Is the current economy in 2013 hurting LED flashlight buying just a little or a lot?

[BeastFlashlight]

I agree that the problem is a stagnation of LED advancement. It WAS moving so fast but now how long has XML2 and XPG2 been the pinnacle? It's been awhile now, where the hell is XPG3 at??

 

[Torpedo]

Well, my family has lost a chunk of our income over the past two years and now my kid needs a car, and on and on....life just happens. If I want a light now, I will skip a lunch here and there, or not go on a fishing trip to save a couple bucks....I can find a way to justify a new light still. But as noted above the lack of advancement of lights and leds is what is slowing me down from buying. I got into this about two years ago, and it seems things were really going fast, and now it has tapered off. As noted in another thread, there will have to be significant improvements over current lights to get me in a buying mood again.

 

[jorn]

Re: Is the current

I agree that the problem is a stagnation of LED advancement. It WAS moving so fast but now how long has XML2 and XPG2 been the pinnacle? It's been awhile now, where the hell is XPG3 at??

Flashlights are not a big driving force when it comes to led tec. The old xr-e was on the marked for ages.

 

[Oztorchfreak]

My DEFT-X just landed in Sydney!

This was and still is the last purchase of a flashlight for quite a while as far as I can see into the future.

This is pushing the boundaries of what an LED light can do in hitting the clouds with something that can still fit in the back pocket.

It just took nearly nine months to get it built, a bit like having a baby I suppose.

A $600 BABY!!!

My budget is somewhat changing in it's direction lately towards more important things in my life, like travelling around australia in my retirement days which is right now.

Maybe I will get a chance to use them all and even get some scratches on some of them.

OH MY GOD, did I say scratches?

I will always like flashlights as I have used them in my work and play as an Electrician for nearly forty years now.

My shelves are full of black and chrome gadgetry and the wallet is thin.

What more can I say.



CHEERS

 

[jellydonut]

My personal economy is better than it has ever been. For most of my CPF time, I've been a poor student..

Now, however, there's no reason to buy any more lights. I have all the lights I could ever need, and then some.

To compound this issue, no one is bringing out new, innovative designs that tempt me, and no one is updating LEDs, so there's no reason to upgrade to new modules.

It would take something like the PhD project, or the PD lights, to tempt me out of my non-buying state. It seems the days of projects like that, and design innovation like that, are over.

 

[Oztorchfreak]

My personal economy is better than it has ever been. For most of my CPF time, I've been a poor student..

Now, however, there's no reason to buy any more lights. I have all the lights I could ever need, and then some.

To compound this issue, no one is bringing out new, innovative designs that tempt me, and no one is updating LEDs, so there's no reason to upgrade to new modules.

It would take something like the PhD project, or the PD lights, to tempt me out of my non-buying state. It seems the days of projects like that, and design innovation like that, are over.

We seem to have reached a plateau right now.

Too many similar lights in each brand but nothing really tempting and adventurous in design.

A lot of companies have near identical versions of somebody else's lights, right up and down the range.

Where does one go when one has reached the end of the rainbow?



CHEERS

 

[carrot]

My personal economy is better than it has ever been. For most of my CPF time, I've been a poor student..

Now, however, there's no reason to buy any more lights. I have all the lights I could ever need, and then some.

To compound this issue, no one is bringing out new, innovative designs that tempt me, and no one is updating LEDs, so there's no reason to upgrade to new modules.

It would take something like the PhD project, or the PD lights, to tempt me out of my non-buying state. It seems the days of projects like that, and design innovation like that, are over.

I am in the same boat as jellydonut here. I recently just bought a few lights to catch up but I agree that there's not all that much interesting new developments happening right now... mostly just emitter upgrades and rehashes of same-old, same-old.

On the other hand, my hobbies have diversified more than ever... and all of them seem to need lights :thinking: As I've been dabbling in scuba and caving lately, and getting more serious than ever about climbing and backpacking, I've had cause to consider lights for whole other use cases. That said, most of those hobbies take my time and money now, so I also have less money to spend on lights.

 

[nbp]

We seem to have reached a plateau right now.

Too many similar lights in each brand but nothing really tempting and adventurous in design.

A lot of companies have near identical versions of somebody else's lights, right up and down the range.

Where does one go when one has reached the end of the rainbow?

CHEERS

Stop looking forward and start looking back in time.

Lots of amazing lights, especially in the Custom field, built years ago are still plenty bright and have charisma and personality and offer user satisfaction that today's cookie cutter mass produced gimmicky lights could not dream of.

I wish I could fit that all in my sigline.

 

[Outdoorsman5]

Most of us on this thread have been around for a while, and our own personal "inventory" of great lights is now saturated (mine included.) But, I don't think the market is saturated at all. I don't know anyone that has ever heard of any of the lights I own - zebra, surefire, fenix, quark, olight, itp, eagletac... When guys see my lights, they're seeing them for the first time & now want one. I now have a few friends & family members that buy this stuff only because they've seen my lights, so the market isn't anywhere close to being saturated. Most people have never heard of this stuff, and when they see these lights a lot of them want one. Also, I doubt LED advances are even close to an end. How many have thought over the years that "computers have advanced as far as they can" or "phones" or "light bulbs" or "batteries" or "TECHNOLOGY..." So, I don't think things are coming to an end.

We have seen a lot of companies come onto the scene recently, and maybe we will see that slow some. We may not see the rapid growth we've seen in recent years, but it's time for the true leaders to emerge. The weaker ones will drop off.

 

[tarrow]

For those newbies like myself who entered into the fray recently, there is not a giant need to buy a bunch of new flashlights. I bought the best one i could manage and it is great for my use and I have not seen anything else significantly better at my price point since then. I keep waiting ( a whole 3 months thus far) for the next giant leap in brightness but it seems that things happen at an evolutionary pace in the flashlight world these days and not at the revolutionary pace of 5 years ago or so. I do not have much interest in more flashlights that are simply a bit smaller or a bit brighter and why get anything that is less then what I have now. I need a big leap in tech for me to push the button.

 

[wjv]

I started buying ~2 years ago (mid 2011)

Funny thing is that my last couple of purchases have been older models instead of the "latest greatest" models because I like the features, UI, modes, mode spacings better.

My recent lights have been L3 Illumination L10. Fenix LD10, ITP A2 EOS. Even when I bought my Fenix TK15, PD22 and my PD32 I got the XP-G Rx versions instead if the S2 versions. . . .

 

[Romo Lampkin's Cat]

This X 1000.

I clearly remember a decade ago being so jazzed about having just received my brand new, state of the art, cutting edge, Elektrolumens FT-3C. Feed it three C-cells and you'd get 70 emitter lumens out the other end. On and off, that was it. Thing was though, it was putting out 2 to 3 times the light you'd get from a Mag Light at half the size. Non-flashaholics would look on with amazement at the wonder you held in your hand.

Nowadays, these whippersnappers can't fall out of a tree without landing on a tiny little, multi-mode pocket blowtorch pushing close to a thousand lumens off of a single cell. You're welcome, young fellas.

I just read a review of this 70 lumen wonder. http://www.dansdata.com/ft3c.htm My how things have changed. I was always a closet flashlight fan who never had any money. Now that I have money, I have purchased only one light that didn't come off the shelf at a place like Walmart, and that is the Zebralight SC600 MkII. I now have "my light" so I'm not interested in purchasing any others, though a 2500-ish lumens thrower might be a fun toy.

The "assistive light" (Samsung's term, not mine) on my Galaxy S4 is brighter than some incandescent flashlights I own, and it's powered by a battery that packs more than 2000 mAH. My *cell phone* is a better flashlight than nearly any flashlight I ever owned prior to the SC600 MkII.

I think the pace of new light development is trailing off. The next phase is a decrease in price without an attendant decrease in quality. It will happen; it is only a matter of time.

 

[BeastFlashlight]

Stop looking forward and start looking back in time.

Lots of amazing lights, especially in the Custom field, built years ago are still plenty bright and have charisma and personality and offer user satisfaction that today's cookie cutter mass produced gimmicky lights could not dream of.

I wish I could fit that all in my sigline.

Ok you love your old school hosts I get it, but don't you think it's a good idea to send them in to have the LEDs modernized to the latest and brightest/most efficient every now & then? Best of both worlds!! I say if u have a great host keep it forever & upgrade it once in awhile

 

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamond]

Personally I have hit a point where I have tried out every possible UI, every possible switching combination, every clicky, every rotary, etc. There is nothing being released right now that is significantly better in any way that what I already own. Yet I still find myself buying and selling lights in the hopes that something new and unique will be out there. In my effort to do so I find that I am going back to lights released 2-5 years ago and just upgrading the emitters myself for the output and tint I prefer.

I would say that if I had to sell all but one of my lights right now I would bet that 70% of the lights I have would be just fine as that one light I keep. Maybe there would be an instance here or there where the light wouldn't be perfect but for 95% of my needs it would be just right.

I would like to see something significantly new or different that will make me say WOW!

 

[nbp]

Ok you love your old school hosts I get it, but don't you think it's a good idea to send them in to have the LEDs modernized to the latest and brightest/most efficient every now & then? Best of both worlds!! I say if u have a great host keep it forever & upgrade it once in awhile

Well, that is the benefit of modular lights... as long as guys like datiLED are around here making light engines and popping in new emitters you can do exactly that. And certain other lights are just great the way they were years ago when they were made.

 

[Bronco]

I agree that the problem is a stagnation of LED advancement.

We seem to have reached a plateau right now.

Too many similar lights in each brand but nothing really tempting and adventurous in design.

A lot of companies have near identical versions of somebody else's lights, right up and down the range.

Where does one go when one has reached the end of the rainbow?

I am in the same boat as jellydonut here. I recently just bought a few lights to catch up but I agree that there's not all that much interesting new developments happening right now... mostly just emitter upgrades and rehashes of same-old, same-old.

I do not have much interest in more flashlights that are simply a bit smaller or a bit brighter and why get anything that is less then what I have now. I need a big leap in tech for me to push the button.

Hang in there, guys. The great thing about life is that you never know what might be coming next. Just when you become convinced that the end has been reached, some new technology will come out of left field and change everything. It might be a sudden quantum leap advance achieved in some area that's been on our radar screen for quite awhile, like a breakthrough in the use of capacitors as a power source, for example, or it could be that we'll stumble upon some completely new technology of the sort that we can't even envision at present. Not saying it'll happen tomorrow, but there's still a fair amount of room for incremental improvements to keep us amused in the meantime.

 

[calipsoii]

It's far too early to say that LED flashlights have plateau'd. It only seems that way because of the furious rate of development in LED technology over the last decade. Now the tech is more refined and so without any huge leaps, all the manufacturers are catching up to each other and things feel stagnant.

In my opinion they're far from that. You just need to look at a more mature hobby market, like knives or watches. The basic automatic watch mechanism hasn't changed much in the last couple hundred years but there are no shortage of companies turning them out and no shortage of forums full of people buying them. Don't worry, flashlights aren't going anywhere, they're just going to need to work harder for their customers.

My guess is that LED's will continue to improve:
- first in efficiency, but only for a little while until they reach the theoretical max, then that'll stagnate, similiar to how li-ion batteries haven't seen anything new in many years
- then second in tint, when manufacturers realize they need something new to sell in 2016 and aim for widespread adoption of 100CRI neutral emitters (to finally shake the 'leds are blue' stigma that the public carries)
- third in emitter size, which will grant higher numbers on paper but ultimately prove useless for 90% of what people around here need them for

My guess is that the custom builders around here will:
- expand their offerings into the exotic metals (titanium, copper, brass, bronze) to differentiate themselves from the mainstream aluminum lights
- experiment heavier with the optical end of the light, turning out different configurations than the zoom/mule/reflectors we have now. Maybe fibre-optic light channels or something like that.
- offer heavy ornamentation on their lights through different knurling techniques, cutting patterns, and the addition of glow/tritium
- experiment (somewhat unsuccessfully) with new UI and control schemes then go back to either 3-level clicky or 1-level lights

I fully expect a resurgence in incandescents, and I'd be very surprised if that didn't happen soon. I can go to any record shop in town right now and buy an LP record. An LP! There are garage sales every single weekend with people selling their old turntables for $10 and the kids are spending $45 on vinyl these days. Everything old is new again and once CPF'ers get bored of LED and their neighbours all have Costco 10,000lm pocket torches they're going to be itching to spend on something retro and incandescent fits that bill perfectly. I fully expect to see the old SF's become highly desirable, FiveMega to have a serious boom in business, and the A2/M6 to once again show themselves as the last great incans, built at a time when incan technology had plateau'd and the collectors were probably wondering whether the flashlight economy had grown stagnant.

 

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamond]

That is a very interesting way of looking at things.

I agree with you that LED technology will continue to improve just as it always had. I also agree that all lights from manufacturers are just copies of each other.

The custom area has always made things interesting and unique, but most of the time these custom lights are limited by the same drivers that everyone else uses. There are some unique designs that come out to make the same thing new again. I have bought, and sometimes sold, many of these customs always on the search for something that tickles my fancy in a way no other light has. There are a few different models of lights that are still the best overall around and have not been topped but I keep looking to find something new.

I feel a way that lights can separate themselves from the pack would be via programmability. In many ways the Tri-V/Tri-V2 has proved itself to be the ultimate most flexible light that can literally be programmed anyway you would like it. I realize that it is not a light that most people will ever get to play with, but it is unique. I'd love to see more mainstream lights take on this level of programmability whether it be via clickies or twisty knobs. Or, if it be via a USB connection and a computer program. That is something that would draw me in.

 

[jtr1962]

It's far too early to say that LED flashlights have plateau'd. It only seems that way because of the furious rate of development in LED technology over the last decade. Now the tech is more refined and so without any huge leaps, all the manufacturers are catching up to each other and things feel stagnant.

For what it's worth, the better LEDs these days barely break 100 lm/W at high currents and elevated junction temperatures. Sure, that's a huge leap from a few years ago, but there is potential for yet another doubling of LED efficiency and then some. Granted, this will take much longer than the last doubling, but I'd say we have until at least 2020 before LED technology really plateaus for good.

In my opinion they're far from that. You just need to look at a more mature hobby market, like knives or watches. The basic automatic watch mechanism hasn't changed much in the last couple hundred years but there are no shortage of companies turning them out and no shortage of forums full of people buying them. Don't worry, flashlights aren't going anywhere, they're just going to need to work harder for their customers.

I think a more mature market might get more people to buy high-end flashlights who otherwise wouldn't have touched them. The reason is simple-nobody likes buying things which are the best today, but eclipsed in short time by something better. That's often why people have held off on computer upgrades for as long as possible. The rationale is in six months I'll pay half as much for what is considered cutting edge technology today. For a while it was the same with LEDs. Now that the pace of improvement is dramatically slowing down, you can buy a good light with the confidence that you won't need to buy a better one in six months to stay significantly ahead of the curve.

My guess is that LED's will continue to improve:
- first in efficiency, but only for a little while until they reach the theoretical max, then that'll stagnate, similiar to how li-ion batteries haven't seen anything new in many years
- then second in tint, when manufacturers realize they need something new to sell in 2016 and aim for widespread adoption of 100CRI neutral emitters (to finally shake the 'leds are blue' stigma that the public carries)
- third in emitter size, which will grant higher numbers on paper but ultimately prove useless for 90% of what people around here need them for

On the first point, we're getting close to theoretical maximums now at very low currents but we still have a factor of two or more to go until we get there at higher currents. Agreed on all the other points. I doubt we'll see 100 CRI emitters but CRI 97 or 98 is easily possible even now. The market generally doesn't demand that due to the efficiency hit but this could change once LEDs become so efficient that they're still over 200 lm/W even at very high CRIs.

- experiment (somewhat unsuccessfully) with new UI and control schemes then go back to either 3-level clicky or 1-level lights

Sometimes simpler is indeed better. Complex UIs never really were my cup of tea for the simple reason I'll quickly forget how to program them. I think keeping the UI fairly simple appeals to the vast majority of buyers.

I fully expect a resurgence in incandescents, and I'd be very surprised if that didn't happen soon. I can go to any record shop in town right now and buy an LP record. An LP! There are garage sales every single weekend with people selling their old turntables for $10 and the kids are spending $45 on vinyl these days. Everything old is new again and once CPF'ers get bored of LED and their neighbours all have Costco 10,000lm pocket torches they're going to be itching to spend on something retro and incandescent fits that bill perfectly. I fully expect to see the old SF's become highly desirable, FiveMega to have a serious boom in business, and the A2/M6 to once again show themselves as the last great incans, built at a time when incan technology had plateau'd and the collectors were probably wondering whether the flashlight economy had grown stagnant.

I'm not sure I agree here. Barring some major advancement in battery technology, I'm not seeing incandescent flashlights remaining more than a niche item. The reason people went to LEDs, despite some drawbacks to some people with tint and CRI, is because the runtime/brightness advantages outweighed those disadvantages. Another reason is the most popular tint here seems to be neutral white. This is something incandescents by their nature are incapable of delivering. Among the masses, tint and to some extent even CRI are pretty much irrevelant in the portable lighing market. Get CRI past 80, and CCT anywhere between about 4000K and 6500K, and for most people that's good enough for a flashlight or camping lantern. That said, there are some interesting advances in incandescent, namely IRC. We have 2X bulbs now. If this technology continues to improve, we may eventually have incandescents which approach 100 lm/W. Moreover, we may be able to selectively return some visible wavelengths to the filament, increasing efficiency and allowing any desired CCT. If we can do these things cheaply, then it's possible incandescent may have a resurgence.

I should also note my theory on why "retro" is in is because nations aren't doing anything exciting like during the years when we went to the moon. Today's retro is actually a throwback to those more exciting days when the masses were actually enthralled with new technology. I think if we start doing major scientific/technological endeavors, people will once again become obsessed with the new.

 

[ElectronGuru]

Interesting discussion.

This kind of nostalgia tends to be generational. The people interested in LPs are not the ones who already know how to replace the needle on the read arm. It's the ones who learned of it only after getting into music - for whom records are a new way to experience an old thing (music). In flashlights, it would be people who grow up with LEDs and did not see an Incan until well after voting age. To have excitement, there must be discovery.

To the OPs question, yes. Even when technological development slows, a booming economy creates extra money and people with extra money will seek out opportunities for their extra money to make them feel extra good. In booms, buyers compete for all kinds of things, looking for that fix. In the last one, for example, people who didn't grow up with airstream trailers were racing each other to buy up old ones, then standing in line at specialty shops to have them restored. In the boom before that, you couldn't even call yourself a dot com without a room full of Aaron chairs.

In the next boom, there too will be to much money looking upon to few products and services. And lines of people will be clamoring for the coolest this and the hottest that. And designers will have the freedom to take the risks necessary to do great and wonderful things, technology be dammed. In the meantime, developments are slower as folks work to do more, with less.