The future is the $1.00 LED lights from Walmart. I bought several and I have to say, they are amazing. Some may not feel that they are the best lights, and I admit, out past three feet they don’t do much, but that greenish tinted light is hell on objects at less than a foot…if proper color rendering is not important.
Speaking of which, I have one that needs to be repaired, does anyone know of a good place to send it for repair?
All kidding aside, how close do you think we are to the limits of current battery technology? I mean, improvements aside, there is only a finite amount of energy that can be gleaned from an object.
How many times I forgot how to access the futures that I almost not use in the UI with different lights. this will help to select it. Also when you have a light in a stand you can control this remotely.
Eh, if you want to predict the future, look at where the money is being invested in related technologies. Flashlights are not a big enough market to justify major R&D efforts by themselves. The top two US flashlight makers sell about $100 MM/year each; there are $1-3 billion dollars in light bulbs sold annually in the US.
So -
batteries get better because of electric cars and solar storage, and flashlights get pulled to 21700 cells as those replace 18650 as the high volume product. Or laptops go LiPO, and new flashlight form factors are tried.
LEDs get better, mostly from fixed lighting and perhaps automotive/signage/entertainment uses. Flashlights get brighter, more efficient LEDs; CRI improves or the CRI efficiency penalty decreases; cheap computation and manufacturing techniques mean unconventional optics become more of an option (TIR/aspheric/custom printed lens instead of reflectors).
Heat management from laptops, servers, or perhaps even automotive headlights migrates to specialty flashlights, with computational fluid dynamics used to model heat transfer and “exotic” materials and techniques like ceramic-metal matrix and phase change heat pipes.
The cost of computation is another game-changer. Some of us remember when a PIC was a $15 dollar part, not a $0.15 part. What does the user interface look like when a microcontroller with wifi, Bluetooth, and sophisticated power management costs $0.15? When a 1”x2” OLED touch-sensitive panel (technology migrating from mobile phones) is cheaper than a forward clicky or e-switch? You’ve seen those $9 USB Volt-amp meters? How long before those migrate from $499 Imalents down to $49 Sofirns? What’s the cost of parts for USB charging? How long before the connector is the majority of the cost?
I think remote means it’s not in your hand, kinda by definition.
Also, the user interface for settings is, shall we say, limited with input of one button, and output of 1 pixel. I would love to be able to re-order modes, set upper and lower limits, choose which modes can be memorized, perform thermal calibration, or update the firmware from a phone, web browser, or client software.
It stinks that the domestic market is not as on the forefront like the market in China is. But yeah, they follow the money. The quality of lights I have recently purchased makes me realize that the US market is getting left behind in many areas.
That’s nothing to sneeze at for sure. We have some great cells now thanks to the evolution of the electric car and many other users of LiIon cells. I am excited to see what we are using 5 years from now.
FWIW, I ordered a few of the Molicel P42A. I have many of their 18650 cells and figured I better get a few 21700’s. I have a few lights that use them but they have 18650’s in them.
[quote=mrheosuper]
Imo, phone control flashlight is kind of useless, you are holding it in your hand, why do you have to reach out your phone to change brightness?
what i meant was, use the phone for setup and config, not operation, though foursevens had some remote operation
Now we need a better battery at 14500/16340 size, its energy density is really sucking, compared to 18650/21700, this is what holding EDC flashlight back.
It would be great to be able to customize and choose your own lightning modes, or install any UI on it once through your phone (kind of like how you first setup your smartwatch or smartband the first time you get it with your phone).
It would require all flashlights to have the same base open source firmware and developers would need to port their UI to it.
I guess graphene batteries are the next step to getting more power in smaller packages. Samsung might put one in a phone by 2021. Of course more power means a faster step down but some of us just want 200000 lumens for 20 seconds lol. Hopefully someone will invent a much more efficient LED or something else which beats LED.
I’ve got an ammonia compressor in my back pocket, condenser spread out inside my jacket and the evaporator is inside my modded Imalent MS18. Great for walking in cold winter nights.
I’d enjoy getting Bluetooth in a light, as long as we could get a phone app to control it. I have one the Foursevens lights with it and I borrowed a family member’s iPhone to set it up how I wanted. It was also handy for checking battery level now and then. Too bad they never made an Android app for it; and the iPhone app no longer exists either, so it’s a worthless function now. It was also handy to let a kid use a more powerful light by disabling the higher settings and just giving them access to basic lower modes.
So to recap, yes Bluetooth, but you NEED a way to let people access and control it.
Edited to add: Just think of having Bluetooth in a lantern like the LT1…you’re camping and you need to get up in the middle of the night; you could turn on your lantern that’s on the camp table from inside the tent and then you can already see the campsite. That’d be pretty sweet. Or have them set up in your house, and in a power outage you could turn them on from wherever you’re at (when the power goes out).
Too bad there’s not a common Bluetooth equivalent to a web page. Yeah, you can get a “Personal Area Network”, but there’s nothing like a generic REST profile. On the other hand, if we can put a web page in a light bulb, we could put one in a flashlight. Add a discovery protocol and you could configure your flashlight over USB or Wifi the first time, and have a known IP address after that.
I believe, based on almost no research, the top US Manufacturers are Maglite, Surefire, and Streamlight. I could be wrong, and probably am :). None of them compete with China on price or innovation. All focus on Brand, market niches, and “Value” (we’re worth the price because…). Maglite is a volume play, and seems to thrive because of it’s logistics it’s channels include Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc. The other two sell to government and military. They’re both good at sales to State and Local government - 50 –1000 at a time for cops, firefighters, or EMT.
Are you aware of any local PD / FD in your area which purchase in bulk for their employees anymore? I sell modded lights to first responders and I’ve been told over and over again their departments no longer provide service lights. Both big and small departments (from Columbus PD to Jackson twnshp fire to tiny south Bloomfield PD and everyone in between) and I always ask what their issue light is and it’s either “there isn’t one” or it’s a pistol light. I’ve also seen more first responders carying Fenix lights they’ve purchased on their own than issued mag/surefire/streamlights.
I’m good personal friends with 2 officers from different small town departments, both of them were offered service pistols when they were hired but neither took them and they wernt forced to. Seems to me like more and more these days departments are spending their budget on labor it’s self over gear. My officer buddy Matt purchased all his own armor and his dept asked for his issue armor back so they could reissue it to someone else…
Federal govt / military maybe, but I don’t believe local govt is a viable sales market for the above mentioned brands anymore, atleast not in bulk.
