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 mighty Kingdom of Anduril takes grievance against this sentiment.
i like him better when he was still Narsil.
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.
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!
Oh, flAshlight!
As you were…
no, surprisingly, Fleshlight has actually figured out how to make an on/off button.
Just
- on off switch/button
- rotate the head for bright-dim-wtf
That’s it. That’s what I want.
yeah but rotating the head is usually focus
all these super bright LED flashlights you buy on amazon, or at the checkout counter of the hardware store, I just now realized they don’t have adjustable focus and I’ve never needed it with them.
Thank you for copying the top comment and contributing nothing.
/s
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.
So like the way they blind enemies with a tactical flashlight?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have a two button flashlight. One button to change settings and one to turn on and off. It has memory so it uses the last setting used that’s not strobe or the highest setting
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.
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.
Emisar lights come with it already installed. I’ve never flashed mine. Just pop an 18650 in and you’re good to go.
That model of wurkkos is my main light. It really is dead simple to use once you spend five minutes with it.
Great light
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.
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
Yeeeeee I’ve been shouting the praise of Emisar in this thread. D4V2 and the ridiculous DT8 here. Love them so much.
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
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.
The maglights I have in my emergency kit only have 2 settings: On and off. It’s a switch not a button. If they ever put goofy ass strobe lights or whatever in maglights, I will stop buying them. I just need light; not an epileptic seizure.
