“Martians are invading and no one has a damned flashlight??”
I buy about 2-4 lights per year.
That's 1-2 for me, and 1-2 for my family.
I’m in this camp.
Needs mostly fulfilled, and waiting for something compelling enough to proceed.
Could use a lantern, but can afford to wait for the LT2 and LT1M to develop.
Don’t have a multi either. TS21 was more interesting until the true nature of the driver was revealed.
Nothing really wow’d me for the last couple years. It’s either massive flooders, pencil beam throwers or crazy output compact lights that can only maintain 20% of the max output.
But then I saw the L21B on Simon’s store. Zero BS design, light weight and just built to perform, not to churn out crazy numbers. It’s my only new flashlight purchase in a long time.
Most I usually “need” is a C8-type light. Even got a pair of L2s in case I’d need a more powerful pencil-beam, but even then I rarely even took ’em out of the box to the point they became box-queens again.
Same with flooders. Don’t need anything to daylight a football field, either. A Q8 or so would do.
Also don’t need a light that sustains 20klm for a whopping 10sec, then throttles down to 600lm.
~$300 budget /mth. Half of what i spent last year. 
Mostly for review purpose.
Hmmm, don’t really buy an amount per month. I just buy a light whenever I’m really interested in it. Can’t buy a ton of lights per month because 99% of the lights I’m interested in just happen to at the cheapest end cost around $80 and usually the lights that interest me the most are in the $300-500 range. Although I got two Lumintop D2’s a few days ago for a little under $60 including our ridiculous sales tax (11.5%)
Right now I’m looking into getting a Nitecore TM39 but I’m making myself have a little patience to see if I can scoop it up on sale and not pay retail price, because it’s a $500 light. Plus, I’m also giving Nitecore time in case they decide to launch a GT version of it since it’s been about 2 years since they released that monster. Anybody know if there is a successor to the SBT-90.2? Doesn’t have to be from Luminus, just be a better performing diode with either more output, more throw, better efficiency or all of these things or a combination of these things. I recently got a Nitecore MH10S, a Tini 2 (friggin’ amazing, might post about that one tomorrow if I feel so inclined), and also got an NU32 headlamp o replace my Scangrip I-match 2 for my nightly dog walks. The beam’s not as pleasant and ultra high CRI as the scangrip and it certainly isn’t as diffuse, but it gets the job done. I’m also thinking of getting an MH12S since I didn’t know it existed and I made a mistake buying the MH10S. The MH12S is literally the same light but with a tailswitch. I’ll probably end up selling the MH10S in this forum or just gifting it to my cousin when I see him since he got into the military now so he’d probably love that thing for mounting it on his rifle. Nitecore’s latest iterations of side switches on their MH and P series lights are absolute garbage. Nearly impossible to find in the dark because they feel like the rest of the flashlight and it’s not even lit up while on standby. You end up needing another flashlight to turn on the flashlight.
TLDR: At this rate, I’m buying ~5 lights a month, only 2 of which are budget oriented.
So tech like the Osram and SBT90.2 is not compelling enough? IMHO, lights today are Sooooo much better than ten years ago.
What technology would you want to see in a light to make you pull the trigger?
PID regulation with adjustable temp, which seems to be exclusive of zebralights. This is not hard to achieve, manufacturers are just lazy.
Many years ago the nitecore EC4 was released with a cast aluminum unibody making it capable of sustaining max output 1,000lumens for the entire runtime. That was with a XML2 emitter. And we have modern flashlights capable of 4,000 lumen that will step down to 700.
Almost 10 years ago Sunwayman innovated with the infinitely variable output selector ring, maybe it was way ahead of its time and not many people cared for it. But now it’s a rare collector flashlight.
Some people going crazy for the Acebeam E70 and it’s unique design. The raidfire spear did something every crazier 14 years ago.
Sure modern flashlights are better than those from 10 years ago, but I rarely see any innovation from the flashlight maker itself, all they do these days is to use the latest and greatest emitter and battery tech. Manufacturers are so lazy that Many of the recent true innovations actually came from this forum, FET+7135 driver lights, the popularization of triple and quads, anduril and “A6” FW.
I believe I have that Sunwayman light you are referring to. It is cool. There are only so many ways to control a light and I think we have seen them all by now.
That is awesome, i have not really thought about that fact.
I buy 2 to 10 as well. i need to bring that number down to 1, or 0. i think i'm almost there. Problem is i have this recent obsession with Emisar / Noctigon. I need to let it go. the reality of redundancy becomes apparent after the thrill of purchasing subsides.. I don't really need one model with 4 emitter options. Also Astrolux has been on my brain, so many fun lights under $60.. it's easy for me to justify $45, until that accumulates to over $300 and the credit card bill just gets ugly. the wife and i pay all CC's in full every month, so its crystal clear how much i spend on this hobby.
Could you IMAGINE what the average citizen would think of a light like the WT90 in the 1960's?? thats an interesting thought.
If it’s any help, here’s what I do before I make a flashlight purchase: I take my favorite lights and any ones that might be similar to the ones I’m looking at buying and set them out on my desk. Look at them. Turn them on and play with the UI. Then look at the shopping cart, open the product details page again… and consider “can I wait until the next version?” 
TBT, it has saved me from making impulsive light purchases. :money_mouth_face:
In the past year I have bought only 4 lights or 0.33 per month. I now tend to buy only when there is a significant improvement or feature I like, So far all my recent purchases have been for improved led performance and the convenience of USB C charging.
The 1940’s~1970’s was kind of a “Dark Ages” of flashlights. At least on the consumer market. NOTHING good, TBT. Those ridiculous little incandescent bulbs. While MAGLiTE changed things a bit in the 1980’s, a very solid piece of machining with focusable head, it was still rather anemic. Surefire was founded in 1979 and even though their first lights designed for the military were better than the consumer market offering, it wasn’t until the 1990’s that they started producing some seriously powerful incans, which of course were very expensive with pricey batteries to boot. The LED’s of the early 2000’s were a nasty cold tint compared to incans. Warm was unheard of. And then technology started a meteoric rise in progress. A light would be released and then be noticeably obsolete within a year! We are truly in the Golden Age of LED lights now.
Today year 2021 is 205 days old. Thus far I’ve spend €18.72 on flashlight related items.
One AAA light on sale, Two 5A drivers, and one adpater (says Convoy) ring.
Personally I think I’ve more than enough lights. But keep on tweaking the lights I have. Any new light I would buy, would more or less be another “been there, done that” light. So after a short break, filled with sane reasonig, the trigger finger automatically relaxes. One exception, I don’t need reasoning to suppress urges buying a 100,000 lm light.
I don’t even need to do that. I think back in disgust at how many variations-on-a-theme I have, sometimes in multiples. Then I ask myself if I really need Yet Another.
Sometimes I come to my senses and just kill the browser window immediately, other times I seriously consider it and have to “talk myself out of it”.
And I mean nice lights like the old VG10, TK16/TK18, more C8 variants that I have no idea anymore what was “different” about each one, etc. Like seriously, what do I “need” them for? And I’m contemplating getting another??
Wow, that is great advice and thank you for it! i have went and looked at some of my lights before when i was torn on making a decision. but i like this a lot. thanks!