once a year I email my favorite flashlight manufacturer to ask if they’ve finally made a flashlight that just turns on and off when you push the button, and every year they’re like, “no, but thanks so much for your feedback!”
be honest, have any of you ever used the flashing feature on your flashlight? did it actually come in handy? handy enough that I have to scroll past it every single time I want to turn my flashlight on or off
Agree. I hate having to click through 4 modes just to turn it off. On, dim, on and off slow, strobe…off. No!
Just wait till your flashlight needs to connect to wifi via an app that you download and log in via Facebook or Google and only works if gps is enabled and it also has to have access to your contacts and it gets your first born child.
Watch this short video on your phone so that you can turn on the flashlight
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The mighty Kingdom of Anduril takes grievance against this sentiment.
i like him better when he was still Narsil.
You need flashlights with a better UI.
None of my flashlights strobe without making the effort to make it do that or require me to cycle through modes just to turn them on and off. The worst one I have has 9 modes you select with a detented twist ring(Fenix SRT9), but has an on/off button so you always start on the mode you used last unless you twist the ring.
Strobe is useful for firearms lights to disorient a target. For emergency use it prolongs the runtime, like if you were in a flash flood, your house was bombed in the middle of the night, or you got lost on a hike and needed to signal for help. Strobe is unlikely to be needed, but can be a life saver.
You need flashlights with a better UI.
I mean, yea, I think that’s what OP is saying.
But it can be hard to find, with a high output/good battery.
Lights using a 18650 seem to be the rage these days, at crazy cheap prices, but they all use some UI with clicks, holds, etc. I feel like I’m doing a dance to use any of mine, definitely not what you want in a circumstance requiring a flashlight.
Even the simplest of lights require something most people would find unusual (and certainly never guess). Setting an Anduril light to “simple mode” is still more complex than I want in a light. It would be nice to have a simple click control, and be able to disable the strobe nonsense (never once in my life have I thought “ooh, a strobing light would be great right now!”). Nevermind the arguments for it are debatable (to confuse an attacker? Research has shown it affects you too).
Anduril is way overengineered. I like this UI that some of my lights have:
While off:
- One push: Turn on at the last used brightness.
- Two pushes: Turn on at maximum brightness.
- Three pushes: That strobe mode that you don’t need but seems to be obligatory.
- Hold: Turn on at the lowest brightness (or moonlight mode if the light has one).
While on:
- One push to turn off.
- Two pushes to toggle between maximum brightness and the last used “regular” brightness.
- Three: That strobe mode that someone has to have some use for.
- Hold: Alternately increase or decrease the brightness.
That’s pretty easy to learn and gives you all the functions you’d reasonably need (plus that strobe) without a lot of clutter.
That’s basically all I use from my Anduril flashlights. I don’t bother with the candle modes and all that shit. I’ve only ever used Anduril v2 flashlights, so maybe Anduril v1 was less intuitive?
I also only used v2 but it’s the extra stuff in it that slightly annoys me. Like how turbo mode (brighter than the usual maximum but usually time-limited to avoid overheating) is only available when the full UI is unlocked. Or how there’s a stepped ramp mode that I have to remember to disable whenever I swap out the battery. Or how I can accidentally enter one of the more exotic modes of for some reason I press the button too often.
Lights using a 18650 seem to be the rage these days, at crazy cheap prices, but they all use some UI with clicks, holds, etc.
I have an Olight Seeker Pro 4 and it’s pretty simple to use. The on/off button rotates and controls the intensity. You do have to either hold it for a few seconds to turn it on or rotate the button 90º and then click but that’s unavoidable with these kinds of flashlights.
These lights are very small and yet very powerful. That means you can easily pocket them, but because they are so powerful they also get very hot. You don’t want a flashlight like this to accidentally turn on while in your pocket. If you look at these lights, the head is almost always ribbed, it’s basically a heatsink. Even then when you run them at full strength they usually throttle themselves down after a few minutes to prevent overheating.
I really like the fenix flashlight I have. Main button on back turns light on and remembers your last setting (except strobe). There is one other button along the side. Pressing once cycles up the brightness until max, holding turns on the strobe. Very easy to use. I often use it on the lowest brightness and just turn it up if needed. The side button also doubles as the charging indicator, glowing red while charging and green when fully charged.
As for strobing lights i use them to signal or mark things at night. Some peope use them while cycling or walking at night to increase how visible they are. I sometimes use a strobe to mark tents or ice huts in the dark but i usually try to use strobing red light as its less distracting and uses less power
Same with bike lights, no I don’t want 16 different strobes, it’s not a vibrator.
Thinking about it, vibrators should have a on/off button too.
My wife’s favourite has a button that scrolls through the various modes, but when you hold it for a couple of seconds turns it off. Shit’s a game changer. Even starts back up on the last used setting.
the vibrator? what brand
Pretty sure it’s this one. Enjoy!
My bike lights aren’t bad.
Hold to turn on (to the last mode used), hold to turn off, push to switch between three modes: High, Low, and Flashing.
It is basically I/O limitations, and the majority of lights in this area likely have an origin in cycling lights as far as the silicon is concerned. I think that is the original high profit niche that drove a custom asic for the application of a PWM LED controller with integrated charging. Pretty much all other lights are built to a price. The chip likely has additional functionality but the actual designs are all built to a bare minimum price (or max profit margin). From this perspective, you’ll see a lot of the feature set differently. On a bike, one button is convenient as well. They usually fash too bright because of the default clock speed of the chip and a design that does not deviate from the chip’s example implementation.
You want a light that’s a light? Ridiculous.
The vast majority of flashlights just go to your last setting with one click, what flashlights are you using that this is an issue?
Buy one that’s made for fire fighters. They must be compliant to norms and from what I see all of them are super easy to handle. On off with a physical button.
…am I living in a different world? Every flashlight I’ve ever known takes D batteries, has a slider, and only has 2 settings. On or off. Like…literally NO flashlight I’ve ever seen has settings. Why would you need settings, besides MAYBE an S.O.S flash in morse code. Even that seems like a niche use thing.
You might be in another world, or the 90s perhaps?
Different settings are useful because modern flashlights use LEDs and get absurdly bright. Dimming them lets the user select an amount of light appropriate to a task, and preserve battery life. If you’re in the dark you’d want to start dim to avoid blinding yourself or annoying others (in a campground for instance). Strobes are good for getting attention.
Many of my lights use a common firmware called Anduril, which has some other nice features like a simulated candle flicker, or lightning storm (I use this for Halloween). It also allows me to turn it on directly to the lowest or highest settings, otherwise it defaults to the last level I used. There’s even an auto-shutoff feature which is nice for a night light.
Man I WISH I was in the 90s. Our biggest political scandal was that the president was getting laid.
Same man, where do these people get their flashlights
Edit: Thank you for the countless tips on where you guys buy flashlights. But neither am I in the USA nor do I actually ever need a flashlight. I have two at home and I don’t think I ever actually used them for other than fun. I guess the follow up question is what do you do with all those flashlights?
I got mine at costco. It comes with a huge lithium-ion battery, can double as a power source for usb, charges with USB C and is bright enough to flashblind a bull elk in mating season.
Turns on full power on the first click but then you have to click it three more times to turn it off.
Anker.
Consider not buying from Anker then.
Oh boy: https://intl-outdoor.com/, https://www.killzoneflashlights.com/, https://flashlightgo.com/, https://jlhawaii808.com/, https://www.fenixlighting.com/, https://www.acebeam.com/, are some commercial manufacturers and retailers. Some of us that are further gone also trade used ones.
I’m not paid but I love his lights and will shill any time for them. I have a couple and they’ve saved me through so many blackouts. Also if you TURBO MODE at the ceiling, you can use the bounce light for AMAZING cat pix.
I have two Fenix lights that both have 2 buttons, one on/off and a second mode selector.
The LD12 is perfect as a daily although the side/mode button is kinda awkward to use, the main button is perfect though.
My PD35R is a bigger one that’s really bright, but also too big for normal carry, so I only use it for work when it’s too dusty to see. It has 2 buttons on the back, one small one for mode selection and a nice big one to turn it on/off.it should just be, big button for power on and off, and another button for mode/cycle.
Honestly, they should just have an on and off button.
Who even uses all the other modes?When your flashlight has enough power to burn holes in your pockets, you may want to dim it sometimes.
When your flashlight is burning holes in commonly worn fabric, it shouldn’t have passed safety checks nor be on the shelves.
False
It’s really nice when working ambulance and trying to work a patient at night. I’m able to illuminate the scene well enough that everyone can see.
Have also lit up yards while looking for patients/hazards.
I’m talking about normal-people off-the-shelf torches, those shouldn’t burn through your clothes at random that’s far too dangerous!
Medical equipment is a different story.Also, lighting a scene such as an entire yard is done with a big light, rather than a small but powerful light.
Those also don’t burn through fabric.It’s a personally owned light, not medical equipment. And, I also can use it on moonlight mode to check pupils, works better than the lights we are given.
And, why carry a big light if a small light can do the trick? I have a bigger light (noctigon K1) with a 1 mile throw, I can’t lug that around in my pocket.
I mechanically lock out the light in my pocket so it doesnt accidentally get turned on. It’s my choice to carry a light with those capabilities, it’s also not that dangerous…
It’s only dangerous if youd don’t take some precautions. My D4V2 lives in lockout (needs 4 rapid taps of the power button to turn on), clipped to my pocket. Pretty much no way for anything to press the button even once.
Some flashlights I own have a lockout feature to prevent this from happening accidentally.
The one bike light that doesn’t have this lockout mode, or the ability to disconnect the battery by unscrewing the cap, burned through a dry bag I had it in…
Still a good light, but I had to tape a metal ring over the on/off button, so this never happens again.
I’m starting to think torches burning right through pockets is a common occurrence, now.
At least here, I’d never think any of my or someone else’s torches could ever become hot; there are hot lamps but they are their own market (i.e. chicken farms)
My Emisar flashlights have a single button that does a hundred different things that you need a fucking map to navigate
But if you click it right, it goes into Muggle Mode… where it acts as a normal flashlight. Click to third on, click to turn off.
“Muggle Mode” is for Anduril 1, Anduril 2 usually comes in “Simple UI” by default, and requires unlocking which is probably better for most users. Anyone familiar will be able to detect it and unlock, other people are less likely to burn themselves.
Aha! My D4v2 has the old firmware, and my DT8 has the new one. I don’t really dig deep—I mainly use turbo and step-up on them both. I love them so much.
I don’t mind a long-click to turn off/on, and a short click to move between SOLID modes (high/low). But for the love of Christ and all the saints, any strobe mode should be a special key combination (i.e. double click).
Flashlights that have you moving through multiple strobe modes before you can get to a different brightness level, or before you reach “off” are infuriating.
Mine does that. It has a big button on the back that just turns on the brightest setting and then turns it off. The button on the handle will let you cycle through 3 brightness settings and then the strobe effect.
It’s just some off brand, probably from Amazon, that my uncle bought for my dad and I took when my dad passed away.
Because it’s cheap for them to jam functionality into the circuitry and more expensive to actually add physical buttons. They want to advertise lots of features but deliver them in the cheapest way possible.
Peak power can only be maintained for a minute (if you are lucky) before it overheats. Peak power is the main advertised spec, so it has to be high and default mode so you don’t feel cheated when you turn it on for the first time. The other modes you toggle through are settings that can be sustained for extended periods of time.
The problem is that the old multiple-choice physical switches (like the ones from 90s) got replaced by a single electronic flip-flop button (plus lots of “modernities”). These old flashlights could last for decades (especially if the user has the knowledge to repair it through simple soldering for replacement of a defective battery contact, for example).
