Done right, it could tell you how many minutes you have left. It’s way more accurate and way more noob-friendly.
Of the solutions that I see, the last two seem like the only sensible ones. Yes, they add cost, but they add a lot of value. You can display other things too. I’ve seen lumen output somewhere. Personally I consider it to be useless nonsense, but some will like to use it to show off. You can show battery voltage. You can show charging status, with nicely indicated current amps. You can turn the flashlight to an analyzing charger, though accuracy will probably be too low for usefulness. In highly-configurable lights you can make configuration easier. It’s easy to get lost in a multi-layer menu. As well as a flat one with 24-clicks. With TK’s alarm clock you can show how much time is left. I believe there are way more possibilities.
May not be a good choice for each and every light, but I think there’s place for them.
Good info.
For a factory, probably a third of that. Someone who buys a $100+ BLF light might be able to accept this extra expense.
I wonder if bluetooth wouldn’t be cheaper…
ADDED:
I can buy a BT dongle for $1.31 shipped. So probably a manufacturer could make a flashlight BT-capable for <$1.
It;s obviously not the same optic, led lenser makes waaaay better TIRs than any other company.
The point is that it’s a 7-LED tir focusing system that actually works well, unlike the one linked above.
Manker Godmes from a few years ago had bluetooth. You could do all kinds of things with it using your smart phone, but it’s app has to stay updated for all that fancy stuff to keep working.
I would love to get a couple of these into the hands of Tom E and ToyKeeper:
At around $40 they are expensive compared to typical flashlights, but they have plenty of pins and memory. Going to production with one of these may not make sense. It probably would be more cost effective to have discrete components.
By any chance, do you happen to have one? I would be interested in beamshots…
As to working well…
I don’t have the polymer optics one. Does it work well? The way they de-focus it make the beam ugly, plain and simple. It may have nice benefits, but I agree it’s not working well, though I think that for some users it may actually be fine.
What if there was no rotation? The hotspot in the middle would disappear. As to other changes to the beam shape, I am unable to predict. So as far as I’m concerned, it may or may not work well.
Does the led-lenser work well?
You say they make great lenses, I believe you. So it should have a nice beam shape regardless of whether it’s zoomed in or out.
But they lose a huge part of frontal area and therefore just can’t be even semi-efficient when it comes to throw/size.
And personally, I don’t agree that something very inefficient is “working well”. Though I certainly think there are people with different priorities.
Yes MRsDNF, I’m well aware you made some of those P60 with screw in pill in some of your projects (I think that one in picture is taken from your customized P60 that belong to djozz now).
Iirc, last one that looks going to materialized is this project (he’s going to use screw in pill too, but sinner looks like already drop this project.
Looks like its dropped as it was 3.5 years ago.
I was going to get the above light built in quantity and sell as a host but it was going to cost to much and I didn’t think I’d sell any.
My thinking about this, if can have standard thread for hosts and pill and become popular enough, may be can become justification for more people to get one or two customized host that suitable for their liking.
I’m not saying current P60 without threading pill can’t handle heat good enough (I’m kind of on the side that believe as long as dtp mcpcb with good enough pill is enough as general), but with threading pill other than better heat transfer that may or may not affecting led durability and efficiency, it will give more solid feeling.
More than one time, I’m thinking you and other that have skill to make nice host and sophisticated modding, really is more suitable in “other” forum, but BLF still need you all to lighten up this forum
I would LOVE to see a BLF version of the Olight SMini. I really want a small EDC running whatever LED I want and a UI like Crescendo or Narsil. In fact, I’ve been looking for suitable hosts for something similar for the past week, and the best I can find are significantly larger, with outdated electronics, and cost almost as much as the D4. I’ve basically resigned myself to the fact that the D4 with the shorty tube is going to be tough to beat.
But something like the S Mini that I can flash and swap LED’s on has me extremely interested.