**New Flashlight Standards Just Announced

Throw calculated for 0.25 Lux illuminance...? White targets or what? That's somewhat a joke (unless you live in snow-covered areas)...
Don't expect that throw in a forest.

At least I hope more people start using the appropriate unit for beam intensity now (candela (cd), not 'lux @1m').

AnAppleSnail said:

One question I have for you people with light-meters is: How bright is .25 lux, for their seeing distance?

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Petzl choose .25 lux because it is said that it is equivalent to a fullmoon brightness on a clear night.
I suppose that it is to give an idea of what you can expect of a .25 lux illuminance.
In fact the real value of a fullmoon brightness is depending of a lot of parameters (seasons, etc), so the real value is very different each times in reality.
Furthermore, Is .25 lux an average value ? The lowest value ?

Fullmoon brightness can be about 1 lux so, "the beautifull fullmoon light i remember" has a lot of chance to be above .25 lux.
If it was 1 lux or a particulary bright fullmoon, am i not going to be cheated by a manufacturer which claims that a fullmoon brightness is .25 lux ?

Manufacturers tried to set standards to help to compare flashlights from different brands but, they set range/distance calculation with a very low illuminance value that help them to claim very high range/distance. Good choice !

Wiska light has choosen for its searchlights to give (target) range at 1 lux.
1 lux that he has definided as "the minimum illuminance to identify a target with some details".

IMHO it is more fair than the 0.25 thing. Once the light has hit the target, the light has to travel back to our eyes. 0.25 lux "to see at my feet when i walk by a fullmoon night" is not the same as .25 lux at 250 m.

(Sorry for my bad english).

Tally-ho said:

Manufacturers tried to set standards to help to compare flashlights from different brands but, they set range/distance calculation with a very low illuminance value that help them to claim very high range/distance.

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But how does this provide them an advantage, if their competitors can make the same claims? It's like a bicycle racer who thinks, "When I reach the downhill, I can go faster." So can everyone else.

Paul_in_Maryland said:

But how does this provide them an advantage, if their competitors can make the same claims? It's like a bicycle racer who thinks, "When I reach the downhill, I can go faster." So can everyone else.

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That does not give an avantage to a manufacturer against another, it gives an avantage to all manufacturers by letting them claim very high values/figures for distance/range. That is part of the marketing.
If you already know what does it means and how it is calculated, well, you are lucky. If you ignore it, you will only see "distance: 250 m"..."waooo...great !".

Don't blind yourself by using your flashlight in high mode at short range (but maximum range/distance value is calculated in high mode), or .25 lux will be nothing usefull.

The run time standard is messed up. Looks like it was designed to allow cheep resistored lights to compete with high quality regulated lights. I had such high hopes about the standard initially, but this is pretty much crap. Guess we are still stuck doing our own run time tests, to get the real numbers. Sad :shakehead

How the distance/range is calculated ?
It is probably a value that is calculated from a value measured at very shorter range. 1 meter, 10 meters ?
It is measured after how many times ?
1 second ? 1 minute ?

I guess that it is calculated form a mesurement at short range after a few seconds.
I don't know a flashlight that stays at 100% brightness after 1 minutes, even after 20 seconds. I'm pretty new to flashlights' world so maybe i'm wrong, but the distance calculation probably doesn't reflect the real distance/range after 1 minutes of use.
So, what purpose is this standard made for if it only reflects the reality for only the first seconds of use ?
In my humble opinion it is nothing more than marketing disguised with good intentions.
Who cares something that is only true for a few seconds.

Perhaps it makes more sense to base opinions on the actual test methods rather than assumptions of what they might be.

Paul_in_Maryland said:

But how does this provide them an advantage, if their competitors can make the same claims? It's like a bicycle racer who thinks, "When I reach the downhill, I can go faster." So can everyone else.

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My problem is not that it necessarily gives an advantage to one over the other. The whole premise of these standards was to assist/protect the consumer. But with the way the standards are set it does the opposite. Say a person needs a light to see the back of their multi-acreage property about 1000m away. When they read the specs of the light and it says it will reach as far 1100m away they will rightly conclude that this light will do the job. On getting it home and testing it however they will find this light to be woefully short of what is needed and what was advertised. Now they either have to eat the cost or take the light back. :shakehead

These standards were set by companies who cared more about their pocketbooks than helping the consumer. Sure the .25lux standard creates a level playing field but then so does a more realistic 1lux or 2lux standard.

They would have been far better off coming here and allowing the intelligentsia of CPF to set the standards.

You guys have made a bunch of very good observations about the way in which these standards relate to actual use, and have demonstrated to me that they are very optimistic. I especially wish there was a runtime to 50%.

Still, I very much appreciate having a standard by which various lights can be fairly compared. Sure, the marketed numbers will be highly optimistic. Well, I never achieve the advertised fuel economy in my vehicles, but I'm glad to be able to use them for comparison shopping, just the same. At least the flashlight performance claims will be equally inflated by all of the standards-users, which is a heck of a lot more useful when comparison shopping than having to go on trust and reputation, especially for any non-flashaholic.

A large part of developing a voluntary standard is defining it such that merely adopting said standard does not pose a disadvantage in marketing, or it will never catch on. So, they tend to be defined to provide good numbers when they are manufacturer developed. I'd rather have that, than no cooperative standard development among manufacturers. And, at least they included 'manufacturers, users, and general' in the voting group, with a clause that required no one group to hold more than 50% of the winning vote. That's a pretty balanced approach, in my opinion.

The example of somebody having a 1000m lot and buying a light rated to 1100m throw, as fooling the consumer, does seem valid, I agree. Part of the shopping game is knowing how much to discount the claims. Car fuel economy, not too much. Car audio power ratings, a whole bunch! Flashlight throw, probably discount by 75% if 1 lux is a more useful threshold? Folks will catch on quickly enough, though, and this will help make the ratings more useful as time goes on. Sure, I was disappointed when that $20, 1000W car amp I bought when I was 17 was quieter than my mom's 50W home amp, but I learned to deal with the exaggeration and can better compare and select products with standard power ratings now. They still help.

That's how I see it, anyway.

At the end of the day, it's an interesting exercise in self-regulation, but I don't think it will effectively alter the practical flashlight buying experience for the casual user or the dedicated professional user.

I don't believe it will impact the US Army's Family of Flashlight certification process, for example.

-Trevor

JP Labs said:

At least the flashlight performance claims will be equally inflated by all of the standards-users...

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Sadly, they won't. Unless I missed it, there's no reward for a company whose lights stay brighter longer. As a result, the endurance ratings favor companies whose lights lack any sort of regulation.

Those standards are long overdue. Sounds really great :thumbsup:.

rayman

In the wonderful new standards, is there any requirement for people to give output figures for times other than immediately after turning the light on?

If not, I really can't see what the point of them is, since the information given is likely to be misleading to a large fraction of potential customers.

In fact, if the only important figures are brightness (candela/lumens/distance) at switch-on and time to 10% of initial, wouldn't it be easy to play the system, and have a light electronically designed to get the best possible figures - having a regulated brief initial high, followed by a nice subtle regulated decline down to somewhere a little over 10% brightness, where the light then just sat until the battery flattened?

It wouldn't even be easy to say the light was definitely a cheat, since a manufacturer could argue that it was a special 'automatic' mode, giving a good initial output, but subtly dropping to be nice and green and save power as a user's eyes became dark-adapted.

uk_caver said:

In the wonderful new standards, is there any requirement for people to give output figures for times other than immediately after turning the light on?

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I think I read that the "initial" brightness value is taken 30 seconds after the light is turned on--a welcome concession to reality.

I'd wonder if it was largely a concession to ease of testing.

I'd have thought it's simpler to turn a light on and then make a measurement 30 seconds later than doing one immediately at turn-on, especially since with 30 seconds being specified, I can't see too many people losing much sleep about whether they measured at the precise second, or a second or three either side.

In terms of cells discharging, or badly heatsinked LEDs warming up, 30 seconds doesn't seem very far away from 'immediately'.

Paul_in_Maryland said:

I think I read that the "initial" brightness value is taken 30 seconds after the light is turned on--a welcome concession to reality.

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Run Time
The duration of time from the initial light output value (30 seconds after the light is turned on with fresh batteries) until the light output drops to 10 percent of the initial value.

Light Output
A measurement of the total quantity of emitted overall light energy. The value is reported in lumens.

It is not said when the measure is done for "Light Output", only for the reference value for measuring "Run Time". But if the "initial light output value" for measuring "Run time" is taken 30 seconds after the light is on, maybe it is the same value that is used for "Light Ouptut".
I'm not sure to understand this well.
Anyway...nothing better than graphic curves for regulation provided by CPF reviewers.

lovecpf

uk_caver said:

wouldn't it be easy to play the system, and have a light electronically designed to get the best possible figures - having a regulated brief initial high, followed by a nice subtle regulated decline down to somewhere a little over 10% brightness, where the light then just sat until the battery flattened?

It wouldn't even be easy to say the light was definitely a cheat, since a manufacturer could argue that it was a special 'automatic' mode, giving a good initial output, but subtly dropping to be nice and green and save power as a user's eyes became dark-adapted.

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You mean like the Icon?

Pekka said:

If anything, this looks like a great spot to fool Joe Average. Not exactly great thing to implement into standard...

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Agreed, the specs don't cover regulated output at all. I would prefer to know exactly how my light will react at different light outputs. 90 minutes on high, and then choose to select a lower output. 10% IS okay to see by, but LL has been saying that 190 lumens for hundreds of hours for quite a while now (i'm looking at you P7!)

The good thing is, revisions do take place in peer reviewed standards, and especially in a fast moving industry like this one. I just hope that Surefire has a controlling interest in the revisions, as soon as they pull out, the standard means less!

I will read the standard though, I am sure I can sneak it into the purchasing list for the next round of tech documents!

JP Labs said:

At least the flashlight performance claims will be equally inflated by all of the standards-users, which is a heck of a lot more useful when comparison shopping than having to go on trust and reputation, especially for any non-flashaholic.

A large part of developing a voluntary standard is defining it such that merely adopting said standard does not pose a disadvantage in marketing, or it will never catch on. So, they tend to be defined to provide good numbers when they are manufacturer developed. I'd rather have that, than no cooperative standard development among manufacturers. And, at least they included 'manufacturers, users, and general' in the voting group, with a clause that required no one group to hold more than 50% of the winning vote. That's a pretty balanced approach, in my opinion.

The example of somebody having a 1000m lot and buying a light rated to 1100m throw, as fooling the consumer, does seem valid, I agree. Part of the shopping game is knowing how much to discount the claims. Car fuel economy, not too much. Car audio power ratings, a whole bunch! Flashlight throw, probably discount by 75% if 1 lux is a more useful threshold? Folks will catch on quickly enough, though, and this will help make the ratings more useful as time goes on. Sure, I was disappointed when that $20, 1000W car amp I bought when I was 17 was quieter than my mom's 50W home amp, but I learned to deal with the exaggeration and can better compare and select products with standard power ratings now. They still help.

That's how I see it, anyway.

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So if I'm understanding you correctly this standards body was so forwards looking that they included their own BS fudge factor built into the standards and that 1. the consumer should be expecting exaggerated claims so it is ok to lie and 2. if the consumer doesn't realize they they are being lied to then they will just have to learn the hard way.

For standards to carry any weight they must bear out in the real world. What they have done is shoot themselves in the foot. They want a standard people can trust and use to guide their purchases but then undermine the authority they seek to gain as a standard.

These myopic businessmen make me sick. Just make a standard that carries weight. If there are only a few manufacturers who take it on so be it. A good marketer could use this to their advantage and show the others to be frauds.

Let's say you(the manufacturer) follow the new standard for flashlights with clearly marked specs. But if on getting home the customer realizes they've been had they will no longer believe those specs. So what good are those specs going to be for the consumer in the future if now they no longer give credence to them?

JP Labs said:

A large part of developing a voluntary standard is defining it such that merely adopting said standard does not pose a disadvantage in marketing, or it will never catch on.

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One must always tell the truth regardless of how many people follow you.

If one realizes there is a problem in the marketplace with many sellers giving wildly false or misleading claims and honestly truly wants to help correct a wrong would they, an honest person, come to the conclusion that just because my lie is not as far fetched as their lie makes me a good guy?

Basically this standard is one where everyone has gotten together and agreed to "lie a bit less".

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm beating up on you. My frustration is with the standards and not you and I realize the above is probably not your thoughts but your attempt to "get in their heads".

Personally, at the moment I think I'd probably have more respect for a trustworthy manufacturer who chose not to buy into the standard than one who did.

If it lacks a requirement to clearly distinguish regulated and unregulated lights, and give some idea how output will change over time, this standard doesn't even give the most technically-aware consumer enough information to make an informed decision, let alone anyone else.