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
it should just be, big button for power on and off, and another button for mode/cycle.
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.
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)
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.
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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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 know I was expecting mostly what I got, people commiserating, people giving explanations for why they exist, people talking about how their flashlights don’t do that, but something genuinely useful, that I did not expect.l
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Why does it need to be low/mid/high/off?
What’s the benefit of those modes, and when would you use it?I’m genuinely asking as I’ve never thought of using all the other modes and am just cycling through them every time to get to the bright setting or to off.
I use mine for either hiking, skiing, or biking. Skiing I want as bright as possible and will have extra batteries, hiking I want it to last a long time and be lightweight (lower light setting), biking I don’t want to blind people, and a red light for camp is nice. I don’t like cycling through, a dedicated intensity button with memory and a dedicated on/off locking toggle would be great.
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.
The convoy has this, 2 modes, one with flashy and one hi med low
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.
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
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 don’t know, but I hate that, too. Modern flashlights have every advantage over the ones of old, but they ALL seem to have stupid things like that.
Clicking through multiple brightness levels is one thing, but strobe, SOS, and 5 levels is ridiculous. Just give me on/high, low, and off.
I’m a slut for Emisar, they have one button and a stupid amount of functions, but you can put it in Muggle Mode where it’s just PRES BUTAN TO TURN ON, PRES BUTAN TO TURN OFF if you don’t wanna deal with all that.
I like it with all the functions though, the software is mega easy once ya learn a couple basic functions. Also I’m a dweeb.
But man they do not appear professional.
Their about page is just a broken English “We are flashlight company”, their delivery information page just says “Delivery information”, they added every SNS icon under the sun (even ones that were disbanded years ago) to their footer but they all just refer to the front page, and the “FREE CALL” from the settings menu(??) is just a second mail to link.
This website reads like a scam mail, my guy.
It’s one Chinese dude. I’ve ordered a couple flashlights from him years ago and they’re all still in daily use for me now. It may sound weird but my experience has been excellent.
Edit: also you have not linked to intl-outdoor or whatever site I got them from, I linked it in another comment
I linked what seems like their official website, though.
Fair. It’s just some Chinese dude that makes em. Intl outdoor is where I got mine from. They’re wonderful, but I can see why they would seem sus.
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.
I guess I haven’t used a flashlight recently
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.
I have two D cell maglites, I give them to the kids when they need a flashlight so they dont start a fire with my light, or lose an expensive one.
Flashlights that use the open source Anduril v2 interface are… tolerable, I’d say. It’s not good, it’s not intuitive, but it does at least make it easy to just turn the damn flashlight on and off.
- Click once to turn it on, once to turn it off
- While it’s on, hold the button down to change the brightness
- Click twice quickly to put it in turbo mode, click twice quickly to take it out of turbo mode. One click turns the light off
- Click twice and hold your second click to turn the light on in turbo mode. Once you let go of the button, the light turns off. I actually really like this mode
- Strobe is three clicks, but it’s not the discotheque-ass crazy strobe, it’s usually an SOS pattern. One click turns it off
- Click four times to lock the flashlight. This stops it from turning on in your pocket. This is a big deal for some flashlights because they’re bright/hot enough to burn you if left on in an enclosed space. Four clicks takes it out of lock mode
The interface gets way more complicated after that, but I don’t bother with any of that shit. Luckily, it’s hard to accidentally activate the crazy bullshit.
There are also lights that mimic this pattern, but differ in a few key ways. The Wurkkos FC11 is a great option that’s relatively cheap. The 4000 K version is $35 and is bright with a nice neutral color temperature (I find it much easier on the eyes.) It follows the interface rules I outlined above except that it’s missing number 3 and the strobe is of the flashy hold-a-rave variety. Still, you have to specifically press the button 3 times in a row pretty quickly to trigger it. I never have accidental raves with mine.
so the solution is installing Linux on the flashlight?
lmao, kinda. There are a fair number of flashlights that are sold with Anduril though. I’ve personally never installed it/flashed it.
EDIT: if what I’ve described sounds like an acceptable solution, you should check out the Wurkkos I mentioned. I absolutely hate lights that put a strobe between me and the the mode I want, and I’ve been very happy with mine.
I’ve thought of configuring an Anduril light for just on/off. It is somewhat doable without reflashing.
Emisar lights come with it already installed. I’ve never flashed mine. Just pop an 18650 in and you’re good to go.
Can confirm point 5, melted through a pocket with my Emisar D4, i just twist the cap off slightly when not in use rather than shutdown mode.
I like the shutdown mode because the moonlight mode thing it does is great at night. Like, I use it if I need to find something in my nightstand and want to avoid waking up my partner.
EDIT: also, hello fellow flashlight nerd. I’m writing this with an Emisar D4K in my pocket.
Yeeeeee I’ve been shouting the praise of Emisar in this thread. D4V2 and the ridiculous DT8 here. Love them so much.
Hank lights are the best.
I should probably bother to learn Anduril V2 someday. V1 is just so good already.
Mine is an OG Emisar d4, so I don’t have the fancier features like the glowy button
That model of wurkkos is my main light. It really is dead simple to use once you spend five minutes with it.
Great light
It’s not intuitive in that someone with zero knowledge can pick it up and understand all of the features, but it is simple enough that someone can at least turn it on and off. If you know how to use it you can immediately access the lowest level or the highest level, without having to scroll through a bunch of modes you don’t want. You have to ramp the output up or down, but you can always turn it off with one click.
- Click once to turn it on, once to turn it off
…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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
