What are your most annoying flashlight features?

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.

It ain’t the blink that bugs me, so much as the actual modegroup change.

I usually keep my lights on low(est) anyway, so if I’d just flick it on for a few sec to check out something, and click it off right as it blinks… oh, crap, don’t tell me… yep, turn it back on and cycle it through, and the damned blinkies are back. Then I gotta wait again for the blink to change it back, then go through another cycle to verify it.

And let’s face it, most times for a quick flash’n’dash, you just want the light on for a few sec to check out what’s in the closet, where you dropped that whatchacallit, etc. And it’s about the same time window needed for the damned mode-change.

That’s what bugs me.

Ya mean, like, most of ’em? :smiley:

My thoughts exactly.

And as for my most annoying feature, how about a lack of a feature: not having multiple interface buttons. Seriously, how hard is it to have one button for on/off (maybe with long-press or double-tap options for shortcuts to min or max power), then one button for “brightness +” and one button for “brightness -”? Instead, we keep getting Dilbert-style interfaces: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-06-12

‘Low’ modes which are not low enough, but even brighter then my incan mag3D (74 Lm)

Hurts my eyes at night when powering up one of those.

Lol at the Dilbert style UI

Looks like Dilbert button is the norm these days. Luckily, not too many Dilbert twisty

Then it’s getting to be 100% proprietary, no possibility of modding it. You’d have to be happy with the light right out of the box, else you’re SOL. Just as bad if not worse than gluing the crap out of the light after potting the innards.

Most lights with an e-switch on a board soldered to the main driver board are already nigh impossible to mod. With multiple switches, forget it.

Hell, I’m happy with a 1-mode ’502 for my EDC, but for other lights, simple modes (with memory) is fine.

Eg, my SP10B, I pretty much keep on firefly mode, so just turning it on will get me that without blinding me. But a quick doubletap for turbo gives me full brightness. Anything in-between, I turn it on firefly, then click higher as needed. Done. Then back to firefly before turning it off.

My Jet-II, same dealy, only it’s a twisty that always starts on low. Works for me.

SF31W, again, I always reset it to low/moonlight, then click higher as needed, then reset it back.

Some lights, like my C8Fs (old and new), Hell, I always keep ’em cranked up to 11. Otherwise, what’s the point? :smiley:

Otherwise, just get a light like a DV-S9 with its slider, and set it to whatever you want. Parasitic drain? Uncrank the tail ½-turn. Done.

I agree with whoever said that he dislikes lights which pretty much require you to carry a book to work the UI.

Like, how hard is it to just reset the light to low/moon/firefly before turning it off? Why does there need to be separate shortcuts for each mode, like the 27% half-press, etc.?

A nice simple tail-clicky is always easy to find (hardly so with a side-clicky), so the simple on/off is the only way to control the light. That’s why I like the SF31W so much. It does pretty much everything with that nice simple interface. Just remember to reset it to low to avoid getting blinded at night.

I hate having to charging the battery

Wellp, until zero-point energy cells become commercially available, we’re stuck with that rather irksome necessity.

Why do the buttons need to be soldered to the driver board? How much is it really going to add to the cost of a full size, multi-cell light to add one more board with three buttons on it, three pairs of wires (or fewer) soldered to it, and then a six-pin (or fewer) connector for those wires soldered to the main driver board?

Another imalent basher My switch works just fine. I wish batteries would last longer in higher modes, that would be my only annoyance.

I only have one Imalent and wish i would not have bought it. Bummer that its the light i use the most (headlamp) because of work.

My dislikes are, in no particular order:

- Too high low mode

- Start on high

- Blinkies (i have never found use for them yet, ever)

  • Blue/green tint

Some pet peeves of mine:

  • Having to press and hold to turn on or off a light - Example: Astrolux S42
  • Not having a shortcut to 100% output - Example: Astrolux S42
  • Not having a shortcut to minimum output - Example: Astrolux S42
  • Not having a shortcut to off - I hate flashlight controls that require you to cycle modes just to turn the light off. Even worse if some of those modes are useless blinky modes.
  • Always starting on high - If you’re getting up in the middle of the night and want to use moonlight mode, it’s probably because you don’t want to blast yourself or your partner with turbo.
  • Protruding sideswitches on EDC lights that too easily turn on in the pocket. The Zebralight SC51 had this issue. Zebralight fixed it by changing their switch design for the SC600 and all lights after that.
  • Smooth tubes with no knurling - I hate when my light feels unsteady in my hand… like it could squirt out at any moment.
  • Rough textured external surface that feels like chalk and causes the same unpleasant hair-raising feeling (such as that on the D4 Grainy Cyan, Sunwayman T26C tan, or bead-blasted titanium Olight S10)
  • EDC lights that are bigger than they need to be (lots of empty space inside the light, or lights with heads much wider than needed for their optic or reflector).
  • Greenish tint - I much prefer neutral tint with no green.
  • The switch needs to work when you press it - Example: Imalent. I have an Imalent 1x18650 light that has a ridiculous optical sensor instead of a button. It takes multiple tries and sometimes 10-seconds or more to get this control to do anything. It felt like Imalent saw all other wheels were round and decided they would reinvent it using a square-shape just to be different, without considering whether it would actually work better. They failed spectacularly.

If I’m not 100% satisfied, the Jewish guilt kicks in. Trust me it’s not pleasant.