Hi, I’d like your input. Should Anduril’s Tactical Mode use the Smooth Steps feature from Ramp Mode, or should it use hard edges regardless of whether smooth steps are enabled elsewhere?
Some background context:
Ramp Mode is the primary interface, like “click for on/off, hold to change brightness”.
Smooth Steps is an option for Ramp Mode. It softens the edges by doing a brightness slide animation any time the brightness is changed by more than a small amount. This makes it fade on and off gently, and slides between stepped ramp steps instead of changing brightness in a single frame. Smooth Steps is enabled by default, but can be turned off by the user.
Tactical Mode is an alternate interface designed to mimic forward-clicky “tactical” lights. It lights up only as long as the button is held, then turns off as soon as the user lets go. It defaults to “high, low, strobe” on 1H/2H/3H button presses, but the three slots are configurable to be any brightness or any mode in the strobe group.
In the current version, Tactical Mode gives an instant response with hard edges, going from zero to full brightness immediately as soon as the button is pressed, and then it goes back to zero as soon as the button is released. This is pretty standard for a tactical light. It is meant to be jarring.
If Tactical Mode is changed to support Smooth Steps, it would optionally have soft edges instead of hard edges, quickly ramping up and down instead of changing brightness instantly. But this would only happen if the user has Smooth Steps enabled in Ramp Mode. Smooth Steps are enabled by default, so hard edges would require the user to change a config setting.
The user can turn Smooth Steps on or off, and it currently only affects Ramp Mode. But I wonder if it should also affect Tactical Mode.
What do you think?
Always use hard edges in Tactical Mode
Use smooth steps in Tactical Mode, if the user has it enabled
0voters
@SammysHP sent me a patch for smooth tactical support. I’m just trying to decide if it should be used in production or if it’s more appropriate to keep tactical mode hard-edges-only on production lights. Soft edges make it, uh, not very tactical. However, soft edges also make it nicer for general-purpose non-tactical use.
@ToyKeeper
For a while I’ve been wanting my Anduril lights to have this kind of option, like 1H to Turbo and 2H for Strobe in tactical mode.
It is a bit like what Olight has in some lights of its Warrior line.
For me, having “hard egde” would probably be better to have an automatic and defined level.
BTW, is there any file with those tactical 1H/2H/3H options already existing and that can be flashed in Wurkkos TS10 and other flashlights? If so, can you or someone point it to me?
Thanks in advance!
Let me explain my reasoning for this: I use “tactical mode” as a “momentary mode with three configurable slots” and smooth edges work great in that situation. If you want to use it to confuse/disturb/annoy opponents, strobe is better than plain turbo anyway. On the other hand, momentary mode (5C) can be used for signaling and will always turn on immediately. And don’t forget, you can always disable smooth steps/edges via the config menu.
By the way, I enabled smooth edges for momentary light in lockout mode as well:
@SammysHP
Through your explanation I realised I was confusing “tactical” (1H/2H/3H) with the “momentary mode” (5C) options Sorry about that!
What I was wanting to refer was that in the momentary mode (5C, then 1H for memorized mode), I would like to have 1H for Turbo and 2H for Strobe.
I guess this doesn’t meet TK’s question, after all Sorry again
Still, I will rephrase my question above:
is there any file with an option to configure momentary mode (5C) to have 1H for Turbo or memorized mode and 2H for Strobe, that can be flashed in Wurkkos TS10 and other flashlights? I can’t program, just flash FW
Any recent TS10 build should have Tactical Mode included by default, and it can be configured to do as you described – 1H for turbo and 2H for strobe. Look in the manual under “Tactical Mode” for more details.
I’m planning to release a fresh batch tonight or tomorrow morning, so I’d recommend waiting a few hours to get the most up-to-date version.
Personally, I would prefer to have smooth steps in tactical mode, because it makes that mode more usable for me… and it can be configured with hard edges if desired.
But I don’t really use tactical mode, so I don’t have a strong preference either way.
That’s pretty cool, and I’d like to add that even if people don’t want soft edges in tactical mode.
Tactical mode is useful and the cool thing is we can use with instant access to turbo or strobe or other strobe. I don’t know now if I prefer turbo instead strobe or viceversa but I like so much the possibility.
I don’t use 5C so much so we can optimize command?
I agree for smooth command if we can exclude and use instant
It was added a few months ago, so the feature only exists if your firmware is pretty new.
I’d recommend trying one of the brand new builds released today, to get smooth steps and tactical mode. This build has only hard edges in tactical mode though.
Hmm…
I have no use for Tactical Mode, so I don’t really have an opinion on that.
I do like being able to choose between ramping mode and stepped mode, but that’s not really relevant to this thread.
Keep up the good work, TK!
Flashed those new builds in the TS10 and SP10Pro and loved it!
I am still a fan of “hard edges”, and now after using it.
(BTW, I may be doing something wrong or I may not be configuring everything right but in the SP10 Pro, the 2H from momentary lockout gives me an actual “low” mode and not moonlight, as it gives me in the TS10. Again, I may not be doing everything well, but I’ve configured both smooth and stepped modes to the lowest possible level. Previously I was only getting moonlight with 1H or 2H from momentary lockout. )
Thanks once again
(Last question: is there a list of Anduril lights that can be flashed with the 3 pin adapter like the flashlights I mentioned above? The newer reviewers don’t focus that in the photos nor texts, and I’ve been absent from here long enough to not know which lights can take this new FW version via the adapter I have! )
Yes, the Lockout 2H uses the manual memory level if there is one… and the SP10 Pro defaults to manual memory with a 10-minute timeout. So it uses that level for 2H in Lockout.
Otherwise, 2H uses the highest ramp floor.
My recommended setup on almost every light is to use “Ramp → 10C” to set a manual memory level, then use “Ramp → 10H → option 2 → 1H” to set the memory timeout to 10 minutes. That way, it’ll always turn on at a predictable sane level with 1C from Off, if it has been off for more than a few minutes. Plus, it gives a useful secondary level in lockout mode.
Sorry about that!
Sorry again 
