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
My perfect flashlight:
- On button on side to be placed where the thumb rests
- 4 D batteries.
- Twist-ey head to change focus
- Dedicated switch(NO MORE CYCLE BUTTONS) to change mode from bright, to med, dim, and strobe
- Sturdy metal for emergency use as a hammer
- Textured rubber to feel good in the hand
Surprised not to see any posts referencing the Arbitrary List of Popular Lights or !flashlight@lemmy.world.
One of the requirements to make it on the list is:
A user interface where a single click turns the light on in a reasonable mode, and another single click turns it off.
You’re describing a UI that I’ve only seen in cheap hardware store flashlights. Yes it’s infuriating when you can’t just turn a light on or off, and choose the mode you want. I use strobe when crossing streets at night but my lights make it easy to access that feature when I want it.
Who is this “favorite flashlight manufacturer”? I find it odd that you both have a favorite, and buy lights that act like this. There are thousands that don’t.
Oh man This post just awoke a REAL old memory for me. Growing up my dad had these two old beat up flashlights. I looked them up and found this https://www.etsy.com/listing/1027765511/eveready-no1359-safety-flashlight.
I always thought they had a cool design.
They put them in all the flashlights because of a combination of minimum features required and cost savings.
To keep heat at a minimum and improve power usage, LEDs benefit from being run by a driver circuit.
If you’re going to use a driver circuit you might as well allow for dimming if you’re going to allow for dimming you need to have timed button presses.
There’s only a couple of companies out there that make the circuitry that does the LED driver / lithium ion charging, so everybody just uses the same chipset.
If you want to flashlight that just turns on and off and doesn’t have a lot of features try to find one that doesn’t have lithium ion batteries. If you don’t need the lithium ion charger they’re more likely not to use one of them more extensive chipsets.
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.
Couldn’t find one of the two bottles of doe piss and doe estrus piss I bought today. Went to my grandfather’s car to look for it and sure as shit he hands me a flashlight with one button that turned it on and off as well as having a rotating head that was kind of threaded so as you turn it, it will move closer and further from then bulb making the light adjustable the same way a garden hose nozzle that only rotates works. All the way out = wide flood light style beam. All the way in and it produces a bright pin point wide beam of light. It looked brand new too. If I remember I’ll ask him tomorrow what brand it is.
Sounds like you’re describing a maglite
Maglites are perfectly fine flashlights for most people, maybe a little heavy but sometimes that’s kind of the point (a lot of cops and security guards and such took to carrying them when their agencies started prohibiting nightsticks and batons, especially the bigger 4 or 6 cell models) for a long time they were basically the default flashlight, you had maglites, you had the big spotlight looking things that took a 6v battery, you had cheap plastic flashlights, and you had various small penlights and such (which were often mini maglites) and that was like 90% of what you’d ever encounter.
There’s a good chance if you go rooting around in your dad or grandfather’s car trunk, garage, basement, workshop, toolbox, etc. you’ll find a maglite or 3 kicking around somewhere. I know I keep one in my car for emergencies and I’ll probably inherit a half dozen more from my parents someday.
They still make them, pretty sure they switched over to LEDs (one of their selling points used to be they had a spare bulb stored in the tail cap) and I’m sure they’re still perfectly reliable and rugged, you can probably still find them at most of the places you’d think to go buy a flashlight, and a standard 2 D cell maglite still costs in the neighborhood of $20-$30.
But there are a bunch of flashlight nerds out there these days, who want really specific form factors, battery types, features, led color temperatures, etc. and they’d probably pooh-pooh the humble maglite.
I get it to an extent, I have flashlights I like better, but I’m not about to nerd out about them, and if you someone sent me out with instructions to buy them a flashlight with no other requirements listed, I’d probably buy a maglite and feel pretty confident that it’s going to be an acceptable flashlight.
it should just be, big button for power on and off, and another button for mode/cycle.
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.
If you’ve ever tried to read something off a label in the dark and outshined what you were looking at because the light was too bright, you know why.
Fenix makes a few that are like what you’re looking for, I have two, one has one big button on the back and one on the side, the back button is a simple on off and the side button cycles the power settings, if you hold down on the smaller side button it goes to strobe instantly. The other is basically the same but both buttons are on the back and the smaller button toggles strobe by pressing it when the flashlight is off vs cycles power settings when the flashlight is on. I only buy flashlights that are set up like this or similar. I need to be able to access strobe instantly and I need to be able to turn it on and off at a low power setting without turning on the fire of a thousand suns to get there.
Right there with you.
Why can’t I get a light with super simple controls (say low/med/high/off) with like a 18650 battery?
Nope, you want a 18650,you get all sorts of goofy UI crap. Uggh.
I do have some Duracell led flashlights that use 4 AAA, with a single button, low/med/strobe (uggh)/off. OK price as a multi-pack from Sam’s or Costco, about $7/ea.
But their runtime is about the same as an old incandescent, just with a lot more light.
Wurkkos FC12
18650, tail cap on/off, side button for modes, stays at the last brightness setting when you turn it off and on, built in USB -C charging port. Available on Amazon for about $30 on sale.
I carry one with me everyday at work.
Most have modes that you can click or hold to change, but a simple click will turn it on or off. I’ve only noticed the forced mode cycling on cheap hardware store lights.
Check out the Nitecore T4K. Not an 18650, but usb-c rechargeable, 4 brightness levels (1, 15, 65, and 200 lumens), plus a 4000 lumen turbo mode that it can maintain for about ten seconds before it has to drop back to 200 to cool down. Separate power and mode buttons, and it remembers what mode it was in when you turned it off. Great battery life, and small enough to fit in your pocket. The only downside is the price ($90), but.it’s worth every penny.
I don’t know how it is with four AAA, but I had an Anker that had the three AAA cassette, where it holds them all side by side. the cassette broke, and when I called asking for a replacement part, they told me they weren’t making that anymore so no more parts, but these three cell AAA cassette could be replaced with a single 18650
The convoy has this, 2 modes, one with flashy and one hi med low
Rescued my daughter in the cliched flat tyre in the rain scenario, the flashing light was good to alert other drivers. I think it’s something that could be useful very rarely.
I got an Acebeam EC35 Gen II a couple years back and while there are many settings you can use there’s a big button onto he back that turns it on full blast and you click it again to turn it off. Done.
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.
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
I picked up some stranded skaters in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night because they flashed SOS with their headlights after I drove past them. They had been there for like 8 hours. I’m sure they would’ve rather had a flashlight to do the work for them.
But I agree that there should be another UI for getting to the emergency flashing. Like hold for 5 seconds or something unlikely to be used during normal operation.
I have a flashlight that has multiple flashy settings, but they are disabled after like 5 or 10 seconds of idle power on time. So the first click turns it on, and if you wait a while, the next click turns it off.
