Recommend me a House/Power Outage light

Hi everyone! I'm Arjay from the Philippines, hope I'm welcome here. First post, I'm not really new to CPF as I lurked here some 6-7 years ago on my quest for some flashlights.

Now for a little background, way back 2010 my location was experiencing daily 6-10 hour rotational blackouts for a couple of months. After a couple of fire incidents around the city due to candles, I went on a quest to find a safer alternative and found flashlights. I read around the internet including CPF and settled on buying 12 Fenix E21s and 2 sets of eneloops per light along with a couple of Maha 8 bay chargers. A couple were used as area lights on ceiling bounce, each family member got one for their personal use and the others were left in each of our cars. All of those lights are still in service to this day and has gone thru hundreds of power outages, I can say that we got our moneys worth. Now I'm moving out to my own home hoping to start a family but will leave the lights and thus the quest for new flashlights begin. We've gotten maybe 20 blackouts ranging from 15mins to 4 hours this past week so this just went to the top of my priority list.

My requirements are:
Something that the eventual kids won't outgrow
Rugged
Simple UI
2AA battery Operated
Relatively Cheap
Longer Runtime Compared to E21
Mode with enough lumens to light up a room comfortably? << Not quite sure on this one as the E21 says 50ish lumens on low. It's more than enough but the 11 hours runtime meant that I had to recharge when we had longer blackouts which was a pain.

I think the AA battery format will probably be the limitation. Why not get some D cell torches with adapters. That way you can use 3xAA in place of a D if you want to stick with AAs?

You could buy Maglite ML300L which is the simple Maglite format we all know, but with three levels of brightness, in 2 or 3 D models.

If you used eneloops and 3xAA adapters in place of D cells, you'd get a very long runtime.

That would be a great idea if could only get some maglites. I've never seen them being sold here so I think thats a no go.

Reason why I'm sticking with AA batteries is that 18650s are a wee bit more fussy. Also, I have a master pack or two of AA lithium primaries that I got awhile back as extra insurance.

arjay_18 said:

2AA battery Operated
Relatively Cheap
Longer Runtime Compared to E21
Mode with enough lumens to light up a room comfortably? << Not quite sure on this one as the E21 says 50ish lumens on low. It's more than enough but the 11 hours runtime meant that I had to recharge when we had longer blackouts which was a pain.

Click to expand...

Even though it's an older model, the efficiency of the E21 is still respectable. If you want significantly more runtime from 2xAA batteries, you can only really get it at lower outputs, or with extra batteries.

The newer Fenix E25 has an even lower 5 lumen mode that should be enough to safely find your way around a room with it bouncing off the ceiling, or do basic tasks at arm's length, but it can run for about 4 days continuous at that level.

If you're concerned about 5 lumens being enough, other 2xAA lights give you different options. For example, the Thrunite Archer 2A has a 17 lumen mode it should be able to hold for a couple days.

If it were me, I'd plan to have one light for keeping the main area of your house reasonably well lit, perhaps a 4xAA light like the Thrunite TN4A, and a couple smaller lights for people to grab when they have tasks to perform - even 1xAA lights might suffice there since they won't need to be on as much as the main light.

This is not a recommendation for Thrunite as necessarily better than other options, although I do think they are a good value. I mention them mainly because I know their lineup well.

If you like the Maglites, you might be able to find them online through a seller that can ship to the Philippines. I'm not sure what online retailers to look at, though.

arjay_18 said:

That would be a great idea if could only get some maglites. I've never seen them being sold here so I think thats a no go.

Reason why I'm sticking with AA batteries is that 18650s are a wee bit more fussy. Also, I have a master pack or two of AA lithium primaries that I got awhile back as extra insurance.

Click to expand...

I have the same problem as a lot of US companies won't ship worldwide. Recently started using a company called 'MyUS'. Take a look at their site. Might solve problems.

The 300 lumen Rayovac 2AA indestructible they sell at home depot in the USA is pretty cheap ($10).....not sure if you can get them in the Philippines. The older 100 lumen 2AA indestructible is sold worldwide under the varta brand.

For that many blackout, get some "solar path light"

The WakaWaka Power which is equipped with a solar panel is thus self-recharging and will give som empower to your smart phone.

arjay,
I know that this is a bit off topic, but for power outages, I really like plug into the wall outlet, flashlights that come on automatically when the power goes out. They mediate the TOTAL darkness that occurs. This keeps kids from panicking, and adults from tripping over stuff when on their way to get flashlights or lanterns.

Some stay on as a night light, some have a photo sensor, so that they will only come on at night, and others will come on whenever they don't sense power.
Here in the states, they are about $10 and look for 110 volts.

IMO they should be on each floor of the house, and positioned so that every room will get SOME light from them. For example I have one attached to an extension cord on top of my refrigerator, which will light a few rooms, one in the garage, and one in the basement.

Poppy,
Funny thing, I just ordered a couple of Xiaomi lamps with sensors the the exact same thing. They run off 3 AA batteries that the company says would run for 1 year of use. They will help lighting up the hallways at night and hopefully would work as emergency lights during a power outage.

I just ordered a couple of Sofirn SF13 lights to try out. They were really cheap at 7.93$ shipped that I found them too hard to pass up. If they come out crappy then I can have them as loaners of gift them to others. Some guys at BLF seem to like them so they can't be all the bad.

Thanks for suggesting lights from US brands but they are hard to come by here. Ordering online will cost more due to S/H from the US, no idea why S/H costs so much with US couriers.