Got it! How about that? Let the tail switch only control the ON/OFF, the rotate ring add one moon mode. Then we can set one very very light rotate ring so that people can switch the brightness easier.
Yep my man. The magnetic charging is pretty expensive. I think we will eventually choose to use the rubber covers. In this way, we can provide a relatively low price as usual.
You are right my man. If I’m not one truly grandma with arthritis, I will never really know what she needs. But please no worry. I will definitely respect her like to every ordinary person first. Then work hard to move closer and make the design she needed.
Thanks for your absolute rational analysis my man. We love the more options provide! lol
I still don’t think The Grandma would want 2 selectors, or anything in the tail.
The Grandma was always used to cheap plastic D-cell lights with the slide-switch by the head, being able to grab it with one hand and flick the switch with her thumb. Apologies to any 30yo grandmas, but anyone “advanced in age” who isn’t used to tailswitch lights, especially if being somewhat addled either by age or just “sunsetting” during the day, probably won’t be looking for a tailswitch to press.
Even things like can-openers have big grips, big knobs, and a simple way of doing things. Those side-cutting openers where you have to remember to “untwist”, connect, then “retwist” to start cutting, then “untwist” again to disengage, can be frustrating if The Grandma has been used to the same “old timey” can-opener she’s had for 86yrs.
Best would be a simple oversized easy-to-actuate sideswitch, mimicking old-timey cheap craplights like she was used to. Even a huge garishly-colored oversized pushbutton that’s simple off/on, for, say, 300lm, would work great. And that’s really all that’s needed. Just the cost of putting in a magring or magslider would be unnecessary, if a biiiiiiiig rubber-dome e-switch could be used.
Or at the expense of physical space, an actual mechanical switch to avoid parasitic drain. This way, The Grandma can keep the light in a drawer and not have to worry about it powering off (and would still be able to have an auto-off feature if “left on” but untouched for a while).
Oh, and no. Just no. The Grandma with her cataracts and failing vision would have zero use for “moonlight mode”, unless moonlight mode would be 100lm or whatever.
Like, c’mon, people, just stop.
I totally agree about not needing moonlight. As we get older we need more light to see, and speaking for myself, I rarely use any level less than medium on any of my lights. For someone with bad and failing eyes I think low modes are a total waste of clicks (I have cataracts and old eyes :rage: ).
In an emergency, or even for most usages, brightness is important.
I polled my grandma wife and she agrees with me 
Grandma has been able to operate a radio or television or many other appliances with an on-off switch and a separate button or switch or knob to change the channels. She’s been doing that her entire life. If she can’t figure that out she probably should not be living alone. For those that want aa batteries and a single mode switch and non-rechargeable, guess what, you can go to any hardware store and already buy that. I’d say 10, 100, and 400 or 500 high that steps down to 200 lumens. The old wowtac a1s or a1 would be perfect if it had type-c charging. Tail switch for on and off and a front button for the four modes. Put a label near the tail switch that says on and off. Put another label near the front switch that says low medium high.
Ja, that’s right! My grandma often told me that she prefers her simple plastic light. Although it is only 100 Lumens and switch on/off, the price of $ 1.5 makes it a treasure. She seemed to just love grab one light.
Agreed. They need something dead simple to use.
- 1 button - near the head, not on the tail. And comfortably big. Must be visible.
- 1 mode - medium.
- Floody beam
- Easy to handle - not too small, not too big, and especially not too heavy
And give the flashlight body a bright colour. Do not make a random black flashlight… they won’t find it !!!
Absolutely! Brightness is very important. lol
What’s the best brightness do you think on low mode set?
If I was getting this for my wife or friends I’d want the low to be around 100 lumens and more on the floody side. I’d also want the light to not get too hot on high so maybe 600 to 800 lumens. To keep things simple just the 2 modes along with a switch that doesn’t need to be half-pressed to switch modes. I don’t like switches that are low/high/off but I think it would work well for non-flashlight addicts like most of us on BLF. Simple but easily learned and remembered.
I still got eyes like a cat (big pupils, lots of collection), always keep minimal lights on in the house, can use firefly mode on my old old SP10 (f/l/m+h, vs l/m/h+stb) to get around with no lights on in the house, and even I recognise that I need more light to, say, read microprinted labels or “manuals” and so on.
I can only imagine it gets worse with each passing year.
Like, nobody’s thinking what The Grandma actually needs/wants, vs what Someone Else thinks The Grandma would need/want.
No, she doesn’t need candle-mode in case the power goes out.
No, she doesn’t need nor want sub-lumen firefly mode.
No, she doesn’t need tacticool strobe in case she walks down dark alleys.
No, she doesn’t need the light to blink out the exact battery voltage. The Grandma doesn’t know Morse code, nor does she care about Li-ion voltage levels.
No, she probably doesn’t even need “battery status” either in a color-changing light on the switch, nor 4 LED “steps”. Trust me on this. She will ignore those lights.
No, she doesn’t need even 3 levels of l/m/h, and even 2 levels of l/h might be overkill. But they need to be instantly accessible, like a slide-switch that goes off/low/high.
No, she doesn’t need sufficient throw to see what’s out in the treeline at night. (A thrower means she just ends up “looking through a keyhole” at things close-in, blinded by what’s washed-out in the hotspot, and blind to what’s outside it.)
GRANDMA DOESN’T WANT ¼” DRILLS. SHE NEEDS ¼” HOLES.
My mother is 88. She needed a light to “check the thermostat” during her dozen or so trips to the can every night. I gave her a Sofirn C01S twisty, powered with an E-gizer Ultimate. She loves it. Bad arthritis, bent fingertips, the whole nine for an aged woman. She can operate it without hassle, two modes, and it’s become second nature to her from a UI standpoint.
That was 3 years ago. I replaced the cell once. Still going.
Type A and no tail switch
I’ll toss out this curveball — why does it have to be a tube light at all?
Unless Grandma is snipe hunting in the back yard, the ¼” hole is more likely to be something to help them not fumble around in the dark during a power outage.
So, something like a mini-lantern, or some sort of lantern/short-range floody hybrid with some real engineering behind it. Done right. Doesn’t need to be held to be useful; can be set down, or magnetically attached to a surface.
I have a $10 Zanflare T1. It was cheap, and works well for what it is, but the execution is clearly hampered by the cost constraints.
Also have a Streamlight Siege AA, picked up during a sale for $15. Nicer, and good overall quality, but not something I’d pay the typical $28 asking price for. 200lm of cold white light.
In the higher segment, also have an LT1. Not so cheap, and works well, but not everyone needs, or wants to spend $65+ on a tank quality lantern. Or ~$45+ for an LT1S.
To keep the cost down, strip the tint ramping, and red modes. One, or hi/low at most. Magnetic base. Stick to the fundamentals. Regulated driver, so it won;t peter out, would be a bonus.
A broader question is — why hasn’t Wurkkos tackled the lantern segment in general? I’d be curious to see what their take on an LT1S-style lantern looks like.
Got it! Rubberized body coating has always been what I want to do. That’s pretty cool and comfortable. But it is so hard to find the right supplier too.
It has not reached the lantern time for Wurkkos now. But I promise that we will never be absent. Stay tuned please my man 
Lookit the old Thorfire KL02.
Stick a disc-magnet in the hollow of the tail, and it’d be a “magnetic-suction” lantern of sorts.
Or something like this:
This $8 light is probably closer to what Grandma will buy than anything else. Heck, an AA version is something I’d buy and toss in the car with some lithium primaries.
A “budget” version of these would be interesting, if not necessarily for Grandma:
There’s gotta be something more than rehashing the same themes over and over again, but with frills like RGB.