A new design of flashlight hits the market for $50. Another brand copies it. At what point do you not buy the original?

Most times items are better quality than copies.
As designer takes more care/skill on lathe/ mill, etc.
wile using better quality materials. Hence charge more to cover
both costs and his time.

Unfortunately. the “cloners” etc. use cheap labour.
Materials, and employees with less skill.

IE Cheaper same looking, almost same feeling items, at a much cheaper price point.

Everybody gets angry…… Understandably.
BUT. Nowadays. In both Knives and Torches (what we talking about here)
SOME of the Chinese MFG’s have stepped up several steps and more.
With both materials and workmanship. They all use same drivers/led’s, basically.
The better ones.
Ive held and used some real expensive knives and torches, and used them.

Compared to SOME Chinese versions of certain makes.
And. Regardless of pricing.
There is very little, if any difference on quite a few (not all) of them.
Some copy’s are actually better in individual versions
According to some on here who have both.
But.
When you get down to it.

The expensive “I’d never buy one of those items”.
Have THEIR market.
The mid range originals and copy’s have theirs.
and the cheap of both. Also have their niche.
So. Basically.
We aint REALLY bothering the top Original designers/builders.

We wouldn’t/couldn’t afford to buy them anyway.
So where is the problem??. I reckon.

Look at chef’s knives. The real exxy Japanese and US Custom ones
(I’ve never seen)
They ALL hold terrific prices. Up to multiple Thousands of $$$’s.
and some have waiting lists of yrs.
Solely For the name. the steel. and the design.

There is a larger market of copies and almosts. at a fraction of their price.
They know it.
BUT… As with our items. THEIR buyers will buy theirs anyway.
The rest of us the lower level ones. Don’t bother them any.

So Why do some get knickers in twist. What we buy will never affect their back pockets.
We were NEVER going to buy their Market items anyway…
We just happy that we can get similar with lesser steel for a cheaper price.

It’s going to happen anyway.
Just forget it and get on with your lives I reckon……

The wording of the poll doesn't work for me.

I voted "$25.00 cheaper".

BUT...

The "I will buy it" doesn't accurately describe my mindset. More precisely, I might buy it at that price.

slmjim

The poll assumes you ARE going to buy at least one of the items. Think of a light you had already decided you were going to buy, and before you hit the payment button, a clone becomes available. The question is at what level of price break you would go for the copy instead of the original.

Where’s the “I don’t support unimaginative scumbags ” option?

I have been cooking with the same set of Zwilling J.A. Henckels kitchen knives for over 25 years. The current price for a close match to our set is around £300.

I’ve eyed some of the Japanese ones but the prices are insane.

At what point do I become accessory to theft?

GTFU

Actually, the Cometa came pretty close, except for the lens and the “extra” piece (limiting ring, iirr) that the Z1 has.

Mr Jax definitely got screwed over the lens fiasco, though.

I said it as a joke but it was true, by buying up all the Cometas for 15bux from BG, we all kept BG from selling them at the 50buk going-price.

I was thinking more of the UTorch UT01(?), which definitely had switch issues. Quality was certainly lacking there.

I believe that option is ‘$49’, $50 - $49 = “I only buy the clone if I can get it for $1”.

This question has too many variables

  • Where is each flashlight made and/or shipped from?
  • Was significant development burden carried by the community as in some BLF lights?
  • What specifically are the two companies involved?
  • Is there a significant quality difference between the two?
    • This could be build quality, better user interface and/or driver, better emitter or optics, etc.

If one is simply beyond my budget, I'd have to settle for the other. But there are also certain brands I'm very loyal to and would never buy the copy. For example, I'm a huge Jaxman fan, so I'd have definitely never bought a Cometa. But if a brand came out with an innovative light style with bad execution, and then someone made a "clone" with better quality, I'd likely buy the clone. This would be extremely unlikely to go against any of the brands I like because they don't cut corners on quality. Also, I would tend to want to reward companies that work with the community on projects. That said, I would be tempted to buy a TO50R HC clone just because the Wuben is frankly beyond my budget.

Yeah, his post history tells a good story for those who don't know how things went down. Poor guy.

There are no other variables, it’s hypothetical. I’m asking how much value do you place on rewarding the inventor.

You hypothetically have the $50.

Can I get a link please? I’m interested in reading about that.

That’s the last option.

I’ve seen counterfeit Rolexes that match that quality of genuine factory pieces for a fraction of the price. In visible attention to detail anyway.

I don’t think this logic always holds true for many industries and products, someone is always looking to improve upon an existing design.

Are you asking how would you know it’s more difficult to invent or design something new than it is to copy something already in existence?

Anyway, you know it, because if it was easier to be innovative, they’d be doing that.

Windows copied Apple
Facebook copied Orkut and Hot or Not
Samsung copied the iPhone
Android copied iOS
Telegram copied WhatsApp

This goes on and on… Improvements are the key.

http://budgetlightforum.com/user/14827/my-posts
You’ll have to search for something relevant… I think in the past searching for “banggood” tells a good bit of the story.

I don’t think the $50 price range is super appropriate for this question. In my personal opinion, it’s pretty clear-cut what makes a $50 light worth $50 or not, and I don’t think most of the innovation happening around the $50 price range can really get much cheaper (see FW3A and D4v2). I think there are companies making $20 lights and selling them for $50, but in those cases there isn’t any innovation to my eyes, so I wouldn’t care about buying the “clone”. If Astrolux announced a D4v2 clone today at the $25 price point I wouldn’t buy it, because there’s no way it could measure up at that price point. Also, Emisar is awesome and Hank’s a cool dude.
If you ask this for $100, $200, $600 lights, you will get different answers from different people. Would I buy a “clone” HDS Rotary for $50? Well, I think I’d be tempted depending on who made it and how the reviews looked. Would I buy the MF04 for $139.99 over a BLF GT with whatever coupon I can scrounge up? That one is less likely, although the MF04 would lego with my MF02…
When you think about it, the BLF Q8 could be considered an SRK clone. But it’s also not, and I think that’s a worthy distinction.
Then we get to worry about concurrent development. It looks to me like the certain lights like the MF01(s) and D18 have some overlap, but how much can we say one is a clone of another?

“At what point do you not buy the original?”…

If - and I say ‘if’ - I actually ‘knew’ it was a knockoff? - never… but that’s just me… I’ve made my living for decades from my intellectual property - so my personal perspective may be different… I try to walk the walk…

Scallywag,
The goal was to answer the question of “how much value do you place on rewarding the inventor?” It’s the best way I could think of to make it a real world example.

And then there’s the Sofirn Q8, and I have no recollection whether/not that was done with anyone’s blessing here. It’s cooler and throwier vs the BLF version, which is why I still prefer the BLF version (“neutraler” and floodier). As far as I know, they’re physically almost clones (vaguely recall the tube knurling was changed somewhat after).

Then there’s the Airpro DC7. Very Q8ish, but pineapple knurling, and usb-c charging! Beam’s closer to the Sofirn, but to me it’s now on my nighttime collection for “wotnahell’s that noise outside?” duty. UI’s a lobotomised Narsim, but still keeps the main functions (ramp up/down, shortcuts to moonlight and turbo).

So the question remains… how close or how different does something have to be for it to be considered or not be considered a ripoff?

Tube, shiny, clicky. That fits probably 90%+ of all flashlights out there.

In case of the BLF and Sofirn Q8, there are two relevant facts:

  1. Sofirn was the factory making the BLF Q8 for Thorfire, who was “making” it for BLF.
  2. BLF was literally asking for a newer, throwier version to be made by Sofirn, and they obliged.

I figured it’d be something like that, kewl.

People actually wanted something throwier? Hmm.

Recall (offhand; don’t go crazy looking) what else was “newer” about it? I thought the original was chock full of awesomeness.