That tiny LED on the other side is used as a light sensor.
It turns on when it’s dark (and off when it’s light).
With the little potentiometer you can adjust the sensitivity.
They work kind of okay, i have 1 or 2 somewhere.
I have some six led versions in cool & warm white & dimable bought them a couple of years ago from AliExpress ,I can’t remember how much but they were very cheap ,I’ve never really used them ,I just got them because they were cheap :money_mouth_face:
You scared me, I never like to overpay! lol. I went back to my account, and saw I did pay ~$0.03/pc (50pc for $1.67 was what I paid) I ordered because someone on BLF posted the deal. Surprisingly the LED is still on Arrow website listed as “discontinued” but price is now up to $0.10/pc. My memory was also wrong on the CCK, it was 3000K, not 2700K.
They are as small as my filed ones and have potential to be minimized as well.
I need more experience to tell whether I like them (the UI seemed flaky) but the initial impression is good.
They are cute, terrible tint and not all that bright, but ok for impromptu lighting of whatever sort. I don’t have any of the tiny pcb type that goes straight in the usb socket but I’ll look for those. The ones on the gooseneck stalk may get in your eyes less though.
I think runtime on a small usb powerbank might not be that great, because the powerbank electronics themselves use some power, in addition to whatever the light uses. So the setup will be less efficient than a flashlight with the same amount of battery energy. But it does seem handy.
I gotta say, none of these are flashlights per se (no internal batteries). I’d rather call them mini lamps or something. I spent quite a while looking for actual USB flashlights (built in USB plug, charge without needing a cable) hoping to find one that looked like a USB memory stick. Best I could find was a lot larger, 73*26*18 mm**3:
(There are a bunch of different sellers of this light: that one seems representative, there is one that charges $7.90 and ships from the US if anyone wants the link).
I wonder why this format is not more popular. The one issue I can think of is figuring out where to put the lanyard hole in a smaller light, but there have to be ways to do that.
I think I bought mine off of eBay or FastTech a few years back. If I remember right, it was something like $2 or $3.
6 LED’s (2 x 3). Touch control (either top with single finger, or pinch both sides simultaneously w/forefinger+thumb). Stepless ramp up, ramp down, and then off/on. It’s pretty bright for its size.