While I continue to investigate (here and here) what flashlight I will be buying for our travels together, I’ve been talking about the search to my wife way too much. And she asked to look at something for her, for when she is in town on her own. Yay! More searches!
First thoughts on what she would be looking for:
Small form factor
Built-in charger, USB-C port
Normal white light and UV light
Alarm/siren for personal safety type situations (loud!)
Nice to haves:
User-replaceable battery
Blue/red flashy lights
Magnetic mount
I’m hoping this is a common search that this community will have many suggestions for! Thank you in advance for sharing.
I also carry Sabre pepper spray for self-protection, though I’ve never had to use it.
Sabre is a really good brand that is used by law enforcement, and it can be pretty inexpensive, especially on eBay.
Maybe this is not what are wanting but it is good thing for traveling and camping.
Hanrongda HRD-900, radio receiver with flashlight, alarm, micro-usb, solar and handcranking charging, powered by 18650 battery.
This NexTool has the siren, but not the UV light … and is way too big, but still! And this Philips EDC flashlight has the UV light, which seems to be a much easier function to find, but this was the first model I saw that had it. I saw a Nitecore of similar size and function as well.
I was hoping perhaps it exists as a combo in the small form factor!
Edit: just saw this review of the Nextorch P86 posted on YouTube, too!
What’s the UV for? Different wavelengths work better for certain applications, and some applications require the visible light be filtered out.
In my mind, a simple flashlight and separate siren and a UV light would be a good setup; it would be annoying to go to the bathroom late at night and get blasted with UV light, or require a bright light for a “what’s that noise?” Situation and the light to turn on in UV.
For checking currency, a simple 365nm squeeze light should work in all but the brightest of direct sunlight, the CR2032/CR2016 should last a long time unless one is working as a bank teller.
Next step up would be a jetbeam AAA UV light.
Cheap keychain panic alarm thing beats a whistle, in my opinion, the alarm can be augmented with shouting and will continue even if it’s dropped.
IMHO you gonna be better with different tools for each job you (she) want them for instead of trying to do like a swiss army knife and squeeze a bunch of crappy tools into one to make do.
I’d be more than annoyed if I was standing next to somebody trying to use a UV light to check money, fumbled into the wrong setting, and blew a “siren” in my ear. On the same note what would happen if she had been using the light and the battery was dead when she needed that “siren”
I saw that too, and yeah it is too big for her purse. She would never carry such a large device. But it’s interesting to see that these devices do indeed exist!
You might be right. Watching some of the reviews of devices I linked to in an earlier comment to this thread, I did wonder about the ‘oops’ factor. And it features a prominent role in the P86 review video!
I was just going to suggest the Boruit. The siren is not terribly loud, but really shrill, activates along with blue+red lights and is an easy activation (hold left button while off).
The UI is a bit clunky and the button press tempo is slightly hard to get at first, but not horrible after getting used to it.
Doesn’t have a replaceable cell though, but is USB-C charged.
If you live in the U.S.A. Pepper spray is usually legal, it’s made from natural sources. Tear gas is not legal in many areas, it’s not plant based. Whistles are pretty much worthless these days. Men who should know better are pulling out cell phones to record instead of stepping up and helping. I carry a cordless hole puncher with 15 flash-bangs in it, small enough to fit in my front pocket.
I don’t know about the “natural sources” part.
I think whether or not pepper spray or tear gas is legal depends on the state that you live in, not whether or not it’s natural.
I mean, there’s plenty of deadly things that are illegal to use that are natural.
For example, you can’t legally kill someone with cyanide or arsenic even though they are natural.
I’m lucky.
In California, pepper spray with tear gas and UV marking dye is legal to own and use in self defense.
