer reviews on the Harbor Freight website, it's worth noting that only 0.6% of all reviewers gave the little LED device a 1-star review.