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
The vast majority of flashlights just go to your last setting with one click, what flashlights are you using that this is an issue?
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.
Oh, flAshlight!
As you were…
Be careful updating the firmware on those, friend of mine ended up having to finger his named pipe. You don’t know him, he goes to a different school.
no, surprisingly, Fleshlight has actually figured out how to make an on/off button.
Maglite, the last one I bought has twist on and off. No flashing or buttons.
I haven’t looked into maglite since proper LEDs priced them out of the market. I’ll take another look
https://maglite.com/collections/mid-size/products/ml25lt-2c-led-flashlight
This one is similar. 2 c cell batteries and no buttons.
oh man, they’re still offering incandescent models alongside their LEDs. none of them are really inspiring hope though, even the smaller LED lights seem to have pretty pitiful lumen output compared to what I’m seeing out there
Pick a battle. You requested no extra buttons or flashing or modes and now it’s not bright enough?
It works for me. Has light and no extra flashing modes. Hasn’t really failed me either. I drop shit, a lot.
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.
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.
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 have 2 Hexbright flashlights. They’re programmable so you can make it work however you want. Really wish the company went beyond the kickstarter because I’d love some different models with the same customization.
I have mine programmed where from off hold=as low as possible. Then standardish 3 brightness, starts at low first click. Hold button while on for turbo. But my favorite part is if you don’t click the button for 5 seconds, the next click is off instead of the next brightness. Saves your night vision not having to cycle through high to turn off.
That’s far more than I want from a flashlight.
On/off. That’s literally all it needs to do. I’d like to be able to plug it in and charge it but quite frankly if I can’t get that without it just going on/off with the single press of a button I’ll replace batteries until the day I fucking die.
I use a pocket flashlight daily. It is an integral part of my job. I use flashlight in a wide variety of light conditions and different levels of reflectivity.
I have never wanted my flashlight to flash on and off, change brightness, or any of the other random crap they force in to what should be the simplest tool in my toolbox.
Press button. Change state of light. That is literally the only thing it needs to do.
I mean for that, my phone works fine. I set the bixby button to turn on\off the flashlight. Single button on off always on me. Of course being programmable, you could program a simple on off as well on the hex.
I used the hexbright camping and stargazing. The hold setting is so dim its useless unless you’re in pitch black and just need to see the star chart. And you don’t want bright as it takes at least 30 minutes to recover your night vision after a bright flash so that’s what my use case was.
I wish there were more things like this (and not just flashlights) - made with some thought put in. And to anyone who’d whine about the price, the fact that you have them 10+ years later says enough.
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?
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.
The mighty Kingdom of Anduril takes grievance against this sentiment.
i like him better when he was still Narsil.
My go to light for work is a Streamlight Protac 2L-X. It has a few modes to set it up how you prefer. Plain bright. Low, bright. Bright, strobe. Rechargable 18650 but you have to take the battery out to plug a usb into it but it lasts a loong time between charges so I don’t mind
Strobe is great for raves, self defense and epilepsy tests! (jk)
how do you change the mode?
Some are absurdly bad in this regard!
“Oh, you want to reduce the brightness? Scroll through 7 modes, including 4 epileptic seizure-inducing strobe modes, before you can get to low brightness mode.”
So i carry a sure fire. They don’t. The one I carry takes a rechargeable 18650, and has 2 settings “intellibeam” that adjusts brightness based on near-and-far and intensity, and full-on-burn-your-eyes-out.
They have other lower cost models. Alternatively , if you’re not looking for something that’s incredibly bright, stream light offers a very inexpensive penlight that’s pretty handy. (Only complaint with that is they take AAAA’s)
I’ve generally steered away from them because of price, but I do have their Maximus headlamp. I don’t remember spending almost $500 on it at the time, but it was pretty steep especially for not having a removable battery
I like using a lot of my flashlights diffrent functions at diffrent times. Although mine also has the option to turn off from whichever if you hold the power button so I don’t have to cycle through, which is nice.
Yeah, all the complicated flashlights with multiple settings I have used support turning on and off into the last used settings. I don’t think I’ve ever used a flashlight that forced you to cycle through everything. I had a bike light that did, but I got rid of it and replaced it with a flashlight mounted instead.
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.
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.
