Wind Up Lantern

A wind lantern is a great piece of equipment to have around whether you're camping or simply as an emergency light source around the house. The key features of this piece of gear is that it obviously requires no batteries, or plug (though many have batteries, and use winding as a back-up power), and that it provides the type of light that is more useful for illuminating an entire area, rather than the spotlighting effect you might get from a wind up flashlight. Some wind up camping lanterns are able to act as both a lantern and flashlight using a toggle switch that switches between the two types of light.  While they are pretty useful, lanterns aren't well suited for backpacking.  If you are just hanging around the cabin, though, it's certainly handy to have one around.

While you might find an incandescent bulb crank lantern out there, the most common type you're going to find uses LED bulbs.

The Wind Up LED Latern

The LED wind up lantern is a much more efficient version of this type of light than a standard bulb would be. You can crank and crank on a wind up incandescent bulb, and the light is rarely of a satisfactory or usable level. LEDs, on the other hand, being the energy efficient little bulbs that they are, require far less energy to provide sufficient light for most situations. Some of these lanterns even have a way to vary the amount of LEDs that are used at any given time, so you can adjust the amount of light the lantern is producing, and also the amount of your hard-cranked energy that its using.

Many wind up lanterns do come with a rechargeable battery than can be charged using either an AC (vehicle/lighter) or DC (wall) charger.  This means you can rely on the battery up to a point, and if you happen to have forgotten to charge the battery, or it simply runs out, you better get cranking.  

Many of these crank lanterns come with additional features. Some of these features include a radio, emergency beacon and/or siren, and high-frequency mosquito repellent. Some of them even have the capability to charge other devices including cell phones and iPods. All of this comes in a relatively inexpensive package, with the most wind up lanterns costing between 20 and 40 dollars, depending on how many of those features it has.

Basically, a wind up lantern is one of those items most homes should have, whether or not you do a lot of camping or spend a lot of time outdoors.  They make great back up or emergency light sources, and are actually Earth friendly in that they don't use disposable batteries, or burn lantern fuel.  It's a great all-around light source.