- Long press ON/OFF
- Green or magenta tint are worse
- Faster than 1 Hz strobe
- Visible PWM
- High standby drain
- Non waterproof
- Rattles
- Threadlocker, glue
- Too much branding/logo/texts
- Clemence
For me, long press to turn off is terrible…
Ditto for me, I would add strobe being not VERY well hidden.
The need to go through the entire mode selection to reach off.
Updated comment… see below
I will throw in another one: Cheap ass lanyards on heavier flashlights. Either include a good, strong one or dont bother.
This is crazy! Is this just your nightmare or is it ever used before?
- Clemence
Overly easy access to strobe in a non-tactical light. The Manker U21 has a very frustrating UI. Long press for on to anything other than moonlight, double click shortcut to strobe rather than turbo, click to advance between modes, and long press for off. At least they got rid of the double click strobe in later lights.
Don’t like strobe mode or any blinky modes in the general sequence. They should be really hard to get to to prevent accidental triggering.
Thought about it some more. These are my deal breakers. In order of magnitude.
No proprietary or glue-sealed battery designs = I must be able to replace a dead battery of common size/chemistry. I do not want to field re-charge a dead battery with a battery bank and USB cable. Totally impractical.
No CR123 only = Its 2018, I have been posting this one for almost ~15 years (!!!) on CPF well before BLF days. I can’t believe I still need to post this as a bullet, but none the less, there are still designs out there. If it only takes CR123 cells, its totally useless to me.
No 3AAA & 4AAA = Inferior in so many ways, although I would take a 3xAAA light (of comparable quality) any day over a CR123 only light.
Battery carrier/caddy = No thanks, just one more thing that can fail. Physically its another thing to get in the way when field reloading cells.
Mechanical power lock out = Must have, I have nearly burnt my hand on lights that were accidentally turned on for lord knows how long in my pack… annoying as hell
Low frequency PWM = I am very sensitive to this, although it can be fixed with a DIY driver mod. Still as long as I have a choice, I will pick a light without low frequency PWM.
Lousy tint (too green or too blue).
Any blinkies, or at the very least, any blinkies that aren’t sufficiently buried.
h/m/l instead of l/m/h.
No memory that doesn’t start on low/moonlight. (“Aaaugh! My eyes! My eyes!”)
Bad mode-spacing (too scrunched up on high, huge jumps between lowest).
Ugly beam (rings or other artifacts, ugly corona, overly fried-egg beam).
Glued tight.
Blink-on-low or any other weird-ass intrusive way of changing mode-groups.
Too small
Too bright
Too expensive
Too many modes
I like to keep my flashlights simple.
- low frequency pwm
- bad mode spacing (huge gap or too close modes)
- unhidden blinkies
- start in anything other than low or user memorized mode
- gritty threads
- green tint
Dislike a Long (3+ sec) turn on, long off doesn’t bother me.
PWM (bad PWM actually makes me feel sick)
Cycling through STROBE or even more than a couple of modes to turn off
Non hidden strobe and signal modes in general
High parasitic drain (most of my lights are on standby a lot)
Sharp blue or green tint
No lockout (prefer mechanical but will take electronic types)
If I have to choose, I want a light to turn on in the lowest mode, NOT the brightest
Shallow or tiny thumb buttons
Side buttons that you can’t find by feel alone
No low warning (a flash or whatever) before shut-down
- Power/mode buttons that I cannot feel or see in the dark. :rage:
Imalent perfected that on the DN11 and DN70. Obviously not a single one of the designers ever tried to take the lights out of his pocket and switch them on in the dark /with gloves.
Nice lights otherwise, with an impressive design fail on the first and major feature of a flashlight. :person_facepalming:
I stay away from UIs I need to carry a book to operate .
Strobe being in the main sequence, as in L/M/H/Strobe/L/M/HStrobe
The very annoying “blink on low” convoy 3/5 mode lights use to signal when you can change modes to include/exclude strobe and SOS. I use low a lot and it’s a pain to have the light blink a few seconds after you turn it on
UI’s that take a PhD in rocket science to figure out / program
Gritty threads on tailcaps
Lights that come from China without instructions, usually received in crushed cardboard boxes.
Most UI things I hate are combined in my Astrolux S42! Can’t believe I bought this despite the reviews on here.
Imalent had another massive fail… those electro-sensitive buttons (or how that junk was called properly) did not operate in wet conditions, even in rain or wet hands. There were videos of users unable to change modes or even turn off that damned things.
Adding to the OP:
- Forward clicky switch with next mode memory - Using your light on low and turn it off? Next time it turns on medium, even if you want Low again.
- Proprietary battery packs. Let me use multiple 18650s, that way the batteries can be swapped out when dead, instead of having to wait for the pack to recharge. Oh, and if that battery pack wears out in the future? Good luck getting a replacement. While with a multi-18650 light, you can easily get new batteries. I’m not buying a Nitecore, Fenix, etc. multi-emitter light if it requires a proprietary battery pack.