For simple, inexpensive lights just to keep around the house, I use “zoomies” from Amazon. You can get 4 for around $25, and they take 18650s (rechargeable lithium, well worth buying a few cells and a charger for the long run), or they also take AAA’s. The zoom feature gives you the option to have a very wide flood, and in my experience, when zoomed in, they throw around a 75 yards. They’re also cheap enough to lose or lend, and I’ve never broke one, and neither has my 6-year-old. With the four pack I could put one by each door, and one in each car.
There’s definitely better lights available, but for the price and versatility these really can’t be beat.
HAUSBELL Flashlight, LED Flashlight, Flashlights High Lumens, Zoomable, Water Resistant, 5 Modes, Camping Lights, Flash Light for Indoor, Outdoor, Hiking, Kids, Emergency (4 Pack) Amazon.com
I was looking at the website which mentions “ 1* charging slot with charging cable”. Presumably the battery they supply with the flashlight has a charging slot.
Nope. Chalk it up to second language. It has an external single bay charger with a USB cable. It just does not specify that the charging slot is external, but it is clearly visible in the pictures.
I got that same setup in one of my Sofirn lights, but most have onboard charging.
I think it comes with a single slot charger from the picture. I know it wouldn’t be much of a dive light with onboard charging but it sure would be a great light to lend to anyone without instruction.
I think when some people say Anduril “too complex” they don’t necessarily mean that it is too complex for them to understand. What they mean is that it potentially over-complicates a simple device. It wasn’t long ago that flashlight buttons were on/off only for the most part.
It comes down to personal preference and use-case I guess.
It doesn’t though, you can easily just ignore anything you don’t care about. Or just set it how you want and then forget it. So much simpler than a so called ‘easy’ light where you have to cycle through all the modes and the stupid flashers you never use only to do it all over again because you don’t remember how many clicks to high.
Someone who has a truly old-fashioned minimalist mindset won’t want to perform initial setup on a flashlight. The idea is ridiculous to them as they associate “setup” with electronics like computers and dvd player. They don’t want to do any more “setup.” They’d take the cyclic interface over the Anduril one because the idea of having “menus” in a single button device sounds like an awful idea to them. Some older people worry about self-sufficiency too and wouldn’t buy a flashlight with modes and menus because they don’t want to wait for a grandchild to visit in order to help them if they have issues with it.
The thing is you don’t have to. It’s entirely OPTIONAL. If you didn’t know it was there it wouldn’t make a difference. Anduril is far more minimalist and intuitive to the average user. You’re just scaring people off with this complexity non-issue.
I understand that Anduril is a good UI, I have 7 Anduril lights. I’m just acknowledging that it isn’t for everyone.
I know people like this exist because I know some—they won’t care if the extra features are optional. They just won’t want the light. To them, a flashlight with menus is like a toaster with an LCD screen. It’s just “more to go wrong” and unnecessary complication complexity.
I’d say if anyone is scared away from Anduril after hearing about the mere potential of someone not liking it then maybe it isn’t the best choice for them.
Anybody remembers ancient flashlight which had a round red momentary button with the ability to slide it forward to latch it? Even in 1940s, people did not need a user manual for operating that type of switch.
Just to adjust the floor down, there is a overhead of at least 10+10+10 button actions and that does not even include actual floor setting adjustment itself!
If you don’t think that is utterly ridiculous, you are too entrenched in it and have lost the perspective of how common person treats a tool such as flashlight.
You’re completely ignoring the real issue, though. I have Narsil and Andúril lights where I’ve never customized anything. It’s just click on, click off. Occasionally, I might hold to adjust the brightness. IME, that’s easier than half-click for modes, but either of those are optional, anyway.
The idea that you MUST set the floor, or calibrate the voltage or thermal settings is just false. You can pull an Andúril light out of the box and start using it, just like any other torch.
One of my lights runs Anduril, and I never even knew it. I had used it for about a month on the default settings, and never ran into any kind of issues with programming. I could definitely understand why somebody wouldn’t want it, but I think some of the posts describing its operation can be intimidating, even for somebody like me who has a firm grasp on electronics.
Anyway, the point is, anyone can easily use Anduril, even without getting into its more advanced features.
I am not saying that I MUST set the floor; I am saying that having to correctly press the buttons 30 times before even having to adjust the floor; that idea IS ridiculous.
Surprised at all the Anduril consternation here. I’m probably wrong, but I can’t recall seeing any product listings in the mass market areas that really say much at all about Anduril except that the light has it…so it’s not like potential buyers are hit in the face with this, and when they receive the light the operation is quite simple right out of the box. A lot of thought was put into the UI…for as many options as it has (that we wanted!) it’s pretty well laid out. The simpler things are closer to the front and the things that maybe you don’t want to have accidentally changed are buried deeper into the click-hole. Pretty good ideas, imho.
For someone clueless or inept or otherwise opposed to a “complex” UI with settings to fool with, I’d rather give them a Sofirn light that has their simplified ramping UI…it’s pretty nice. NarsilM is another good option but there don’t seem to be more than a few lights out there using it now and nothing real mass market oriented.
Old school L-M-H clickies are just fine but there is no reason to steer anyone away from these nice ramping interfaces. Most people really like them when they try them, and like that they can choose between stepped or ramping. The full range of “modes” is a very attractive thing and most joe publics have never experienced more than one or two clicky modes. And they can leave it that simple and enjoy it, no need to mess with anything else unless they truly want to.
It was an awful lot of work to make and then get it adopted by manufacturers…genuinely surprised at the pushback lately, and that people seem to think it’s difficult for users to use out of the box. I mean whatever floats your boat but I don’t think that coloring Anduril as “difficult” is very accurate. The difficult thing is getting all the manufacturers to respect the creators and free-gift simple licensing requests…
