The phone battery could be at any stage of discharge when an emergency happens, is hard to position, might not be useful under some weather conditions, and the most important thing of all is that the phone should not be drained during an emergency by using it as a flashlight.
A torch forgotten in the glove box is likely to be found flat - I wouldn’t place my faith in that either.
Unless a car battery is totally dead (no interior lights) you’d be able to charge a mobile from it. Even if it won’t start the engine.
Sometimes the problem is the car battery or electrical, and has anyone looked at the OPs local temperatures, they are mild, and in reality people who deliberately keep flashlights in the car are unlikely to go so many years forgotten that the flashlight becomes unusable, this isn’t 1966.
There almost seems to be an argument emerging against keeping a light in the car for emergencies because it is just too challenging to ever be useful in a breakdown.
Not gonna recommend a light past something using lithium primary but, will say this:
I check my vehicle lights every oil change.
I keep my vehicle lights under the seat. It’s cooler there.
slmjim
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I do a seasonal check on my car survival gear, when winter is over I replace my flashlight light batteries and think in terms of dealing with desert heat during a breakdown, when winter approaches I go with winter gear for a blizzard breakdown, and of course replace my flashlight batteries.
You are right about under the front seat as the best place to keep electronics, I also use an insulated lunch bag for it.
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Keeping it low in the vehicle in hot conditions it’s probably a good idea no matter what type of battery you have. The reality is that putting it under the driver’s seat is not always a good option for all vehicles. Some don’t have a lot of clearance. It has the potential to roll around. Even if it seems like it’s in a stable position and you can easily reach it when the seat is all the way back doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get at it when the seat is forward for a short driver. in most cases you would have to get out of the vehicle and then reach around and under and in the dark. In most cases it’ll end up against the seat base and seat slides which can be greasy.
In the case of putting a flashlight or two in four different vehicles consistency might be an important factor. So the glove box may be the best choice especially with many different drivers.
In my wife’s vehicle the first two lights are in the center console. And a third slightly larger light is under the rear back seat on the driver side. We do keep the tail caps 1/4 turn loose. She knows that and that’s how she keeps her fc11 on the bedside table.
In my vehicle I keep two in the driver door pocket and at least five others in other places.
So there is “best practice” and practical reality.
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Yeeeeah, but we’re not normal people. Most normies will use their phones as flashlights. I’ve even seen IT guys, HVAC guys, and house-inspectors use their damned phones as flashlights.
Regular schmoes who think that phones can substitute for actual flashlights, actual cameras, etc., will be almost guaranteed to pretty much forget that the flashlight under the seat even exists. And that’s in an actual emergency, let alone just checking the batteries at each oil change, yearly inspection, etc.
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Gave my Erlich guy one of those Ultratac A1 lights that were on blowout 4-5 yrs ago.
It’s a Lumintop Tool with different knurling basically.
Anyway that was 2 years ago and he showed it to me 2 months ago when he was here at she is got a lot of patina but he raves how he uses it every day, just burns dollar store primary batts in it.
He used to use a real craptastic gas station light.
Save him a lithium powered Thrower with batteries and charger this year for Christmas. Dude hooks me up good on the bug coverage for my barn at no extra charge and we are similar age so get on well.
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agreed.
Orkin did their annual inspection for termites, and the tech used his iPhone.
i asked him why he did not use a flashlight, and he said he was usually taking pictures
and using the phone-light was the most convenient way to do that, so he just uses it all the time.
The ones I was referring do weren’t taking any pix, as we’re just talking, say, IT guys lighting up the dusty insides of a 'puter, or looking into drop-ceilings to sling some cat5, etc.
One of the channels I watch on YouTube is Sanborn Construction. They rehab a lot of properties in Detroit, and they often talk about fixing other companies mistakes but they use their cell phones for flashlights.
It never ceases to amaze me. I’d rather accidentally drop a 5buk zommie than a 2kbuk phone.
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For inspection items and car repair, nothing beats a zoomie.
Have gifted many of the old Ultratac Sk68 clones to auto mechanics and once they use one they never want to be without it.
Even in daylight, when a car is on a lift and you need to see the head of a bolt that is obscured by an exhaust manifold for instance, you do not want 10,000 lumens lighting up the whole engine area. You Only want to see where you need to look.
Those home inspection people and really anyone working in your house for the money they charge should all be equipped with good flashlights. If that company doesn’t want to outlay a small amount of $ for something that really is a necessary Tool, they should not be hired.
JMHO
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Yeh, back when I was looking at a place, enough to have a house inspector check it out, I had my MH20 and Cometa on me.
House had an “attic space” where you could slide a board out from the “chimney” leading up to a skylight, and take a look all the way down. Let’s just say his phone’s light wasn’t up to the task. Just 2clicked my MH20 (not even the -GT) and lit up the whole area down to the opposite end.
And being that the MH20 is so compact, that the i332 is almost the exact same dimensions within a mm or two, yet it carries only a 16340 vs the MH20’s 18650, that the inspector said, “Hmm, maybe I should get one of those…”.
Ya think??
interested to know model for zoomie ?
Especially if the disposable light puts out more light than a phone.
Sorry I misremembered exact name. It was UltraOK ZS-2
they are no longer made and the last batch that did come through back in the day were an inferior clone.
What the best zoomie is now of the Sipik SK68 style I do not know. Maybe some other members can chime in to this.
These are dead ringers as far as design and are 1 mode AA/14500 which is preferable to me at least for inspection work as the models with H/L/Strobe usually suffer from bad PWM on low mode.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/226724295673?rb_itemId=226724295673&rb_pgeo=US&toolid=10044&var=0
I took a SK98 (18650) and just lobotomised the driver by shorting across the µC. Had a cheapie with just parallelled resistors and µC, so it ended up as just some ballast resistors and 1-mode on/off. That’s all I needed.
In the past, I’ve kept Mini Maglites in the glovebox, but they all succumbed to alkaleaks.
For car duty, I’ve tasked a Sofirn S11C originally obtained as a filler item on an order. In the past, they could be had for less than $10, but we live in crazy times.
Not a true Sofirn, but ticks a lot of boxes for the price – high CRI, decent tint, onboard charging, simple UI, magnetic tail and for a zoomie, not a horrible beam.
I’m not concerned with seeking and finding every little argument against one light or the other for such duty. If/when it’s needed, the most important job it will have is to provide some sort of illumination, not necessarily be the perfect embodiment of the ultimate light.
As long as it doesn’t act as a catalyst that burns the car to the ground, it’s good enough.
If it sprouts legs and runs away, or gets snatched during a smash-and-grab, no tears will be shed, and there will be no regrets.
Not in the car, but I had to literally drill out an alkaleak salt-block from a Brinkmann minimag clone.
I always tell people that alkaleaks are an abomination unto the LORD, but nobody believes me… until they lose a light, remote, anything that takes 'em.
So I at least suggest that in little-used lights, to keep the cells in a baggie and separate from the light. And even if often-used, to keep checking them every week at most, as they can ooze liquid but not yet ruin whatever they’re in. Catch 'em in time, and you can clean 'em out before too much damage is done.
Zathras warn, but no, nobody listen to poor Zathras, no.
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