The first time I used a COAST device in the field, it was a chilly December evening, and I had a fatigued Hellgate 100k ultrarunner draped over my shoulder and barely able to stand. We purposefully took our steps slowly across one of the most unforgiving sections of trail I’ve ever been on. It was only a five-mile stretch between two gravel roads, but its terrain of loose rocks and deep fall leaves has earned it the nickname “The Forever Trail.”

I had strapped COAST’s 1000-lumen headlamp to my climbing helmet just one day prior, and in those evening’s conditions, it was exactly what was needed to usher both me and the runner to safety in the next couple of hours. The beam illuminated the ankle-biting rocks better than my previous headlamp did, and my field of vision helped provide confidence.

That kind of situation makes an imprint. And as I learned more about what COAST offers, the Portland-based company has continued to make positive impressions.

COAST is a fourth-generation family-run brand, with Tyler Peterson currently serving as president. The company got its start making knives for fishermen and timber tradesmen in the Pacific Northwest, with a flagship product of that era being a dual-use knife that had a thick main blade while also having a tool on the back end to gut and clean fish.

But about three decades ago, COAST shifted focus toward premium LED lighting products, including flashlights, headlamps, and emergency area lighting.

“Our mission is to make our customers’ lives safer, easier, and more enjoyable through technology and advancement and product design,” Peterson said. “The tool from back in the day set the tone for how we approach product design for customers, solving problems with differentiated solutions.”

COAST aims to have a nimble and entrepreneurial mindset, which helps to drive its innovations.

The big leap came under the leadership of David Brands, Peterson’s father-in-law who shifted the company’s direction toward optics and lighting, around the same time that LED technology was gaining a footing.

“He caught on to that and set up all of the key relationships that started that business unit,” Peterson explained. At the time, “we were one of the first LED flashlights to sell in the United States.”

At just 15 lumens and in the $40 to $50 range, that debut flashlight might seem underwhelming today (not unlike we’d think of early tractors, computers, or even clothing fabrics). Yet today, COAST’s most powerful flashlight is a penetrating 5300 lumens in turbo mode, and more than 20 models deliver at least 1000 lumens.

“Right now, the big shift is going into rechargeable technology and really pushing the barriers of performance,” Peterson said, “and then getting inventive to create a better solution and experience for a customer.”

Many of COAST’s lights contain USB-C ports that allow you to recharge the batteries directly inside the device — using the same kind of cord that you likely use for a smartphone or a tablet. Peterson said this feeds into the company’s sustainability goals, especially as its proprietary technology is optimizing rechargeable batteries to perform with the same output performance and temperature range that alkaline batteries have in outdoor electronics.

Most of COAST’s products are dual-power, which means they work both with a rechargeable battery or a standard alkaline solution. This gives them more versatility in an emergency situation where the opportunity to recharge a battery isn’t always available. Couple that with the growing affordability of rechargeable batteries, and it’s easy to see how more people are adopting them in their flashlights and lanterns.

The rechargeable flashlights have been in production for about 14 years, and more recently, COAST added the USB-C ports directly to standard AA and AAA batteries — a feature that earned the brand much praise at the 2023 Outdoor Media Summit.

Such implementation in these smaller batteries became a natural outreach of the rechargeable functionality that was already being deployed at the company.

“Up until the last couple of years, our core customer base is the professional user — construction workers, tradesmen, and other more blue-collar classes. We surveyed our customers, and roughly 80 percent of them use our lights every single day,” Peterson said. “Still, I’m from the Northwest, and I love the outdoors and hiking. For a long time, we weren’t very well known in the outdoor space, but with more people taking our products camping, hiking, you name it, over the last couple of years, we’ve made inroads with that demographic.”

While the knife and multitool segment is still part of the company, Peterson said that the focus is almost entirely on lighting and battery tech. It’s something he notes sets them apart from others in this space, which often have a large array of hard and soft goods in their portfolios angling for production and development resources.

The COAST brand has gone from being primarily in home improvement stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Ace to now also being in REI and Academy Sports + Outdoors, as well as Amazon.

“We get stories every day from our customers, that you need a light you can depend on when it matters most, and you’re not going to put something other than that in your pocket,” he said. “We’re proud of our expertise in the battery and rechargeable space through our lighting products — designing batteries for products that are sometimes hard to design power around.”

In Peterson’s world, innovation is always right around the corner. That means optimizing a battery’s discharge so it maintains peak performance longer, offering digital displays that tell the user how much time is left on a flashlight, finding multiple uses for a single device, and … talking to your lights.

Feel free to read that last point again.

COAST is on the verge of releasing its first voice-activated and controlled headlamp. Called the RL35R, it’s slated to be available in late spring 2024 and is one of the brand’s most-advanced headlamps. And it operates better than anything similar to it currently on the market.

With simple commands such as “COAST On,” “COAST Red,” “COAST Flood,” or “COAST Spot,” among others, the headlamp operates seamlessly, jumping directly to the functionality needed. This is done both hands-free and without the need to scroll through the various settings.

“That’s a fun new release we’ve got in the works,” Peterson said. “It’s an example of the kind of innovation and thinking that really defines COAST.”

Not only is the headlamp itself advanced, but the battery pack is detachable for more comfortable carrying, and it can be used as a power bank for other devices.

“It doesn’t take much for us to convince ourselves there’s an interesting idea. And we’ve got a great platform and customer base to release new ideas to,” Peterson said. “Everyone on the team is really impassioned about what they do day in and day out.”

It’s a legacy that COAST is well positioned to carry toward a bright future.

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Ryan Tipps is Managing Editor for ActionHub. He lives along the Blue Ridge Mountains, is an avid hiker, backpacker and trail runner and has been a part of the wilderness search and rescue community since 2005.

This article was published on behalf of COAST Products.