Unpopular Flashlight Opinion Thread

On summer DST and now with the days getting shorter, it’s dark at around 5:40 AM when I leave to work, so I carry an 18650 torch as a bike light. The best I have for this is the Convoy S2 OP on around 400lm mode.

In the same vein, I have to turn on all the lamps and AC units in the library I work at, and you’d be surprised at how the smartphone’s LED doesn’t reach far enough through the aisles to be comfortable. A light with a reflector is indispensable, if only for peace of mind when I hear a strange noise.

And lest we forget, the ergonomics of smartphones are utter dogshit.

Also, what happens if your phone is low on battery?

Don’t want to waste additional power.

And what happens when you drop it?
Or you want an actual beam of light?
Or continuous output

There are unpopular opinions, and there are facts.

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Especially when one of the Lizard People jumps out from between the racks, you’d be thankful for a real light.

You know, there are some very much human-skinned snakes in the grass over there. You’d be surprised at the history my campus has with police cases.

Mmm. Last summer, basement level (storage), crappy cellphone pic.

No, you actually want to recharge and keep using as much as normally. That’s usually easy nowadays with USB outlet in any computer, in public places, in most cars, increasingly in public transport. Then - quite a few actually EDC powerbanks.

Same things as always. If you’re worried about dropping a phone, get a case or a tough phone. If you’re not the question is irrelevant.

I believe good majority would be OK with a mule. Maybe not 99% - and the biking example was what made me think so.
But then - maybe the bikers would get a dedicated bike light and carry something else. Like a cell phone.

Do you have a phone that can’t produce continuous LED light?

You presented 4 questions and 0 facts. I suppose the questions were meant to be rhetorical with obvious answers. And they were not.

I have two clones of that SupFire S1. Not quite as nice as yours, but as close as I could get. It’s a pretty good host for custom lights. One has a red XP-E2 and acts as the tail light on my bike, while the other has a Nichia 219B 4500K and resides in the shower. Both are, incidentally, not good places for a smartphone flashlight.

A single-emitter FW3A would be nice (FW1A), and a 14500 version would be nice… but I think I’m even more interested in something a little smaller. I still want an 18350 aluminum version of the Olight S-Mini, modified to have a good neutral white emitter and run Anduril.

This is a bit old, but I still haven’t found a better 1xAA light than the L3 L10-219.

Well, a powerbank would require an additional USB cable to be plugged in constantly, which isn’t practical at all.
And it can fall, killing the port. Didn’t happen to me, but happened to some of my friends.

A dropped phone, even in a case, can sustain damage or fall in water, or even fall in a sewer…
I would be sad if my light dropped, but my phone that is much more expensive and has a lot of data? I’d be extremely worried and anxious.

Phones have a lot of glare due to having a flashlight, which can be detrimental when you want to do work with other people, and the unfocused beam makes it hard to have a significant amount of light close by.

That was in relation to the phone. If your phone’s battery pack is dead, even a powerbank won’t be able to recharge it instantly, and you’ll be left without light.

The main reasons phones will never replace flashlights are because of physics.

If we could fit a 1mm2 95CRI LED consuming 1W of power, and outputting 1000 lumens with a tiny lens, then maybe most of us wouldn’t need, or even want a flashlight.

For now however, flashlights will never be replaced by a phone’s light by a long shot.

I and the other night workers must be in the 1% of people who truly need lights better than those on a phone. I use multiple lights every night. Some for the outdoors, some for large buildings, some for miscreants. I came to this forum not to feed a hobby but out of necessity. The funny thing is that I did get hooked and went for the lambo, but I could have gotten by with the jeep. A cell phone light is more like a scooter by comparison.

Constantly? Recharge and unplug.

Well, people nowadays tend to use phones everywhere while doin everything. Literally. I’m yet to hear anyone saying “sorry, I didn’t pick up the phone because I was near water and was afraid of dropping it”. Or anything close.

I’m not a fan of mule lights. Or extremely floody in general. And glare is the major reason. But then - I like powerful lights only. A powerful mule has serious glare issues. A phone light? I’m yet to feel bothered by one.

So recharge before it happens.

1000 lm/W is impossible for a flashlight as well and I fail to see how it’s relevant to the original statement.

But…no way, phones stand no chance against a good flashlight. The original opinion however was

So…for a certain group of people phone light is almost always good enough.
There was no statement of it being better. There was no statement of it replacing flashlights.
Though then - some time ago my mum asked me to find her an EDC light. After learning what she needed it for and what she used before I adviced her to use a phone light. And she’s happy with it. For her a phone light actually replaced a dedicated (but poor) flashlight.

Nah.

A cellphone light would be like walking/running on foot to go somewhere far. Doable, but not practical at all.

A run of the mill 1000 lumen light would be an “average” electric bike.

An Emisar D4 would be a 3kW overdriven 1,5kW e-Bike.

A BLF Q8 would be the same as the Emisar D4, but with a 4kW overdriven 3k cargo e-Bike.

A Haikelite MT09R would be a super powered electric motorcycle.

A BLF GT would be a super long range 1,5kW e-Bike with a 10kWh battery pack.

A DX80 would a Tesla Model S75.

An Acebeam X70 would be a Tesla Model S P100D.

The MS18 would be a Tesla Roadster P200D.

But in this analogy - some just don’t go farther than a block away. They never need to. Or hardly ever.

Want to read a sign at night? Want to light up the back of your computer? You dropped something and it rolled under a car?
A high end light won’t improve much over phone in such uses.

I’m not sure this counts as an unpopular opinion, but I don’t like smartphones. Or non-smart phones either. The hardware is okay, but the software is pretty bad… and they have largely become just another way to receive spam.

Here is what I use a smartphone for:

  • Text messages (SMS)
  • Voice calls (infrequently)
  • Reading books
  • As a clock when I’m not at home
  • Measuring flashlight runtimes with zak.wilson’s “ceilingbounce” app
  • Guitar tuner (infrequently)
  • Navigating on roads (very infrequently)
  • Alarm clock while travelling (very infrequently)

… and things I don’t use a smartphone for:

  • Flashlight
  • Music player
  • Video player
  • Social media
  • Chat client
  • Web browser
  • Calendar
  • Todo list
  • Grocery list
  • Taking notes
  • Taking pictures

… because it’s bad at all of these things and I’d rather use something less-bad.

Many of these are things I would like to use it for, but smart phone OSes really hold back the potential of the hardware. My old Linux PDA from 2001 was a more capable device than an average smartphone, despite its primitive hardware, because the OS didn’t get in the way of what I wanted it to do.

I’ve been involved in portable device OS development several times, and can say from first-hand experience that many of the problems with smart phones are caused by corporate businessmen making high-level decisions which are not in the user’s interests. It’s (mostly) not bad for technological reasons; it’s for profit.

But in the case of phone flashlights, those are bad for tech reasons. It’s only there so people can take pictures indoors and at night. It’s not even trying to be good as a flashlight; it’s trying to be a camera flash.

I think the problem with the original statement is the author’s projection of his personal justification for indulging in this “hobby”. Its arrogant to claim enthusiasts are in denial, and to do it with such a blanket statement is dismissive and rude. It’s not an unpopular opinion, its someone wrestling with their own psychological determinations about these expenditures. Its far too negative, using terms like “toys”, “fixation” and “impractical ”. To some, these lights demonstrate craftsmanship, to others they can be art. You have to ask, why so belittling?

This thread invites people to make bold statements and that is the fun of this thread. So sounding a bit arrogant about your opinion is specifically in this thread, welcome and invites counter-opinion.

IMO of course :slight_smile:

To be fair, if I could drive a supercar to work every day, I’d do it. What’s the fun in keeping it in a garage? It’s bad enough I can’t respect the local speed limits.

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I find that a phone is useless 99% of the time when I need a light

Wellp, this is about unpopular opinions, so in that sense I guess it fits, if everyone’s getting their undies all in a twist. :laughing:

Thing is, I’ve seen phone “flashlights” in 3 different varieties: screen goes full white, lit by the backlight; camera-flash LED doing double-duty as a “flashlight”, and a dedicated teeny 5mm LED or so being used as an actual flashlight. They’re all kinda silly, just as pliers on a SAK. They might be better’n nothing, but not by much.

I’ve got key doodads that slip onto the key itself and have a built-in coin-cell and LED. I’ve also got dedicated blanks to serve that function (available at your friendly neighborhood locksmith). Squeeze to light it up, and it lights up the keyhole perfectly right where the key’s going. Limited lifespan of the cell, usually nonreplaceable, so not quite suited for general-purpose lighting.

In any case, when something rolls under the couch, or falls under a car-seat, or drops down sewer-grates, using a cellphone for lighting would be either useless or retarded (unless you don’t mind the phone falling down the sewer, in a toilet, between cabinet and wall, etc.).

So even an AAA light would be better. Some twisties being barely bigger’n the cell itself, they could be put to good use by quite many people.

But hey, we have our choice of AAA/10440, AA/14500, 16340, 18650, whatever. You wanna carry a Q8 strapped to your belt, hey, go crazy.

So… can’t we all just get alooooong? [snark]