This forum dead or dying?

[PaladinNO]

Insofar as portable lighting tools are concerned, the product offerings have unquestionably matured. The level of knowledge among the community in general has also increased, making many of the discussions common in the earlier years unnecessary.

For example, if I want to describe a light, I can summarize by describing it's physical dimensions, it's weight in your pocket, adding info such as emitter type, color temperature, output levels, candela, cell configuration, and runtimes at various output levels. Most of you will readily form a mental image of the light and whether it's of interest or use to you. The overall level of knowledge in the community allows for this kind of shorthand, making the longer discussions of times past unnecessary.

Your example sums up the experience I have gained here over, I would say, the last 3 years. In my case, my personal economy changed to where I could actually buy the lights I wanted and got recommended. Before that, what good would the knowledge do me, if I couldn't act on it. Partly hence my hiatus here for a time. And I felt I couldn't recommend to others what I was recommended, without personal experience with the product.

But with the increased income a few years back (got a new and better paid job), I suddenly found a renewed interest and took back up my flashlight hobby. And by reading and googling and reading some more, I could make informed decisions on the lights I wanted to try, instead of spending a lot of money in the hopes of getting what I wanted. And following most of those recommendations, I have successfully found both favourite emitters and specific flashlight models - many of which I likely wouldn't have bought, because I couldn't even understand many of the terms and numbers on the charts I was looking at.

But the most important thing to me that I have learned here, though mostly through personal trial and error but based off of flashlight recommendations I have received here, is learning how important good light actually is. I recently replaced all the light bulbs in the house, and I haven't once since instinctively turned my eyes away from a bulb because it has felt simply like ugly light. And all the new ones are CRI 90. Before I had between whatever and CRI 80 at best. And an almost random mix of CCTs and CRI-values - back to not knowing what to look for, or being to afford what I should be having. Now it's 6 USD bulbs, instead of 1 USD ones.

And my current bedreading light, an Emisar DW4K, E21A 2000K (R9590 according to the stats), has been a bliss I didn't even know how much I had been missing. It is so beautiful and relaxing to be around before trying to sleep. As much as I am obsessed with hCRI lights, I will agree it is not often needed (depending on the usecase, obviously), but everyone should own one light with the best CRI possible. If you're not feeling well or feel really tired, you don't need your brain to work more by doing the automatic compensations and colour corrections for what the eyes see - if you have hCRI light around you, it is another button the brain can turn off, and add that energy to trying to relax and get better instead.

Based on everything I have learned here, particularly in the last 3 years, if I were to recommend 2 specific emitters, I would say Nichia 519A, 1800K, and Nichia E21A 4000K mix (4500K + 3500K). As for flashlight models, I would say Convoy S21E for the 519A (with diffuser), and Emisar D4K for the E21A. The former is only CRI 70, and the latter not very powerful (~1200 Lumen), but those 2 are the emitters I am very glad I have experienced and own.

 

[orbital]

+

If your flashlight manufacture that you worship hasn't done anything interesting in years,, yeah CPF may be dying.

the fix:::: look to a manufacture who's doing new things /// taking lights to levels you'd say IMPOSSIBLE just 10 years ago.
alot of that is battery advancement allowing flashlight advancement

then, CPF is still going strong

 

[PaladinNO]

If your flashlight manufacture that you pray to hasn't done anything interesting in years,, yeah CPF may be dying.

True, true - where there is no innovation, there is also little need for discussion.

I am not following the emitter manufacturers at all though. So whether they innovate or not, I have no idea. Come to thnk of it, I haven't even checked when the 519A or E21A was released - or what the newest emitters on the market are.

I think that would and potentially can be much more interesting for me when / if I am able to make my own solutions, i.e. do flashlight modding, which I currently can't do at all.

 

[Monocrom]

Golden Age of Innovation came and went during the last 20 years.
Glad I was around to experience it.

 

[Schokokeks]

I stand firmly by my opinion that everyone should have a hobby. Doesn't matter it is, so long as they enjoy it. And every hobby I can think of, once it gets serious enough, is expensive. Whether it's stamps, pieces of art, cars or flashlights.

And that is fine, because if they can afford it, it suddenly becomes - I would say - an investment in personal health. A hobby is supposed to to give joy, and where there is joy, there is also relaxtion and reduced stress, and that is nothing but good for both the mind and body.

...Also, flashlights are more useful than stamps - they provide a much more reliable source of illumination than setting fire to a stack of tiny pieces of paper.

I strongly agree on the necessity of having a hobby. Just having something to read about, learn about, explore, etc. is really important for your sanity, mental acuity, growth, etc.

I don't know about you guys, but I essentially have a "dumb stuff" budget each month, which I spend on my assorted interests. It used to be cars, then guns - but those got WAY too expensive, so now it's flashlights. Music has been the only real stable interest for that budget, throughout, so it's usually a mix these days of Bandcamp purchases and flashlights. On the upside, I have a great soundtrack for when I'm reading flashlight stuff or tinkering with all my P60 LEGO parts, haha.

 

[mcbrat]

This place definitely has slowed to a crawl. Its glory days were the PK Surefire years in the 2000s. But I don't think the action's all on Reddit. They have a particular kind of discussion there. Mostly either newbies asking for recs or guys talking about the 39th identical Wurkos they ordered off Temu that month.

I wonder where a lot of the discussion actually is these days, and don't say BLF. The market for weird old stuff and Surefires/whatever is as strong as ever on eBay but I literally can't find any place people are talking about these things.

I would say most custom makers have moved to their own FB groups now, but general discussion is in Flashlight Fanatics and Custom Torch Community as probably the 2 largest.

 

[Beckler]

I dunno there's still room for innovation because certain things in flashlights make no sense and I was complaining about them decades ago too! Simplest ones: user interface not standard/not properly customizable. All flashlight microcontrollers should include a standard UI that can be chosen if desired by the user. (Has to be set by some international group (ansi, iso?). This eliminates the usability problem of owning multiple flashlights.

Separate issue: the main feature you'd want in a customizable UI is fully programmable levels and it still doesn't exist AFAIK, certainly not commonly! Anduril is the closest but it's just choosing 'x' evenly spaced steps between two limits. Huh? Why! It has like 100 different settings (half of which are useless, which is fine) but not the one critical option, the very first thing you'd want: being able to choose exact number and level of each step? Makes zero sense. It already assumes full brightness control available on the hardware, and storing user choices. So why not actual level control!

The other problem is physical control which is still just randomly sized, placed buttons, etc., none of which are very good. Nobody's found a good, instantly intuitive fingertip control for multiple modes/emitters; but also addressing gloves, in the dark, unwanted pocket activation, etc. Some are better than others. (I haven't tried them all though, of course.) Usability is still bad. Some totally stupid design decisions by the biggest names, STILL.

 

[dc38]

So why not actual level control

It kind of does...Scaling the outputs to a maximum and minimum introduces a certain level of uniformity. Mathematically (logarithmically) scaling between those points, for all intents and purposes, does fulfill the desire that you have. Did you instead perhaps want a higher resolution of brightnesses where each specific step could be specifically programmed to a brightness, like set 4 steps, step 1 = 1/1500, step 2 = 10/1500, step 3 = 60/1500, step 4 = 1500/1500? I can almost definitely see that you would hate that kind of UI, lol...Novatac probably came the closest to allowing specific tuning of each mode. If the Novatac resolution were higher, i.e. somehow "porting" a hybrid "Andutac" UI over to Anduril Capable hardware, I think it would be a near perfect implementation for an EDC light, and would address your desire for specifically tuned modes. Anduril currently has:
1hold for moon, 1click for memory, double click for max or ceiling, 2clickhold for momentary max/turbo, each of which besides that last option is customizeable...

Nobody's found a good, instantly intuitive fingertip control for multiple modes/emitters; but also addressing gloves, in the dark, unwanted pocket activation,

Nobody indeed...perhaps you could be the one to do it!

Some totally stupid design decisions by the biggest names, STILL.

At least we now know what DOESN'T work, but I agree, people shouldn't be actively chasing bad designs just to eliminate them.

 

[Beckler]

It kind of does...Scaling the outputs to a maximum and minimum introduces a certain level of uniformity. Mathematically (logarithmically) scaling between those points, for all intents and purposes, does fulfill the desire that you have. Did you instead perhaps want a higher resolution of brightnesses where each specific step could be specifically programmed to a brightness, like set 4 steps, step 1 = 1/1500, step 2 = 10/1500, step 3 = 60/1500, step 4 = 1500/1500? I can almost definitely see that you would hate that kind of UI, lol...Novatac probably came the closest to allowing specific tuning of each mode. If the Novatac resolution were higher, i.e. somehow "porting" a hybrid "Andutac" UI over to Anduril Capable hardware, I think it would be a near perfect implementation for an EDC light, and would address your desire for specifically tuned modes. Anduril currently has:
1hold for moon, 1click for memory, double click for max or ceiling, 2clickhold for momentary max/turbo, each of which besides that last option is customizeable...

Well it's pretty simple - everyone has a different preference, esp. for an edc that you use all the time where you want more efficiency than a standard UI. Even which direction the sequence goes. Number and spacing of levels is unquestionably the most basic 'customize' feature you'd want, yet it's the one that glaringly doesn't exist. A user defined table of: Level N at X lumens. Simple as that! :D

Nobody indeed...perhaps you could be the one to do it!

I do have a list of many ideas I've been keeping over the years. Yes, I delusionally have this plan to implement them sometime.

 

[dc38]

Well it's pretty simple - everyone has a different preference, esp. for an edc that you use all the time where you want more efficiency than a standard UI. Even which direction the sequence goes. Number and spacing of levels is unquestionably the most basic 'customize' feature you'd want, yet it's the one that glaringly doesn't exist. A user defined table of: Level N at X lumens. Simple as that! :D

I do have a list of many ideas I've been keeping over the years. Yes, I delusionally have this plan to implement them sometime.

I agree with that aspect of customizability...My ideal UI would be a Novatac, but with the ease and resolution of level programming in Anduril. One of these days, I'll actually get around to learning and playing around with the language Anduril uses...I already have the flashing tool and a couple of lights it works on, lol...