Your Average Lumen Usage

What do you estimate your average lumen usage to be? Please comment why you may be outside of the normal distribution. (Note: The poll ramps up quickly roughly based on 4x the lumens = 2x perceived brightness).

Thanks for your input.



Edit to clarify "formula," but obviously this has to be an off-the-top-of-your-head estimate:

[ Sum of (Hours Used @ Lumen Level ??) ] / Total Hours of Usage

I saw the poll, and replied based on what lumens I am using on average....then read where you said across all your flashlights, and now I have no idea what you mean.

Do you mean if I add up the number of lights, and the number of lumens, and calculate what the average lumen output is, or did you mean how many lumens do you use most?

I use lots of lights for lots of different reasons. When working I use mainly between 100-250 and very rare occasions 3000 lumens. During my time off and daily EDC I tend to use most often sub 1 lumen level to 30 lumens and on rare occasions 150. Hard question to really answer but I could get by on a light for most uses at about 50

TEEJ said:

I saw the poll, and replied based on what lumens I am using on average....then read where you said across all your flashlights, and now I have no idea what you mean.

Do you mean if I add up the number of lights, and the number of lumens, and calculate what the average lumen output is, or did you mean how many lumens do you use most?

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Just your average usage, doesn't matter which, or how many lights you have or use. I'll amend the post to clarify.

I said 5-20. Most of mine is used for navigating in the dark (garage, bedroom, camping, etc). Very rarely do I use my "high beams".

in the house 0.04 to 60, outdoors above 600 always

OK, if its more along the lines of what do i use more than anything else, I'd have voted for 300 - 1000, as far as hours spent at that intensity range vs a different range there.

My "15 lumen" SF's see the most use...I went away from carrying my one stage high powered lights...they are too bright for most tasks, and are reserved for true emergencies, or the zombie apocalypse (which ever comes first)...I find myself using my L2/LX2/E2L's low most of the time...and my Kroma Mil-Spec see's a lot of use at night.

I have gone from ~60lm to 700lm back to 50 or so.
It goes on cycles. I have my Mcgizmo mule programmed low (lvl 2), high (lvl 10).
in most cases I don't need blinding light.
When I walk around at night I do take a monster.

I use below 5 L on the average, but I did have to think about it a bit. I have some brighter lights but they don't get much 'on time'. My light culture is pretty dim, having evolved through years and years on jobs where I had to be extremely careful with my lights.

Every day I have one task where I carry my most powerful light for about two minutes but I only have to switch it on for a few seconds a few times a month.

If it didn't flicker, drip, or go out in wind or when dropped, then a candle would suffice to increase a person's ability to operate in complete darkness by many, many times -just not sure how to quantify it.
Large caves have been explored with fire on a stick.

The only time I could have used a powerful setting was when I needed to wash my car in a dark confined parking place. The light was a 5x XML Trustfire, fed with 3x18650 batteries. The medium setting was about 1000 lumens and that gave me a very nice ceiling bounce and 2 hours runtime, without burning the light or batteries with the help of the vast body. Otherwise I always found more than 500 lumens heat the light just too fast.

... so my go to brightness is ~200 lumens outdoors and ~30 lumens indoors. But what I use the most frequently is the firefly (<1 lm) mode on my Thrunite Neutron. It is a great bedside level.

For interior use late at night I use less than 5 lumens, sometimes inside I might use 30 lumens to find something dropped on the floor, for supervising the dogs in the back yard I mostly use 80- 150 lumens. Most time is at less than 5 lumens.

eh4 said:

If it didn't flicker, drip, or go out in wind or when dropped, then a candle would suffice to increase a person's ability to operate in complete darkness by many, many times -just not sure how to quantify it.
Large caves have been explored with fire on a stick.

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LOL - And many early cavers were eaten by cave bears they didn't know where there.

If you are in a giant pitch black cavern, and have a stick fire torch burning away, you are in a sphere of light, and, mostly blind outside of it...and can't navigate except like those toys that go in one direction until something stops them, and then they turn a bit, and go forward again...trying to find a way past, etc.

If your eyes have time to adjust, a candle CAN provide enough light for SOME tasks, but not others. If your task just involves not bumping into things, you need almost no light at all, a candle can even be overkill, etc.

If you need to really see detail, color, etc, you need more light than that. If what you need to see is further away, you need even more light, and so forth. As everyone's needs are different, some people will use a tenth of a lumen, and its perfect, and some people will be frustrated at only having 1,000 lumen, as they needed 2,000, and so forth.

angelofwar said:

My "15 lumen" SF's see the most use...I went away from carrying my one stage high powered lights...they are too bright for most tasks, and are reserved for true emergencies, or the zombie apocalypse (which ever comes first)...I find myself using my L2/LX2/E2L's low most of the time...and my Kroma Mil-Spec see's a lot of use at night.

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The 15 lumen light would that be the E1E?

And I still love my L2 as well. Nice and floody!

~50 when coming into the bedroom at night (wife already in bed) and setting the alarm clock and plugging my phone in.

rest of the time ~300 at work looking above ceilings and in dark basements unless its close up work.

if close up stuff ~50-100.

Brian

The E1e is 15 lumens, but so is the L2/LX2 on low. The L1 on low is 10. I find 5-15 lumens suitable for 90% of what I need a light for.

I marked "80-300" because my SF E1B Backup is "rated" at 110 lumens and I do occasiionly at the high setting. But I mostly use it on low to navigate my apartment.

I had to lie. Your lumen ranges do not follow typical usage categories. Mainly I use a "medium" light level, which for my EDC lights is low 20 lumens but any light level from 10 to 30 lumens would be fine. Before I got my ReVO I had an Arc AAA-P whose 10.5 lumens was just about ideal.

That light level is dramatically different from 80 lumens, which is far too bright for most times I need a medium light level. I think your poll would provide more useful findings if output categories followed normal usage outputs rather than a simple calculation. Off the cuff, something like the following.

Categories:

0.01 to 1.5 lumens <-- moonlight
1.5 to 15 lumens <-- low
15 to 45 lumens <-- medium
45 to 150 <-- high a.k.a. "minimum tactical"
150 to 300 <-- very high a.k.a. tactical or long throw
300+ <-- spotlight/floodlight/ego enhancement


In my case I use

medium light levels ~65%
high/very high ~20% (80 from M2 with P60L or from Preon ReVO, 280 from Quark X Tactical AA^2)
moonlight/low ~15% (moonlight from ReVO, low level green from SureFire A2)

Just got a Preon P0 which has a useful moonlight and medium mode. Great nontactical keychain light that fills 80% of lighting needs.

I'm not sure what's so difficult/confusing about averaging your usage

xian13 said:

I marked "80-300" because my SF E1B Backup is "rated" at 110 lumens and I do occasiionly at the high setting. But I mostly use it on low to navigate my apartment.

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If you only occasionally use high, and mostly use low, it sounds like your average usage should be in the 5-20 range.

e.g. [(9 hrs @ 10) + (1 hrs @ 100)] / 10 hrs = 19 lumens

aaronu said:

I had to lie. Your lumen ranges do not follow typical usage categories.
In my case I use

medium light levels ~65%
high/very high ~20% (80 from M2 with P60L or from Preon ReVO, 280 from Quark X Tactical AA^2)
moonlight/low ~15% (moonlight from ReVO, low level green from SureFire A2)

Click to expand...

In your case, the high-end usage would probably pretty well average out with the low-end usage leaving you still in the medium range, which on this scale, would be the 20-80 range.