It will be interesting to get hold of one of these to take a look. The beam pattern in both flood and spot in the videos in the original post looks pretty good for a zoomie.
And unlike a zoomie using other technologies, one advantage of a liquid crystal lens should be that the lens can effectively turn into a flat lens when not activated.
Sorry. I’ve been hoping for years to see affordable, compact lights with a variable beam shape appear on the market.
I’m very happy that Manker is sharing this development which could lead in that direction.
Back in July, I heard that Manker has got the patent on this flashlight tech. Other than that, haven’t heard anything new, not in BLF, CPF, Reddit, or Chinese forums.
I hope to see one in a body similar to MK37, SBT90.2, and Anduril UI.
Not sure if SBT90.2 is possible though, datasheet says the LC lens has 85-90% efficiency and max operation temperature of 80C.10-15% lost at 5000lm might generate too much heat for the LC lens to handle, and there is no way to measure the temperature on the lens for thermal regulation.
I don’t like how the beam has no sharp cutoff which means that blinding others is unavoidable but nevertheless I find this tech interesting. Also, zooming is extremely slow. Or rather - seems to go between full throw and full flood fast enough. But getting the intermediates is very slow. I want to adjust the beam as fast as I move my neck. When I want to see something at the side, I move my head and adjust the beam at the same time. With push-pull zoomies it’s easy. With a slider or adjustment ring I bet that Manker could do the same. But not with bottons. Still waiting for more details.