BLF A6 firmware solved this IMO, short tap goes through modes as normal, medium tap goes backwards. Backwards from moonlight goes turbo > strobe > battery check etc. A simple clicky firmware with a shortcut to turbo, and battery/strobe that’s not in the main group
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We’re getting pretty far from the thread topic.
About Convoy’s 12-group UI though, the thought process was something like this: Simon wanted something like DrJones guppydrv, implemented on a standard nanjg driver (attiny13a, 8x7135). I didn’t want to clone guppy so I offered Bistro, but he didn’t want that because it needed a nicer driver (attiny25). So I cut parts out of Bistro until it fit on attiny13 and worked more like guppydrv. The choice of mode groups was a compromise between what I wanted and what Simon wanted… like, I wanted moon and battcheck, he wanted strobe and SOS and some groups with only half power. I sent a test build to ask for UI feedback, and instead of sending a list of changes to make, he put it directly into production. But it wasn’t intended or ready for production, so it had a bug, which caused a significant amount of returned items. The bug was fixed quickly but by then it was too late… and after getting through that batch of buggy drivers, instead of using the fixed version, he had his engineer rebuild the whole thing from scratch with new hardware and a virtually identical interface.
TL;DR: The origin of that UI was less of “a thought process” and more of “a series of unfortunate events”.
Anyway, about the more general topic of what people tend to like in a flashlight UI, the most important thing usually seems to be: One click for on/off at the user’s favorite level. If it has that, it’ll at least be decent. Maybe there’s some setup first, maybe not… but it really should turn on and off with a single click, at a brightness that matches what the user wants most of the time.
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I can see why battery level check is important for some users, but not everyone needs it. If you have spare batteries at hand, just chuck a new one in when it starts to get visibly dim or LV warning starts triggering. For any sort of real-world use where lighting is critical, you must have some spare power source. For other occasions where you causally playing with a flashlight, it doesn’t really matter if it runs out of battery. 
For my e-switch lights with easy access to battery check, I use it often to make sure the voltage stays within 3.5v to 3.9v so the battery life can be prolonged. But I’m just weird and how many ordinary users do that?
Now go back to the topic. MY point is, for some, UI is the most important thing, especially from someone who designed the UI. For some others, driver efficiency and constant brightness is more important and the UI can take a back seat. As long as it is not particularly bad, I can get used to it and make it work. I mean, isn’t the main function of a flashlight providing good quality illumination?
I EDC a Fenix. The UI is weird AF. Hold for on/off, click to cycle through 5 levels of brightness. Longer hold for strobe. Click from off for battery check. Double click to lock out. I can hear the UI designers here barf a little. But it doesn’t matter. It has the build quality, the efficient buck driver, the great beam profile from a custom TIR, the small physical size and good pocket clip, it also has a cool white 5700K 519A that I swapped in. When it comes to time to provide quick, always in hand lighting, I always pick it up. The more I use it, the more I appreciate how well it is designed and built and I got used to the UI within 2 days of having it. I know by setting the brightness to level 3, I get 250 lumens of stabilized high CRI white light for 6 hours. That is the sort of confidence it brings me.
When I hand an Anduril light to people who aren’t enthusiasts, they turn it on and then poke at the switch trying to change modes instead of press and hold to ramp up/down followed by “How do I change modes?” It’s a phenomenon I’ve seen repeated over and over. The UIs people get right the first time the most? The ones most enthhsiasts don’t like: press and hold for on (or off) then single clicks to change modes (double click for Turbo). That or mechanical switch UIs like Bistro and Biscotti. I think its a toss up of reaching you target market and balancing needs vs. demands. Give people what they want and they’ll buy it!
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Yeh, exactly what I mentioned. They’ll ramp up… and up… and up… and not know how to ramp it back down unless/until they hit the top, then again release and hold to get it ramping downward.
Hand 'em an EC50, and they just know how to work it. No blinkies, no shortcuts, just on/off and stepped modes that cycle back quickly. You can’t hurt yourself with it.
Well, unless you whomp yourself on the head with it or something…
Only thing simpler is an on/off Mag.
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Maybe since Sofirn and Wurkkos share the same factory and engineers, they could come together and spearhead some open / standard magnetic charging like skilhunt / armytek (minus the 1/4 turn).
An ultrabasic “drooling masses” type UI that’s based on solid design principles (but still contains things that are as close to unanimously hated by enthusiasts as possible) and could be cross-flashed with anduril actually makes a lot of sense, it would be possible to even have both sets of controls (hold on/off, click brightness vs click on/off, hold brightness) in one firmware image, selectable via something the average user with zero clue who doesn’t even read the manual at all wouldn’t hit accidentally. then have “Factory Reset” and “How To Change Interface Groups” be prominent on the manual. If this allows the type of drivers we can put better firmware on to have good market penetration, based around a set of standards, it’s worth the development effort IMO even just as something that benefits the anduril project overall as a result by establishing an architecture standard, and a standard for updatability. FSM is an excellent codebase and well worth using, and it reduces effort in terms of development of new lights to use it - I think this is something that’s not that well understood overall, that while anduril is the best firmware around, it’s also a single firmware implementation in terms of what’s ultimately a framework or set of APIs that can be used to build many different kinds of UI.
OTOH, I’d say probably needs some kind of research into what the average normie does actually like, because while it hasn’t been often that I’ve done it, when I have had other people use anduril lights then they understood the interface after maybe one accidental-off at most. I guess, maybe just them having the mental reasoning capacity of “If a click turns it off again then I could try holding instead?” and basic troubleshooting skills.
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They will probably quickly work out that holding the button makes it ramp up… Now how does it ramp down? It involves making Morse code this time.
The other thing which I don’t know if it has been mentioned is… saturation.
I’m a flashlight enthusiast, but not a deep-dive hobbyist (I don’t reflow LEDs or assemble from driver board up). I love Anduril and I know it with ease for the most part (and I know how to read the chart to recall what I’m looking for). I’ve also made my own cheat sheet for settings that may get lost with a full reset.
But as it stands right now, I have too many flashlights. I’ve given some as gifts (kept the box, flashlight cosmetically mint). The progress curve has begun to flatten out, for LED flashlights. It has been a fascinating long stretch. I’ve been into it since 2008, starting my “enthusiast” track with the NovaTac 120P.
There are so many considerations going into making a flashlight and over time each factor has had progressions. Body shape, design and materials. LED efficiency, tint, and beam quality. Driver efficiency and flexibility. Battery capability and built-in charging. Electronic UI, from basic to advanced. And cosmetic features like aux-LED and attractive anodized colors.
Today we have phenomenal flashlight choices. Moreso than ever before. But are advancements in the works going to be compelling enough to trigger more purchases? It seems like for the enthusiast, the driver is that last prize. But what of everyone else?
Circling back to Sofirn… not only must all of these factors be considered, but also the competition. And who is the majority buying audience? What is influencing their decision to choose one similar brand over the other (Lumintop, Wurkkos, Sofirn)? How notable is the flashlight enthusiast within the buyer pool?
As I see it, there’s 3 segments of buyers: 1) novice, 2) enthusiast-lite, and 3) enthusiast-serious. The novice has looked beyond the plastic bodied stuff available at HomeDepot and managed to spot a Chinese brand that attracted them. They’ll buy one flashlight and that’s about it. Next is the light enthusiast who was that novice not long ago, but decided to buy more than one flashlight… and increased their knowledge to go beyond the newbie fixation of brightness. They appreciate tint and certain features like built-in charging, but may be a bit put-off by a complicated UI or relatively high price. And then there’s the serious enthusiast who has taken the time to understand all of the particulars that go into making an LED flashlight. And they’re ready to have a dozen or more flashlights in their collection. The key question is… how much of the buyer pool do they occupy? Also, how much of sales is driven by ads versus word-of-mouth or reviews?
Lastly, my suggestion – when you have a new buyer for a flashlight, why not hit them up with a survey? Let them know it’s a 3 or 4 question survey that won’t take more than a minute or two. And within that, ask a question about their flashlight experience. You could also do this at the start of account creation (although that would be missed if people use “guest”). This kind of info would be highly useful. You can then get a better sense of who is buying your product and then plan on how to expand or further entice future buys.
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This is why Olight is so popular today. The UI for the bulk of their button control flashlights is pretty much the same. There’s a strong consistency. And then you have exceptional models with things like 2 switch or 1 switch and a dial. I don’t think Olight would ever introduce an Anduril flashlight. It’s just not their thing, because they understand the market drivers for the brunt of their buyers.
I think that “bounce off the top/bottom” is fairly reasonably easy to understand, as is “reverses on a release and quick re-press”.
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That’s a significant underestimate for the hardcore enthusiast. Over 100 is common enough, I know some 400+ collections exist.
Mea Culpa. Maybe in the 200+ range. But there is the saturation effect. There have been some really great deals over the last couple of weeks. I did pick up some ts10s for gifting and blue TI for me… but other than that I abstained.
So what will make me buy? Maybe some good regulated drivers (with Andruil2). Maybe some breakthroughs in LED technology. But buying a light that pretty much duplicates something I already have is not happening. This is true for most of what is out there right now. Adding USB ports or AUX lights is just not enough.
I don’t have any good answers for Sofirn that haven’t already been covered here… But I do think the saturation hypothesis is valid.
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What the…
I mean, I’ve seen photos of people’s collections on display over the years. At the most several dozen in shot. Hundreds is commonplace?
I think it would be an interesting check to run a poll… and people should submit a photo showing their collection.
Right here, just keep scrolling you’ll see many big collections.
When you get over 100 it’s hard to have them in one photo.
You have some in boxes in cabinets (Backstock, duplicates, etc)
On various shelves, curios, etc also
Don’t have an exact count because not into spreadsheets but the # is over 150 for sure.
Not hard to do when deals com along, really used to hit it hard now maybe 20 a year.
Trying to gift more away but don’t trust most relatives with lithium batts.
Later
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I need about 70 lights just for the sole purpose of testing the supported Anduril hardware models. It currently has 71 build targets to maintain and test on a regular basis. Plus older models for older firmwares.
Then there are also a bunch for, like, actual use. 
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I strongly agree to that. Anything but off → 1C → on + on → 1C → off is anti-intuitive, misguided, irritant and difficult to use for novices and experienced enthusiasts alike.
Not implying hundreds is extremely common, just common enough. I have >100 myself (I really need to update my post in the collection thread, heh)
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I’ll make the case for long hold off for my type of usage: headlamps for active sport outdoors. Holding a button is slow and awkward during activity like running and skiing because the arms are swinging and I want to minimize fine control of a button, so I don’t want to do it during my normal use. What I mean by slow is that you hold, and then have to wait and observe the light and then lift your finger - it’s reactive. On the contrary, short clicking is active and sure/precise. You know before reaching to the button that you’re going to click it once or twice to get exactly the level you want, so you just reach up and do that quickly and leave out the mental exercise of holding and waiting (while interrupting arm swing). I can get to the light level I want faster/more precisely without under/overshooting with short clicks (on a L-M-H loop or similar 4 level loop) than using a hold-to-adjust-level method.
At the beginning of the activity (or when it gets dark), I turn on my headlamp and set it to the highest brightness that can be sustained for about 2-2.5 hours, the length of my typical night run or ski plus some reserve. At the end of my activity, I turn it off. I’m using the light like someone would use a car headlamp when driving at night. If I touch the light during the activity, it’s never to turn it off, it’s to go higher for moving faster or lower to save the battery (perhaps the ski is taking longer than expected. . .). That way I’d only ever have to hold the button one time per night (at the end of the activity to turn it off) rather than every time I wanted to change the level. The main players in the big headlamps for my type of usage (Lupine, Lucifer, LEDX, Silva, and Gemini for example) use hold for off because it makes the most sense for that type of usage.
I’m currently in between bigger headlamps and getting by with a single-18650 headlamp (YLP Gekko). Since it has hold-to-adjust levels thing that I don’t like, I’m avoiding that by leaving it all the time at a level that starts fading at 2 hours in the cold and just turning it on and off only, never adjusting the level. I have a hard enough time adjusting it to the right level while standing/sitting still with no gloves on. I need to ramp it the slightest, most minimal touch I can do below the max 900 lumen level (which won’t quite last 2 hours I need), but want it higher than the next stepped level to get the max lumens for 2 hours, so I can’t use the stepped mode. Basically, when I hold the button down, I need to lift as soon as the button delay is gone and it starts ramping down, but that requires a quick reaction time, and I often have to ramp back up to max and do it two times before I’m happy. So no way I want to do that on the move with gloves and ski poles on. Again, I’m really using it like a car headlamp, a perfectly analogous usage just moving through the woods. Except I don’t have high beams using only a single 18650 for sustained higher lumens over 2 hours.
That said, I think you folks and people who do research on flashlights online before buying probably make up much of Sofirn’s business. You folks and those reading your comments on various places on the internet mostly prefer Anduril for your type of usage. And Sofirn isn’t selling to orienteers/skiers/runners, so my opinion on hold-for-off doesn’t apply to this thread.
I can’t see a non-light geek willing to research all the different emitters and configurations and wanting to look at an Anduril chart, so that’s why I think Sofirn is selling mostly to enthusiasts or those reading enthusiast reviews. Barry wouldn’t be complaining about slowing business if it were mostly non-light geeks doing the buying because they wouldn’t know the difference.
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