And sub-lumen moonlight is what the majority of users are going to want. The idea is to have a minimal amount of light to be able to see and be discreet and not hurt night-adapted eyes. Very important feature to most of us.
If it’s a floody beam, 1-2lm shouldn’t hurt night-vision, as intensity is less, being more spread-out.
If it’s throwy, just the opposite.
And sublumen should then be more properly be called “firefly” instead of “moonlight”.
Me, I prefer moonlight over firefly, as I’m mostly looking for stuff on the floor or just walking in pitch-blackness, vs checking a map or watchface.
In my GTmicro, which runs Narsim and is about as throwy as you can get, I configged “moonlight” (shortcut press’n’hold from off) to 1, the lowest, and a fractional-second longer for “floor”. So I can choose between firefly and moonlight depending how long I press from off.
So maybe something like that… press’n’hold shortcut can take you to firefly first (eg, 1sec) and jump to moonlight after (eg, 1½sec).
Not disturbing others sleeping, keeping dark adaptation for eyes, reading maps, looking inside bag at night or other close-up tasks where even 1-2lm can be harsh and too bright. The <1lm modes on the M150 and H04 is one of their best features and something that makes them really stand out from many other competing lights at similar price.
Some situations require a better preservation of night vision.
Here’s a UI idea on managing it.
Activate moonlight.
Click, Click+HOLD — shifts moonlight to next intensity. 0.3 lm, 0.5 lm, 1 lm, and 2 lm are the levels. After 2lm, intensity resets back to 0.3 lm. Whatever intensity you had set your moonlight, it will be recalled anytime moonlight is activated. Another idea would be if you do click, click+hold and continue holding, for each 2 seconds it steps up to the next intensity until 2 lm, then resets after that.
M400 needs a recessed button switch that is easy to find in class complete darkness. The M300 switch is so small and very difficult to locate in the dark.