Keeler vantage Plus Indirect (LED) or the Heine Omega 500? Is there really a difference?
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Which indirect Ophthalmoscope to get?
- Thread starter daact
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Can't speak for the Keeler Vantage, but it looks nice. I have a Heine Omega 500, and while it is nice and light, sometimes I think I prefer the older Heine Omega 150 and 180 (same, basically) because they feel more substantial and the controls are slightly more substantial. They are heavier, though, but not too much.
There is one main difference, LED is a different color temperature than the halogen lamps in the Heines. I don't think the difference is important, and I use LED headlamps and an LED-lit Keeler spectacle indirect, and the light quality is very good. I am also still using the first bulb that ever was in my Heine Omega 150, now more than a decade in near-daily use. So don't get sold on comparisons of LED vs halogen bulb life. If you don't handle the bulbs and don't carelessly overvoltage your lamps (e.g., by plugging them into a receptacle somewhere before checking the output voltage--they need only 6v, not the 12v some old stands were set up for and still may have) they will last you a long time. IMO, LED is not at all worth the several hundreds of dollars premium charged over halogen.
The claims that you can see some things with LED that you can't see with halogen is something I suggest taking with a large grain of salt.
You should try more than one before making a decision, and get the one that you think works best for you. And I wouldn't just limit yourself to Heine and Keeler. Look at Welch Allyn too. They aren't the world leader in diagnostic equipment sales and bulb manufacturing for nothing, but sometimes I think they get short shrift by a lot of buyers that have irrational biases.
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I have to agree. In the past I would have said nothing but Keeler/Heine but over the past couple of years I've used some really ancient BIO's and to be honest, some of the really old crappy looking, dust covered indirects were my favrite... Too bad I spent a bundle on a Keeler Vantage Wireless.🙄
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I've been told that there is at least one optometry school that banned the LED Keeler from it's clinic due to poor color rendering. True or not... I don't know.
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Both have Li-polymer battery options, which is nice. The downside with W-A is no lithium-Ion or Li-polymer pack.
As a resident, for call, I would prefer a wired unit, either LED or halogen with a small battery pack to any wireless model. The wireless units that cost so much now are all first-generation, and they are charging a huge premium for them. In any case, a wireless unit has a wall-mounted charger, so it pretty much is meant to be installed in a regular place of use, so not really portable in the same way as even a wall-wart-powered wired unit is. If you are looking for something to take to an ER or to have with you in your car when on call, I think a unit that runs off a battery pack would be better. Certainly for less than the price difference with a wireless unit, you could buy a second battery.
The only thing a wireless unit gets you away from is a tangled cord and the occasional annoyance of untangling them and the need to drag the cord across your patient which sometimes happens in small exam rooms if you are moving side to side on peripheral exams. Doesn't seem worth $1000 for that benefit.
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