Flashlight technology sure has improved over the years

[raggie33]

when i joined this forum led flashlights was hard to find .now there at dollar tree hect i dont think you can find incans

 

[TPA]

I remember when the 2xAA Maglites were standard issue for stagehands, then LED bulb/driver replacements for those.

 

[TPA]

a continuation on my post above, the evolution continues.

Those 2xAA Maglites were a major improvement over the old-school 2D incandescent bulbed flashlights. Then the LEDs came along and we all thought they were wonderful. There was no mention of tints, binning, or anything else. Now look how picky we've become. Would any of us use those single LED or tri-LED lights from back then? NOPE. CRI on those was terrible. Consistent tints? forget about it. On a 3x LED replacement board for an incandescent bulb, all 3 LEDs may have totally different tints and uneven brightness. Optics of the LEDs themselves were quite poor too.

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

TL;DR:
Flashlights are starting to get to where they used to be, with both good CRI and good runtime, AND with more output power. Albeit at a much higher price.

One thing has changed for the worse though: thermals. Yes, the flashlights have undeniably gotten much, MUCH more powerful, but the marketing and the whole narrative has changed.

As many of us still own of these ancient 14 Lumen flashlights, they gave 14 Lumen until the battery got drained or the bulb broke. Today, you can get the labeled 20.000 Lumen...for 30 seconds before it drops to 1000 Lumen or less - that is not a 20.000 Lumen flashlight in my book, that is a 1000 Lumen light.

Also, those old incandescent light bulbs gave 99 CRI before CRI even was a thing. Even now, the CRI bulbs that was everywhere, in every household, is now a rarity for regular lamp bulbs, and still often comes with a premium for flashlights or at the expense of some other feature.

The build quality feels about the same. Just more features - like auxiliary RGB LEDs, washing machines with bluetooth, and refrigerators with WiFi (and anything AI just makes it worse) - isn't something that is strictly needed, yet adds to the price of the product, whether you want it or not. I have yet to throw a flashlight away because anything about it broke. But then I don't bring my more pricy lights into situations I judge them not capable of handling.

Batteries have gotten better though. And as already stated, batteries were expensive back then! In the 90s, when I first had access to a flashlight, those 4,5V cells weren't something I could just buy willy-nilly. Its use had to be carefully considered, and most times I didn't bring or use it, even when I perhaps should have. Today, I gladly, and even prefer to, get spare cells in case I need more than, say, 6 hours of illumination.

My biggest issue with most lights today is how overcomplicated they are made. Why 9 modes or more on a single button? And an OLED-screen to show remaining battery charge, mode selection and whatever else? That's just an unneccesary and overpriced accessory that will only get scratched up when the light is jostled around in a pocket, together with a key chain, and maybe some coins and a long forgotten paper clip.

On the upside, there now are flashlights for every single possible desire. Output power, build material, features, LED-choices, price - anything!

Strobe needs to go though. Fenix, are you listening? Get the strobe away, or give it a separate button! Your TK76 had 5 buttons, and the PD35 had 2 - why does everything now have to be on one button, with On / Off on a 0.5 second hold, and Strobe on 1,2 second hold?

Buttons add extra cost! Programming is cheaper, right?

As for all the extra crap, I think the ChiComs figure, "eh, hell, lets just make everything, and see what the capitalist Yankee dogs like to spend their money on." As eBay proves, people will buy anything and everything, if the price is right. Right?

Odd thing that I've noticed lately is companies shooting for a high mode run time of one hour. What is up with that? Did someone do a study, and figure out that we only need high power for an hour?! I don't want to have to change batteries every hour. I want at least eight hours of high mode runtime! Get me through the night, or a shift, whatever. Oh well, things will change soon enough when they come out with another battery chemistry...you know it is bound to happen...and of course it will be some proprietary cell that won't be usable in our current flashlights, so we will have to buy new lights if we want the extra capability, and of course the difference will be like LEDs to incans, so of course we will just HAVE to shell out the big bucks for it...

 

[Jeep guy]

Back in the 90s when I did a lot of backpacking, my AA Maglite was the fancy flashlight to have. I went RV camping with some friends recently at a state park which had very little lighting. My friends were using their cell phones for flashlights. I pulled out my Wuben X4 flashlight and they all looked at me like what kind of crazy technology do you have?

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Back in the 90s when I did a lot of backpacking, my AA Maglite was the fancy flashlight to have. I went RV camping with some friends recently at a state park which had very little lighting. My friends were using their cell phones for flashlights. I pulled out my Wuben X4 flashlight and they all looked at me like what kind of crazy technology do you have?

Oh jeez! You outed yourself! Did that totally change their image of you? You know it is illegal to use your power in front of muggles! Now the Illuminati will be after you!

 

[alpg88]

I had something similar happen, we were at a forest and some animal on trees made a loud noise, few people took lights to find it, but they were too dim and too narrow to find anything, until I turned my noctigon d18 on turbo, it lit up every tree and we spotted an owl right away, everyone looked at me, and just shut their lights off, lol funny thing is guys did shine their lights where that owl was sitting, and did not see it, my light has 18 sst20 6500k, it defeated owls camouflage, we could clearly spot it, no hiding from 10k lumens. but after about a minute the light was too hot to hold, but it did the job within that minute flawlessly