Anduril ... 2?

Overall, I think they are all great improvements.
One thing that in my opinion would be interesting, is the ability to change the ramp settings of the simple UI from the advanced UI, maybe even changing it from smooth to stepped, in a way that when you revert to simple it remains locked. Being able to calibrate thermal sensors from advanced would be nice.
Another interesting thing IMHO, would be to have a “reserved” spot in simple UI (like click-click-hold) where you can put one blinky mode of choice, such as beacon or strobe.
From all the new features, as said by others, I would put emphasis on making it more difficult to change settings, especially thermal settings, but also ramp. Maybe having an option to lock and unlock that kind of settings.

As always, thank you for doing this for the community.

Well, since this would be a complete rework, would it be possible to add one more feature?

Voltage measurement adjustement. Similarly as there is temperature fine-tuning.
Currently the only option to fine-tune the flashlight is to recompile and flash the firmware.

This would make correcting any manufacturing defects much easier.

Oh yes, some of my FW3As are way out with their voltage measurements. 4.4V on a freshly charged cell in one, and 4.1V when I put the cell in another. Voltage measurement tuning would be great.

While I understand your reasoning, I really like the blinks. For FET lights, it allows me to know when I’m leaving regulated and entering FET world. Sometimes I prefer to stay below that threshold.

This is a great idea.

Agreed.

I would really hate to lose those ramp blinks on something like the D4. I always use them to avoid going over the FET threshold when I want to be efficient.

My use case is probably small enough to ignore, but I’ll make the request anyway. I use an EC03 for cycling, especially in the winter. I would love a “bike” mode. This could be accomplished (at least) a couple of ways:

  1. Have the strobe modes (optionally) “remembered” by mode memory. If I click off in bike strobe mode, the next time I click on, I’m back in bike strobe mode. Even a click-click-hold is tricky with winter mittens on.
  2. A new, dedicated bike-light mode that defaults to bike strobe, but might also have a way to access ramping or stepped (non strobe) modes. Meh.

I’ve actually considered doing #1 myself, but I still haven’t gotten the source from banggood for the EC03.

+2.

I don’t think reducing output by default is a good idea. Being a muggle does not prevent one from wishing to have the best lights out there.
That’s why some buy 100klum lights from unreliable brands. And that’s why those who invested time in basic research buy 4000 lm lights from good brands.
When a muggle buys a 4000 lm flashlight but it actually outputs 1000 lm there’s a big risk of disappointment - and it’s likely that a muggle won’t be able to figure out that there’s a hidden switch that unlocks a ton of extra performance.
I think that the best way to make muggles safe is to:

  • offer overheating and undervoltage protection
  • include cell to make sure it’s a good one
  • include charging so there’s little incentive to remove the cell
  • lock the cell inside so it can’t be removed without a special tool (but make the tool available to tinkerers)
  • add features like the already mentioned output reduction when the light is close to some object. I know it’s hard to do perfectly but even if you can stop half of damage induced this way - it’s better to have it than not.

As to size - I don’t think that it’s a good idea to limit the size to 8K.
Now that there’s Attiny1616 port available there can be many more features in the lights that feature this latest chip.

sounds GREAT!

Idea:
the Muggle mode could have a lower (fixed) Templimit
and in "Pro" the limit can be raised

that way the full power is available shorter and safer - but still there

This all sounds great to me. Any interface becomes more cluttered over time. Smart designers know when to bite-the-bullet (byte-the-bullet?) and rethink them.

I do recommend coming up with a new name for the new interface. If you just add a 2 or Pro after Andruil it will be “abbreviated” out of existence in too many cases.

The LITE mode is an excellent approach, but I would like to see it kept really simple. Most people get into trouble by accidentally clicking an extra time or two and then they don’t know where they are or how to get back. In LITE mode nothing under four clicks should affect anything beyond on/off and brightness. I would be okay with a plain full-range ramp and nothing else, plus an 8H or 10H to get to the full-feature mode. If strobe or beacon needs to be available from LITE mode start those options at 4C or more.

I would put all of the configuration options outside of LITE mode. If a novice wants to customize they can toggle into the full mode, make the changes, and toggle back out, using the manual for guidance.

Put the change from ramping to steps into the configuration menus so that it’s harder to toggle by accident.

I would love to see a configurable timeout-to-lock option.

I like the current two-stage options when in lock mode, but I guess I wouldn’t object to always going through the lowest mode first.

Making the auxiliary controls consistent would be nice. Having the option to separately configure button lights would also be great, for lights that can support it.

Thank you for asking us for input on this! I look forward to using whatever you come up with.

Now I want someone on the hardware side to make an equivalent to Hank’s reflashing kit for the lights that have 8-pad connectors. :slight_smile:

I would like to see an easier to access aux LED control for the brightest aux modes.

Currently, on a light like the Emisar D4, dim Aux LED mode is all you need to find the light in the dark, and it is efficient.

  • Bright aux mode is far too bright to be used as a “find the light” indicator. It’s bright enough to light up a room by itself and runs the battery down too fast to be left on all the time.
  • It is bright enough it would be useful for those who might actually want to light something up with colored light. Similar to how some lights from Nitecore have a red led that is easily controlled.
  • In order to be useful as an alternative light source like this, it would need to be a lot easier to turn on and off bright aux LED mode. Perhaps quad-click to swap from main LED to bright aux LED. And the configuration allowing this to happen perhaps could be enabled when configuring the light in settings mode.
  • Dim aux LED mode could be kept as-is.

Please Toykeeper make Anduril easy to use and hide the configuration modes

less than 7 clicks shouldn’t change anything

changing aux mode from lockout should need 7 clicks like when unlocked (no more accidental aux mode change when you miss a click trying to exit unlock mode)

no more 3 clicks from on to change between stepped /smooth ramping

I like the idea turning on the flashlight after exiting lockout mode (4 clicks) without having to single click again

I love vast interface, but have been hesitant to suggest a light because it may be overwhelming to non-enthusiasts or those that just want to KISS. I’d love to gift to family and friends some of the high output lights if they were able to be factory full power but still maintain a level of safety.

How about an app - PC or phone - where you choose your UI preferences (ramp ceiling, mode memory etc) via toggles and sliders.

Then when you are ready to program the light, the app generates a morse-code style sequence of long and short presses; the preferences are encoded in this sequence.

You simply put your flashlight into programming mode (via a long press), then enter the sequence to program the light. The app can “play” the sequence visually (scrolling left-to-right) to help you with the timing. Like Guitar Hero!

Is this practical?

There have been concepts of using screen flashes to program a flashlight. Due to an interesting property of LEDs, they can act like tiny little (inefficient) solar panels. Placing an LED flashlight bezel down on a phone screen that flashes out a sequence at max brightness should in theory be able to program the flashlight. I’d love to see this executed successfully, but I think there are limitations that have prevented it being successful so far.

Maybe have an option for those flashlights with USB charging to be able to program from the USB port? I guess this is hardware dependent but would be so much easier than using pins etc…

Anduril has been an eye opener for me, makes a flashlight a bit more than a simple flashlight.

To me however like my cameras, I’d like to see custom memory modes. f1,f2,f3 f(function) for example. (preferably on a second dedicated function button)

I can customize for the purpose/role of the light

examples of possible custom memory modes,

f1 tactical - instant on/off at programmable brightness - on/off only (for a lot of muggles this is all they want. on/off)
f2 muggle2 - ramp/step with moon to x level brightness
f3 bicycle mode - instant on/off
fx instant sunset mode - programmable duration on/off
fy demo - rotate between ramp/flash, stepped on/off
fz star gazing mode - moonlight/warm on/off
f? aux only mode - on/off, rotate between color, or ramp rgb?

non - function mode = everything like today. Lets not lose any functionality.

Maybe have some preset modes for muggle like after a battery swap (for muggle). So if for whatever reason someone gets into a weird mode, they can always reset easily. I know my kids have clicked more than 7 times continuously, or put the light in momentary mode, and had to reset. They may not even remember to press the button for flash sequence to complete.

Then for pro mode - reset with button pressed through sequence like today - opens all settings/configurations

for the current Anduril, maybe make momentary mode, more than 5 clicks? Often times on a light I put in my pocket I tend to turn on lock mode (4-clicks), but accidentally put it in momentary mode and have to reset. :frowning: putting it next to each other in click sequence is easy to make mistake.

I propose naming the new version Anduril Pro

Possible Anduril Pro Configurations:

Anduril Pro Safe LITE
stepped, emulation of the Olight S Mini UI
ramped, emulation of the Nitecore D10 UI

Anduril Pro Safe BRITE
stepped: emulation of Novatac UI programmable modes
ramped: Nitecore D10 Ramping UI, plus blinkies

Anduril Pro Full BRITE
ramped: a trained operator can raise the temperature ceiling to 65C

Safe config has 35C temperature limit

Anduril Pro Full BRITE “Scholar” Mode config allows operator to raise the temperature limit to 65C.

Just wanted to make sure you’re aware that if you set the ramp ceiling to turbo to can then get to it directly from off. But yeah, it you want to also have a lower ceiling then that would require a change.

Curious how you utilize this in real-world use. If you ramp until the blink and then stop are you good, or do you have to ramp back down a bit? Is there any way to take advantage of this feature in stepped mode?

Could we get some programing options for power on state? It’d be nice to add a clicky tail switch or make something like a D4V2 into a twisty. Similar to having Biscotti or Guppydvr combined with Anduril and some added functionality of still having an e-side switch. Would love a tactical turbo start with the rear clicky and moonlight start with side + clicky.

I recall TK looked into this for Anduril and even put in some of the preliminary code needed to implement it.

The problem was that it was far too slow for firmware updates. It would have taken hours to download.

However, I could see an app being useful for changing custom settings since presumably much less data would need to be transmitted. But on the other hand, if you can change your custom settings just with a series of button presses on the light, why go through the effort to create a phone app to do the same thing?

Extended:

  • offer overheating and undervoltage protection
  • include cell to make sure it’s a good one
  • include charging so there’s little incentive to remove the cell
  • lock the cell inside so it can’t be removed without a special tool (but make the tool available to tinkerers)
  • (ADDED LATER) make physical design that makes accidental activation unlikely
  • add features like the already mentioned output reduction when the light is close to some object. I know it’s hard to do perfectly but even if you can stop half of damage induced this way - it’s better to have it than not.