It may not get traction on BLF, but I and some others (judging from discussions) are set to avoid Anduril. The general justification is that while it may feel great fiddling with flashlight UI, the idea is to use them to see things better, rather than to fiddle with them.
Recent experiences with the Sofirn IF19 suggest that, after all, I would like to fiddle with the UI - at least once, then use it as I see fit. Little things matter.
My question is (without prejudice): is it worth it and can Anduril fix it all?
Case in point: there are two versions of Soffirn SC21 light. The one with the Sofirn interface is nicely regulated. The one with Anduril is not. Why? Is Anduril useful only for certain kinds of drivers, for instance? Also, can Anduril be used to design a simple interface the way I want? Are there other other, user-adjustable firmware, that I could simplify and what flashlights use them (I know of Zebralight UI but I’m not sure how much can be adjusted.
Different drivers (hardware), the SC21 seems to have an unregulated turbo but other modes seems to be regulated.
The SC21 pro (anduril) use a FET+1 driver : unregulated above 350mA.
Sofirn/wurkkos only use FET+1 drivers with anduril.
Emisar/noctigon and Fireflies make Anduril lights with regulated drivers if that’s what you’re after ( sometimes with unregulated turbo, sometimes fully regulated)
Within the UI you can for example set it as a 3 mode light.
Three is a lot of smack talked about Anduril by people who have never used it, probably because they looked at the diagram and thought they needed to memorise it.
Click = on. Click and hold = get brighter. Click and hold again = get dimmer. Click = off. Everything else can be ignored if you like.
It can be. I’ve changed a couple settings on my lights so that from off long press = moonlight, click = medium, double click = high.
Anduril looks scary from the diagram but most of it is settings you can either ignore or that you set once and never touch again. Its beauty is the flexibility to set up your light how you want it.
On one hand, both mode spacing and ramping speed are better by default (and can be adjusted if you like), and things just can be set up. No weird issues with features that are configured in some dumb way (like the IF19 auto-lockout).
Every anduril light I get I setup once at the start and basically never touch settings again :).
My usual settings:
0. Enable Advanced UI (not always necessary)
Manual mode memory on to a level that makes sense for the particular light (I like the light to always start at a set level and adjust from there)
Disable auxes, the after-off couple second indicator is enough for me and with my amount of use per light the auxes would eat most of the battery
Set turbo behavior to double click goes to turbo
Rarely I change the top/bottom of the ramp depending on the capabilities of the driver etc
To me, the beauty of Anduril is that I can make adjustments to my preferences. Then I can leave it alone. I remember the few things , like battery check, electronic locking, turbo, that I use most. All the rest I can look up if needed. I keep both text and graphic help sheets on my phone, my PC and paper copies in a file drawer.
Three is a lot of smack talked about Anduril by people who have never used it, probably because they looked at the diagram and thought they needed to memorise it.
Click = on. Click and hold = get brighter. Click and hold again = get dimmer. Click = off. Everything else can be ignored if you like.
The one problem I find with Anduril is that it’s not intuitive how to decrease the brightness. If I hand it to someone, they have no problem with holding to increase brightness, but doing a “release and hold again” is not at all obvious, even after explaining. They can learn to hold the button when turning it on to get low modes, but that’s not obvious without telling them. Forget about trying to teach a non-flashlight-user about timing of button presses to reverse the ramp.
Simple Mode is nice, but they still have to learn about timing button presses. That usually just results in them turning off the light. IMO, Simple Mode should act like cheap lights: click for on low brightess, click again to increase brightness, click again for high brightness, click again for off. That’s a simple interface that anyone will figure out very quick.
With Anduril (1, 2? what’s the main difference?) could I design the following interface for instance:
click from off brings low
click from on goes: low-med-high-med-low-med-high… (up and down, not around)
long click from any on turns the light off
long click from off brings moonlight
click from moonlight brings low
double click from on or off brings turbo
click or double click from turbo brings previous mode including off
Also, I imagine that there is some combination of clicks that enters programming mode. Is it complicated enough not to bring it by accidental frivolous clicking?
See my answers in italics. Most lights except for Convoy with Anduril will be Anduril 2, this is the more flexible of the two. Convoy for some reason perseveres with Anduril 1.
You have a choice of smooth ramping for brightness or steps.
2H means click, then click and hold. This also works within ramping, so if you hold to increase brightness and go too far, letting go and then doing another click and hold will ramp down.
Mode memory can be automatic where it remembers the last level used, manual where it remembers the level you set and always starts there, or hybrid where it will remember the last level for your specified number of minutes and after that use your set level.
If you edit the source code and recompile it, which you can do, you can probably change it to be exactly what you want. Without doing that you’re not going to be able to change, for example, click for off to be long click for off.
You won’t find another interface that gives you more flexibility than Anduril 2, but if you have very specific requirements for what you want and it doesn’t meet those requirements, you may be better looking for a light that has the interface you want.
This UI seems not far off from what I imagined would be fitting for a flashlight. @koef3 already suggested adding moonlight as the unused long press, which may be intuitive enough and useful. The only thing I would change is cycling through light levels: not around, but up and down (i.e. not LMHLMHLMH… but LMHMLMHMLMH… I’m split on memory: it may be handlier to always start from low.
Not sure if this head/helmet lamp is any good - I understand US military buys (was buying?) it so probably expensive - but at least the UI does what I always wanted: LMHMLMH… not LMHLMHLMH…
