Maybe leaving Andúril untouched (except bugfixes/ports) and giving the rewritten code a new name would be a good idea?
TK - I think you have a point here - I do find myself in Ramp config sometimes with 4 clicks done mistakenly.
It’s less of a theory and more of an observation. Muggles are buying dangerous lights, more and more often, so I’m looking for ways to address the complaints people have had.
Exactly. It’s happening quite a bit lately, so there has been a big increase in demand for “Anduril LITE” or other simplifications. I don’t want to ship items without the ability to do all the fun stuff though, so I’m looking for a way to do both.
It seems like the options are limited to only the following:
- Make a simple UI the only option.
- Manufacturer replaces the firmware with their own simple UI.
- Default to a simple UI, but include an option to enable more stuff if the user wants it.
- Limit sales to only a few enthusiast communities.
The first two have already happened a few times… because option 3 doesn’t exist and companies don’t like option 4 at all.
It’s not just safety though. People keep reporting that they feel overwhelmed and confused by all the features, and they want something which does less. Some are quite vocal about it, or even angry. So a few companies have already responded to this by making less-functional products, on purpose, to fill the demand.
Of course, at BLF we generally don’t want lights to do less. But maybe it’ll serve both crowds if it does less by default, but has an option so we can easily enable the full feature set.
There’s still a lot of communication to do first though, to make sure everyone’s needs are addressed and try to find agreeable solutions.
One thing I’m pretty sure of though… is that it’ll need to be renamed so it’s not called “muggle mode”. That’s arguably a bit insulting and makes it sound like something people should turn off immediately and never think about again. Instead, it might need to be something like “normal mode” and “advanced mode”. Or something which otherwise suggests that it’s okay to leave it in the default state if the user isn’t feeling adventurous.
Yeah, it could perhaps be Anduril2 or something. I don’t know; I’m terrible with names. 
Maybe have some sort of ‘safety pin’ which isn’t supplied with retail lights, but could be sold as an extra on places like Neals, which is slightly more niche or on forums for enthusiasts.
When the ‘pin’ is in it opens up ‘allsingingalldancingpaperlightingballoonburstingmayhem’ 
Joking aside, it’s not the worst idea. Obviously you can’t stop a muggle if they really want one, but at least you tried.
Could be as simple as a small unique earphone jack in the tailcap? I dunno lol! I know lasers have basic pins of sorts.
That’s an inherent problem when selling a hand-grenade to The Muggle.
It’s all fun’n’games ’til someone burns a hole in his coffee table or sets his kid’s pyjamas on fire.
“Special” mode. :laughing:
Something that doesn’t autocorrect to “Andouille”?
It defiantly should be changed. (Ha! See what I did there?)
ToyKeeper, What happened with Programming a flashlight from a computer screen 
Is programing the light via an app on the phone to feasible?
Using the LEDs as light sensors only works when the driver is wired up correctly, so it doesn’t work on most Anduril lights. Only the FW3A driver has the right connections inside.
There are also other limitations…
- Data transfer is 1-way only, so if it fails in the middle of a transfer there isn’t a way to retry the failed part.
- Data transfer is slow — roughly 1 byte per second. So flashing the firmware would take hours.
- The data buffer is small… only a few hundred bytes. So it can’t verify the transfer worked before flashing the firmware.
- For safety reasons, it would need a special bootloader for optical flashing purposes. This doesn’t exist yet, and would reduce the available space for the rest of the firmware.
So it’s not very practical for firmware flashing purposes. It could still be used for sending config data, so the user would configure settings in a web app. However, I don’t want that to be mandatory, and the code needs to support a bunch of devices without optical sensors, so it would still need a way to configure things with button presses.
Long story short, it’s neat but very limited.
Unbelievably, I still don’t own an Emisar, and it is something i really need to fix.
TK is just thinking out loud right now, and I’m sure there will be an opportunity for suggestions before a simpler UI, or whatever, will be launched. I agree that it would be great if there was a way to get some of these great new lights into the hands of “muggles”. I would love to gift some, but certainly can’t unless they are simpler/safer. I think we would have to have on board charging, a simple on/off with ramping, no party modes, and a strict brightness limit to where the light wouldn’t overheat, and step down as necessary. It would have to be configured accurately this way, out of the box, and it would have to stay this way, regardless of errant button pushes. A lot of us wouldn’t like it, a lot people outside the forum would think it was fantastic. Making everyone happy is probably impossible.
Just a few random thoughts run through the blender…
To be honest/blunt, I’m not quite sure what’s the point of gifting or even encouraging The Muggle to buy an Überlight. Whether it’s dumbing it down, hobbling it, lobotomising it, affixing training-wheels to it, whatever, if someone can’t handle it, what’s the point?
It’s like gifting someone a Ferrari but installing a “teen mode” speed-governor to it.
The SC31 and even that 500lm Xiomi “lipstick” light were designed to suit that purpose, and at least the former was “improved” by making it brighter. :person_facepalming:
Advertising a light that can set small children on fire from 50’ away sounds tres kewl, but it is practical? Oh, it’s fun (well, except for the small children), but is it the best thing for The Muggle?
I got a DC7 which is very Q8ish, but for the most part only has ramping and a coupla shortcuts. Works fine for probably 95% of the population. Even if it had candle-mode and LOL mode and 0-0-0-destruct-0 mode and all these other fun options which you could only enable first by bapping the sideswitch with “iddqd” in Morse code, great. But that’s really only for The Enthusiast, no? The plumber who just wants to see what’s in the dark scary cellar probably doesn’t care about the blinkies.
Simplifying the UI, while making hurt-yourself modes harder to get to, great. But even defaulting to “special”-mode will absolutely result in returns and nasty reviews. Guaranteed.
Case in point. I recently got a food thermometer (B019W2CGM6). The “cap” which slides onto the probe can be stuck onto the opposite end to extend its “reach” into a hot oven. Some lackbrain 1-starred it and commented, “Uhh, that’s not 13in, more like 13mm!”. Wait, an exact quote is best…
This is 13MM NOT 13 INCH!! Only reason I bought this one was for the long reach. Returning. P!SSED
Retard.
This is what you’d be dealing with. When people return lights because they “don’t work”, and can’t be bothered to take out the protective disc on the end of the cell, even though it’s triple-wrapped in glow-tape saying so, wellp, that’s the result.
So… yeah, maybe simplify the most-used functions if need be, and make it harder to get into hurt-yourself modes, and that should be enough.
Come to think of it, how many, even BLF members, mistakenly believed they received 0 voltage brand-new. batteries?
In case it’s at all useful as a data point, “didn’t realize the batteries had stickers on the end” seems to be the #1 or #2 reason for returns of the Sofirn SP36. It’s really common for people to just try to turn it on, get no response, and assume it’s broken… not realizing that shipping regulations require the batteries to be physically blocked from making contact.
I hear it was also common for people to miss the “insert batteries from the front” card placed in the FW3A box.
There has been an increase of people like this buying BLF-related lights, so we should probably find ways to deal with that. And more generally, muggle mode has always kinda sucked, so it’s worth rewriting regardless.
I’d love for muggle mode to turn into a pocket friendly (accidental turns on don’t result in burnt pockets)/anduril lite mode.
My suggestions would be to keep the basics of a good UI, so hold from off for moonlight, triple click from off for battery check, double click from off to the top of the safe ramp, and single click from off to memory. The ramp can start from either moonlight or a higher level, but access to a moonlight mode by holding from off is a crucial feature that I think anyone can appreciate.
I’d propose that the memory be tied to the memory mode outside of muggle mode, so you could either preconfigure a set turn on level or go with the default of using whatever was the last level. From on, a single click for off and a double click for top of the ramp.
Outside of muggle mode, it might be nice to move most of the config options a few further clicks away.
I suggest Glamdring.
I think most of us agree. The problem though is that we can’t stop the Muggles from getting the lights - Muggles are buying the lights, whether we like it or not. That leads to…
- Muggles buy the lights. We can’t stop this.
- Muggles don’t like/leave bad reviews/return the lights because they’re confusing/dangerous/whatever. Maybe even because the muggle put a AA in his D4 and it didn’t go.
- Manufacturers begin responding to the Muggle audience instead of us, because there’s more Muggles (and therefore more money to be made from Muggles)
See, thing is, Muggles buying the enthusiast designs we love is a good thing, because if what we like is commercially successful, we can get it made easier. If Lumintop makes FW3A and it sells like hotcakes, they’re probably going to be more willing to build the next hot design we pitch them. What we have to be mindful of going forward, and what TK is addressing here, is that Muggles are part of the buying audience now and we need to take into account how to make the lights we want also work for them.
To help get the thread back on topic, I too think Emisar is a good brand.
Things like their: build quality, innovation, and value are (IMHO) easily above even custom flashlight makers.
That being said, I think they have room for improvement. For one thing, based on my IPC J-STD-001 certification training, I would not pass their LED board soldering.
But than again, I wouldn’t pass many, many manufacturers for their ESD practices or soldering.
In summary, Emisar is good but could technically be better.
This is a brilliant idea, TK. By doing this, you avoid the novice from having to struggle. People like Nick Shabazz (he’s a major knife reviewer but just did the FW3A… and was befuddled by the UI) would become a viable customer, not scared off by a complex UI. So when reset, light is in muggle mode. You can easily step out of muggle and stay that way, having full access to the Anduril system. You could make it a “10 clicks” to get out of muggle, so a novice won’t accidentally get into the main Anduril UI.
There is a WIN strategy. You can make 2 kinds of Muggle modes. FULL and LIMITED. FULL by default, so full power of light is available. LIMITED when giving to children, so they don’t hurt themselves if they manage to get a hold of the flashlight. Muggle group should have a fairly easy means to toggle between the two sub groups.
[quote=ToyKeeper]
This is a brilliant solution TK! Definitely the best of both worlds. Safe for muggles by default, trivial for enthusiasts to “unlock” the full potential.
Am I the only one who checks Hank’s website daily for new lights I definitely don’t need?
Nope, not the only one. Some people even have scripts check automatically and send notifications when anything changes.
And I thought it was Surefire……… All these years collecting ’em.
For nothing. I’ll throw ’em away. (Over a 100 different models. 150 plus with the duplicates.)
Only I won’t tell you where. Since you consider they are of inferior quality.
Good luck with your fifty dollars, hand burning, plain looking, 10k modes you can’t use lights.
Cheers.