Best Flashlight for 4 Year Old

I have a 4 year old daughter who loves my flashlights. The thing is she takes them to bed and leaves them on all night, then they need new batteries. She needs a flashlight that is easy to turn on, she can turn on the Mag Solitaire but not my Arc AAA LE, and one with good battery life. Is there a flashlight that turns off by itself? That would be ideal. She also stated that she would like a pink flashlight beam.

Thanks for all your help.

Maybe a Mag AA with a colored filter and a set of rechargeables.

I would have to say a major criteria is that the light not present a choking hazard! Of course, your 4-yr old may not have that problem.

My nephew had a hard time turning on my Arc-AAA when he was younger. But, I also didn't feel comfortable with him playing with the light anyways. Now that he is in first grade, he can both turn on the light and is old enough to not (usally) put it in his mouth.

I agree with Eric on using rechargeables. For extra credit, you might use LED technology so you don't have to keep replacing bulbs evertime they toss the light. There are some models (Eternalight comes to mind) that automatically shut off.

For the pink beam you might try some of that red tape used to temporarily fix a broken tailight.

Peter Gransee

I have 2 kids, one 4 and the other 2 1/2 and both love to play with the Eternalight, lots of light modes!,and fancy flashing and lasts really really long, besides it virtually imposible for them to take the batteries out.

Edit. Waterproof too!, floats with lithiums, so they can play in the pool or by the beach too with no worries of the light sinking.

HTH
Alex

Take a look at the PAL lights! they use a 9v battery.

http://palights.com/products.cfm

Playskool makes a nice little lantern that runs on 2 "C" batteries, turns off automatically after about 30 seconds, and has 2 colored filters (red or green). See www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000IW2Y/104-2565628-7119955

OR

Check out these lights: http://www.batterysavers.com/

Now you are talking! My son (2) and daughter (4) have one of these playskool lights each. They really have a lot of fun with them. Easy to use and they really do turn off within about 30 seconds. they just kinda gradually dim down over about 15 seconds. the handle has a little bar that must be constantly squeezed to remain constanly on. works nice.

It sounds like you are doing your part to raise a good flashaholic.

I would want something cheap, plastic and LED for a child that young. WalMart has cheap lights targeted at kids. One has 3 LEDs that has a mode that rotates through 3 different colors of light. The body is purple plastic. About the size of a mini Mag AA. Very cute. I've never used one, but it looks like a good toy. Check to see if the switch is easy to operate, if it is, she'll love it. I don't know the price, but I'm sure it's under $10.

You could also try the Energizer folding LED lantern. Runs (claimed) 100 hours on high on 4 AAs. Under $10.

As for auto shut-off: pretty rare. Photon 3 shuts off after one minute, but that may be too quick for your purpose.

Rechargeables are a good idea. Will running them completely down to empty harm them? I know it's not good for rechargeable alkalines. NiCd can probably tolerate that well.

I saw a Rayovac PS1 charger marked 50% off at Sears last weekend. It's a steal at the full-price of $10 and can recharge any chemistry, up to 4 batteries at a time computer-monitored separately in sizes AA or AAA. Often at Walmart also.

Good luck.

Coleman makes lots of fun lights for kids. If you visit their website and go to their kids section. I got this light:



For my 2 year old daughter. it takes 2 AA batts (rechargeables work fine) and has 3 modes. The regular incan flashlight and it also has a row of 5 colored leds that you can make flash in different patterns. Then it also has a nightlight mode where it just leaves on the center amber LED.

The light is just begging for a drop in pr type LED bulb replacement

As far as dangers, the child could certainly unscrew the bezel and choke on the bulb, also the lanyard is long enough to get around a childs neck, but if that is a concern you can remove it easily enough. however, my 2 year old has had no issues with either of these things so I think a 4 year old will be OK. My mother was paranoid about strings and things getting around our necks, so I won't let her sleep with it, but she plays with it just fine.

-James

Would anyone know if you could modify the 30 second delay in the Playskool lantern to be something like 5 minutes or so?

You may want to consider the Sauce Light Wand. It glows in multicolors, or can cycle through colors depending on what mode you choose. It will automatically turn off after about 10 minutes. It can be made to stay on continuously if you set it to, but most of the time, a 10 minute light show is enough. It uses 1 AA battery at a time.
They also make some night lights that plug into the wall called the Light Orb, or the Light Saucer, or the Light Washer

If it is a pink light that she wants, this light can deliver that. You can set the color of the light to any color that the 3 led's can generate and since they are red, green, and blue, you can make just about any shade in the spectrum. personally, I like when the light washes from one color to another, but it also has hidden light show modes, including a red,white,and blue light mode which is kind of cool. I have given some of the sauce plug in lights to friends with kids, and they love them. They are way more cool than any other night light I have seen.

Originally posted by bmccue1964:
Would anyone know if you could modify the 30 second delay in the Playskool lantern to be something like 5 minutes or so?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've never seen one of these lights, but just guessing, the delayed-off may be due to a capacitor in the circuit. If so, a larger capacitor could be substituted, but there might not be room for a larger one to fit inside the case.

Thanks to All. Great suggetions. I might have to get them all.

My 3.5 yr. old daughter won't have anything to do with those "colorful", kid-targeted lights you find at Wally-World.

These days she only wants to play with my E1e/KL1. She also really likes Mr. Bulk's LGI.

And if she leaves it on, that's okay, because I just plop in another used 123.

thing is she takes them to bed and leaves them on all night, then they need new batteries.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My daughter too sometimes leaves her nightstand "moonlight" on (a 4AA area/night light). I just put in rechargeable NiCd's...

She also stated that she would like a pink flashlight beam.

She`d love my KL1, it`s about as pink as "white" LEDs get

Some years ago, my son at the tender age of 2 or 3 got ahold of my 12 volt Ryobi rechargeable flashlight. The problem is he turned it on, and layed it on the love seat with the lens against the the back cushion. The heat was intense enough to burn a hole in the fabric, melt the reflector and lens. We were very lucky we didn't have a fire. Please be careful to keep high power flashlights away from the little ones. Things could have turned out much worse.
Ted