Is SF losing its competitive advantage in the single CR123 flashlight market?

Is SF losing its competitive advantage in the single CR123 flashlight market? Are the single cell E series & L1 losing their competitive advantage? Are they worth the high price?

short answer..:
Yes
Yes and

Yes...

Did surefire ever have the advantage in the 1 x 123a market???

1. YES. The wolves are closing in on the standard-bearer. BUT, in all fairness, when you have a standard-bearer that is careful and very concerned about exhaustive research and ultimate perfection, this is the norm. The wolves only have to follow the trail. The standard-bearer has to blaze it.

2. YES. In quality, and reliability, they are still the benchmark, but Surefire's speed-of-innovation will bury them if they are not careful.

We need a 200-lumen 3-cell LED U3 right now! Push it PK!! (And make level 1 low enough to run 80-100 hours (.7-1.0 lumens, like the L1). Your present "low" level is a little too bright for close work or runtime.

We need an A4 (four colors) right now! The K2 is fine but I have an observation to make. If we had an A4 with a red, blue, and green LED in the head like the A2; then a selector ring like the U2 to select one of FOUR colors (white being the last), you could use the standard-design tailcap for a low/high intensity setting like the L1/L2, have unbelievable runtimes with a selectable intensity to a single LED bulb, and still have your regulated white pencil-beam, which would now be two-stage. Frost the damn bulbs to get rid of the artifacts. This eliminates the need for a 1.13" F04. You now have a regulated, long-runtime, "do-anything" EDC. The K2 is fine, but "override white, no matter what" is a military and limiting design criteria.

3. NO. Think Henry Ford, not Ferrari. There are 280 million civilians, 1 million military personnel in this country alone. If you build it, they will come. If you are not very careful, your prices will drive most of your customers away. Build something very useful, very reliable, and very fairly priced, AND PUT ONE IN EVERY DAMN HOME IN THE WORLD!!!

Just thinking out loud.

I think, there exist a lot of good 1x123 cell lights at the market and SF is imo not the best of these.

Best regards

____
Tom

I think Surefire should have gone after the small, pocket light market. I think they missed a major market opportunity by not having a product in this group. The E1E is too big and too limited to fit well in the pocket light group. I suspect Surefire is looking at producing a light for this market now.

HayJab so states...

I'm not sure that SF was all that interested in the one cell pocket light market. Seems like all of their feature packed lights are on the multi cell super high output lights like the A2 and U2. Not saying that their one cell offerings are bad, just a little low on features. (ie multi brightness settings) But I'm still wondering what's up with those cool little lights that Paul Kim was wearing around his neck at the shot show!! From what i've read about those lights (even though they are not CR123 lights) if and when they make production they will probably sweep the pocket light market off it's feet.

KendallAA

My KL4 on an E1e is the best single cell light IMHO, but at those prices I've never thought of SF as competitive.
Streamlight is competitive, so is Pila and Wolf-Eyes.
When they were around, the ARC LS was competitive by being ground-breaking, but again, not so much on price...
Single cells, with the more efficient leds and drivers, is really more the realm of 1AA now I think...

How many companys have come and gone over the last 10 years? Surefire is still around.


Blades

They have only lost market share to the CPF community. Surefire is doing just fine selling to the military and others.

HayJab so states...

They might have lost the market here, looking at lights like the HDC and stuff like that. In the non-CPF (or other flashlight forums) world, someone who's interested in lights *might* have heard of Surefire. Most police officers know of Surefire, for example. But most who aren't here don't know about any of these premium semi-custom lights..

Will SF come out with a new single cell flashlight this year?

I agree with what was said earlier. Others have cought up on output but not on quality.

I think programable brightness setting LED lights are overrated. Its never on the setting you want at the right moment plus it adds cost and malfunction rates.

SF has a couple goood 1xSF123 LED lights. E1L & L1.

I don't think SF's single cell lights are meant to outperform other 123 lights in their class. They are meant to be useful, similar to how the McLuxIII-PD is not a better performer than other 1x123 lights, but to have a good balance. That's just the way I see SF's single-cell lights. Maybe I just love my E1L too much.

The SF one cell lights are more than 2x the price of other brands.

dmz said:

The SF one cell lights are more than 2x the price of other brands.

Click to expand...

Have you looked at the HDS EDC lights? McGizmo's McLuxIII-PD? McLux-T? I don't think SF lights are 2x the price of those...

One thought about the price-political situation here in Europe.

SF is here more than overprized.:thumbsdow

F.e. a U2 costs here at an official-store 383 Euro, thats 488$ !!!!

Who will say, that's not toooo much?


Best regards

_____
Tom

R&D advantage? Yeah. Competitive advantage? Probably not.

How about the Fire-Fly III? Short production run, admitedly, so it's not in the same mass market class, but it is smaller, brighter, dimmer and has better heat sinking than a one cell outdoorsman. I have never heard of one of GS's fluPIC boards going bad (please correct me if I'm wrong, I've not been on here as long as some of you), so I'm not worried about the reliability. The HAIII may not be as good, but that's largely cosmetic anyhow. . .I think they have lost their R&D advantage, but SF's massive advertising buys (ever pick up a copy of field and stream -without- a SF ad in it?) might give them the competative advantage none-the-less. :lolsign:

I am not sure if you can say that Surefire is losing marketshare. It is more likely that the market is becoming larger with other manufacturers filling that growth. I do not know what the numbers are, but I bet Surefire is a growing company.