Who care about SoS or strobe

[wweiss]

Tried strobe out on Raccoon & Coyote - works well, but hardly necessary with a bright LED... People? That has been untested by me so far...

 

[Lex Icon]

My purchase decisions are never based on having a strobe or not.
OTOH, the function has been useful when dispersing packs of horny male canines following an available female in heat.
Seems there is always at least one studmuffin trying to impress the damsel by showing how fearless he is

 

[bykfixer]

The other day while driving home from work a bloke riding on a bicycle on a sidewalk towards me had one of those kits where a light flashes both front and rear. His front one in the daytime was way way too bright, way way too steady in pulses and very distracting. I mean to the point I wanted to run the guy over for blinding me... and that was in the daytime. Thoughts of driving up onto the sidewalk and driving over the guy then claim his light caused me to freak out briefly...

The point of this post is to point out that in some cases strobe is down right annoying to others. When it's one of those super bright flashlights from Home Depot etc.
Shining it in the face of a bad guy won't work unless it is a well engineered series of pulses. And in the worst case it'll cause the bad guy to beat the crap out of you for being annoying.

 

[Twistedvizionz]

I dont really use them.And where i live no one would pay attention.They would probably start a rave.

 

[roadkill1109]

Is there any body that has stop what they are doing and lookt att a flashing light Like a strobing light and thougt HMMMM i
s there somebody that needs help or thougt dam kids playing whit there lights ?

Is there a time or place were We as people should react and turn around and investigate ?

Why is this person blinking strobing and strobing or sending sos when I already drove past before I geet it's a sos from some one

Sorry for bad spelling not my native lang.

Strobe reminds me of disco lights and the bass dropping, Thump! Thump! Thump!

But seriously, the Strobe is quite useful. I was able to use this once when I was with my toddler and we were walking at night, we came across a pack of aggressive dogs who seemed like they were going to attack us, I quickly pulled out my light and used strobe to disorient them, they moved back and we were able to pass without incident.

That is why to this day, I always have at least one light in my pack (I carry 4 wherever i go) that can do strobe. My daughter's almost a teenager now.

 

[roadkill1109]

I dont really use them.And where i live no one would pay attention.They would probably start a rave.

+1 on rave. hahaha

 

[JerryM]

Most of us find the strobe and SOS a nuisance. However, if I were doing a lot of hiking, especially in wilderness areas I would like to have the SOS available.
Jerry

 

[jorn]

I do alot of hiking, and do not care for strobe or sos. If i went missing, a searc party would see my light if its blinking or constant on. And the helicopters got night vision so all you really need is the dim light from your phone screen, and they will see you from miles.

 

[Mr Baz]

It's not a major feature for me but...some makers do cover all the bases and some don't (range from a simple strobe to a proper SOS). Rofis has IMHO nailed it a choice of 3 including those and a beacon. You don't have to use them but if you do I'd rather have a choice.

 

[bykfixer]

Good discussion going here.

A subject that has piqued my interest since it was started. Being a casual user I noticed many lights have various frequencies in their strobe function so I asked some folks recently who use their flashlights in their duty where life and limb is at stake. For me the flashlight is a tool for light in darkness. While reliability is paramount strobe is a feature I rarely use or need. I do have a light on the bedside table that when the main switch is pushed I get a nice low level of light to meander about at 2am. But pushing a nearby switch provides a bad guy blinding full output of a known disorienting strobe. It buys me a couple of seconds to go into self defense mode if ever needed.

Most say that in their low light training the strobe is not reccomended... unless the user is familiar with a particular light and only uses that light. Because of all those variances the user may end up being disoriented by their own light. So they are trained to use random, momentary quick cycles of on/off to provide themselves the knowledge of the bright/dark routine without the perp knowing how to predict it.

Makes sense to this user.

 

[wimmer21]

Cops & chicks

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Cops & chicks

What are you posting about? Have you ever even seen a youtube video of a LEO using strobe? Much less chance of ever observing LEO's using strobe in person. :nana:

BTW, Send me a link for some chicks using strobe. ........ Oh crap, here comes the wife. Later, wimm. :whoopin:

~ Chance

 

[novice]

I think strobes have their place if the mode is somewhat out-of-the-way. I once used the strobe on a Fenix P2D, when my partner-at-the-time and I were on a packed 4th-of-July sidewalk to signal to a baseball-diamond sized area packed with people, for our intended contacts to come get us, when she was on the phone with them, telling them what to look for. Mind you, this was before I was aware that strobe modes can cause people with epilepsy to have a seizure. I do not know (and I am not being facetious), whether or not an SOS mode has less of a chance of initiating an epileptic seizure than a regular 'symmetrical' strobe mode.

I have used a bright light, very close up, without strobe, in an attempt to disorient what was, thankfully, 'merely' a very curious escaped pit bull who was checking out my dog on a leash, during a dog walk. The flashlight had no effect whatsoever, even combined with my screaming, "NO"! I am pleasantly surprised to hear that strobes apparently sometimes work on dogs.

 

[xxLumian]

I think realistically for most people (myself included) and in most situations strobe mode is used for ****ing around and SoS is only used on accident.
...That said, I do prefer if my lights have a strobe mode in that very rare situation that it might be useful. Most days I carry an Olight S1A and that quick triple tap to strobe means that if needed I could actually pull it out and really disorient someone quickly enough to get away or make whatever move is best in that situation. Especially on the crazy bright but compact flashlights you can get these days strobe really is a decent defensive measure.
For SoS I'm not sure it's that necessary if you have a momentary on switch, and even if you don't I think you could still manage to get help without a dedicated mode. I'm never gonna pass up a light because it doesn't have SoS.
In the end I'm always happy to have more modes even if I don't need them as long as they are fairly easy to get to but also not added in a way that they impede use of the most commonly used modes.
More options=More better. Variety makes life more spicy or something like that