Is it getting harder to impress non-Flashaholics?

For the past 25 years non-flashaholics were always blown away by the quality and output of the lights we flashaholics possessed.

But nowadays...anything less than a Nightsword, and the non-Flashaholics just aren't impressed.

Thanks to YouTube, they've seen bright, they've seen small, they've seen bright and small. They've seen big flooders and they've seen long spotters.

So what do you think? Is it getting harder to impress non-Flashaholics?

Me personally don't really care if anybody is wow'd by my flashlights.

But when I pull out the microstream to light darkness and a person says 'thanks' I do dig that.

Yeah, you're right, it is getting harder to wow the non hobbiest...thanks to all those little tin toy flashlights you can buy everywhere now.
The disposable society can buy big beam'd little lights for peanuts so they think spending dough like we do is stupid.

Why buy a Sure Fire when you can have a Solar Force for a lot less?
It's why Elzetta does those torture test you-tubes we all think are....well you fill in the blank....

I have a buddy who spent $50k on his motor to gain 100hp but paid $7 for a 1000 lumen emitter for his 6P and $7.99 for (4) 2200mah 123 cells.

A week later his emitter was fried. I sent him an M61 and he still freaks out everytime it still works. He mailed me a buncha solar force parts later. Clips, lanyards, crenalatted heads etc.
Later I mailed him an MD2, which to my knowledge is still in the bubble wrap (like the keepsake that it is).

My first headlamp was $30....without batteries.
I get better than that one 2/$5 at Harbor Frieght now....with batteries.
My boss lady was telling me just today about her 2 mega nice headlamps $15ea from bass pro shops so telling her about a Streamlight woulda been a waste of good words. But I do want to discuss with her boyfriend his 137 flashlights. lol.

I think that some people enjoy being able to avoid tripping when they walk the dog, and to find things in that poorly lighted part of the basement. Other people like to have a well engineered, high quality, durable, thoughtfully designed product that feels great in their hand, and coincidentally happens to do those other things too. Flashaholics probably fall into the second category. I have some good lights that I almost never use, but I still enjoy owning them, in the same way I love my Beretta pistols even though I almost never shoot.

Im sure most of them have seen bright light & super thrower (spik) but im sure most have not handled a "build like a tank" light. The last time someone tried to put me down for spending so much on a light with his "mine is cheaper but still as bright" light, i challenged him to a drop test.

I still have my Sinner Ti working in good condition while his light(don't know what brand) is a goner..

I bought my Sinner light as a host only & assembled the light engine on my own. It is fully potted on the driver side & i have dropped it enough to know it will survive most drops. So i wasn't worries when i challenge people to drop their lights.. Hahaha...

Interesting thread here.

lovecpf


Sometimes I see a new recruit here,
asking for a Flashlight Recommendation --


They start out saying:

" I need at least 2000 Lumens . . . . "



And I'm thinking how I never had more
than 100 Lumens for the first Half-Century
of my Life ! ! !

:huh:



:sigh:
_

Well, when I whip out something like my Vinh Tool AAA, people are pretty blown away. I always get some comments on the EC11 and S1. I think people are blown away by the size to output ratio, because they've never seen something like that before. As for brightness in general, you can head down to your local Walmart (or 'The economy' as my friends and I affectionately call it), and pick up some relatively high output lights for cheap. Will they have the same efficient circuitry, small form factor, ruggedness that we as hobbyists are accustomed to? No. But then again, we are a niche group in society. When I tell people how much one of these lights costs, they lose their minds because they can't see the value in it. I'll have these lights long after they've bought ten more of their cheaply built, lackluster ones which give out on them.

Buy once, cry once as the old adage goes.

Also, going off of what Bykfixer said, I don't particularly care if they are impressed by my lights. It's funny, however, whenever the frequent need for a light arises, I'm the only one around that can deliver. I'm interested to see where this hobby ends up over the next few years. As LEDs become much more efficient, both with output and thermal regulation, I think we're going to start seeing much more capability out of the ones we see in our phones, which of course are limited by lack of reflector / optics.

In fairness, store lights are getting better. Compare a few years back to now, huge difference. Some, for the money , are pretty good. Store just down the road if something is wrong with it.

Saw an interesting video where a mechanic compared a variety of manufacturers of the same size of wrench. Tools from Snap On, Mac, Husky, Craftsman and Craftsman Pro, Stanley, Pittsburg (Harbor Freight) and a couple others I cannot remember. But it related very well to lights. The tools all did the same job competently. But there were small differences. Quality of the finish, steel used in the tool, machining and casting accuracy as well as ergonomics. The tools clearly had small but discernible differences. Snap On was over all the best tool in the comparison, there were like 9 wrenches, not all were there but enough to make the point. But, side by side, to a tinkerer who didn't rely on that tool for his livelihood, was it really that much better than the Harbor Freight tool? No. Not to justify the cost. To the occasional user, its fine and simply not worth the cost. But to someone who's life depends on it, yeah. Today's store lights are way beyond the lights they used to sell. So, is it worth it for the occasional user to fork over the extra cash when what they does the job? Probably not. By shapes and appearances, their light is about as good as ours. That's good enough for them. Hard to impress when theirs pretty much looks like mine.

Prepped said:

Also, going off of what Bykfixer said, I don't particularly care if they are impressed by my lights. It's funny, however, whenever the frequent need for a light arises, I'm the only one around that can deliver. I'm interested to see where this hobby ends up over the next few years. As LEDs become much more efficient, both with output and thermal regulation, I think we're going to start seeing much more capability out of the ones we see in our phones, which of course are limited by lack of reflector / optics.

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This

After a certain incident that involved getting a pickup truck stuck hauling a huge trailer in sand, and then getting another one stuck in front of it when we tried to get it out, all late at night...
I was the only one with a flashlight, in fact I had two. My thrunite T10 was a great help in illuminating as we dug, tied ropes, etc. I had it on high for about an hour on a partially dead alkaline until it had trouble turning on, I just pulled out one of my two spare AA batteries and was good to go (by that time someone from a nearby camp had lent us some firewood to use as ramps and a tow rope).
I mostly had my young cousin holding the flashlight so I could help dig and now they want one just like it.

I think that it is more impressive to have a flashlight with you when you need it than it is to own the best. After that trip my uncle seemed to get more with the idea of edc and he pulled out a 9 led flashlight but it ended up in his truck along with the multitool I gave him. :sigh:

I am the only person I know that always carries a flashlight, let alone multiple flashlights and spare batteries. Twice within the first month of working I gave my coworker my flashlight so they could check inside of a tank, the second one he was trying to see past his phone to look into the small opening with the light. Both times he said something like "look at this guy he comes to work prepared".

No doubt as LEDs put into phones advance so will flashlights, I doubt dedicated flashlights would ever be obsolete as long as there are dark places.

Could one of the reasons be flashlights are becoming more mainstream, beginning to take root in the collective consciousness? More have seen what LED flashlights can do, so fewer and fewer are awestruck.

There's a discussion about the LEDs in mobile phones making EDC redundant, and I think those same mobile phones could be to root of the loss of impact our lighting devices have. At the heritage railway where I volunteer, the last train of the day usually runs after it has gone completely dark outside. In years gone by, I would be on hand to guide people to their cars with the help of my flashlights, so 720 lumens of ROP compared to the 0 lumens they were carrying was impressive. This year however, half of the families I offered to escort just used their phones as flashlights. I estimate there's a couple of hundred lumens in a modern smartphone, and as we know, our perception of brightness is logarithmic, so even a 900 lumen flashlight doesn't even look twice as bright compared to the phone.

scs said:

Could one of the reasons be flashlights are becoming more mainstream, beginning to take root in the collective consciousness? More have seen what LED flashlights can do, so fewer and fewer are awestruck.

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Flashlights becoming mainstream? ⊙▁⊙

Say it aint so!!!

Ya know?.... I think you're right. ツ

In the days where LEDs weren't mainstream an incan light with 50 lumens was a scorcher to the average person but now they can go shopping at local stores and pick up C/D cell LED lights that put out 500+ lumens for $20-$30 when that type of output a few years ago would cost $75-$150 and require rechargeable batteries instead of alkalines. I think for the most part unless you are needing to throw a beam across a football field or light up your whole block even 200-300 lumens is plenty for most people any more than that is as others have equated not much brighter and often unneeded. It is getting more and more popular for lights to have multiple modes (low, medium, high) as the high modes are blinding in short distance confined areas. For the most part average use flashlights have peaked in performance now the focus will be more and more on flood/area lighting and getting the size and runtime of lights optimal. 160 lumens/watt efficiency is perhaps half way to theoretical maximum efficiency such that lights can only about double in output as far as lumens go using the same power source and as suggested here that difference isn't going to be huge in the shock and awe category at all.
In other words the focus is going to be more and more on useful functional designs and price/quality now than whopping lumen outputs. I think what would further the flashlight "race" would be a breakthrough on battery design now to allow a lot more power in a smaller size battery with perhaps even faster charging and longer battery life. I think USB3 and rechargeable battery flashlights will make more and more inroads in the future Perhaps a better USB adapter cable could be designed for use in flashlights also.

Lynx_Arc said:

Perhaps a better USB adapter cable could be designed for use in flashlights also.

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I agree, I can't stand the usual micro usb plugs and sockets, they don't seem very durable. My phone (Sonim) has a usb cable terminated in a 3.5mm jack plug, I do wish this became a standard.
P

I think the iPhones have hands down the most rugged charging system on the market.

Strictly speaking you would think easier with the ridiculous outputs available .....

I find if you have a HUGE light it's obviously expected to throw a HUGE amount of light,still I find people impressed all the same if substantial .

What does work is small packages(women may not agree) Lets take a couple of examples , the TOOlvn, really is impressive , heck I was more impressed with that little beauty than my tk75vnQ70!!! I knew what to kind of expect with the Q70, and yes my expectations were supassed . The tiny TOOLvn well wow, AAA size key chain light with 800ish lumens .....people who have seen it have all been blown away by the sheer output .

So for me size is certainly a factor for impressing non flashaholics .

For us it's about Tint, U.I., beam shape and quality, runtimes, and light size, shape and quality. Explaining this to the average person is like a mechanic trying to convince the average D.I.Y. guy that Snap-on is better than Craftsmen tools. And to the D.I.Y. guy their not but to the mechanic its like night and day. Are the non Flashaholics impressed by our lights? Sometimes, sometimes only until they learn the cost, and quite often they just don't care. Until the lights go out:devil:.

Don't know if anyone agree to this...but to me it's a little similar to smartphones replacing dedicated cameras and gps for most people. I agree the best camera is the one you have on you. Kinda like lights for most people.

I personally don't own a dedicated camera anymore. I have a gps in the car for emergency but haven't used it in a long while.

The flashlights I bought honestly it's more for fun.

Have you guys seen the new 'type-c' connector that supports USB 3.1 speeds? Looks pretty nice, is reversible, and supposedly much more rugged than current connectors that wear out pretty fast with repeated use.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the new USB connectors becoming standard.

I used to use a separate GPS all the time but now my phone has completely replaced it. Maps are updated all the time, and you can still download them if you know you'll be away from cell towers for a trip.

The phone lights and cameras haven't replaced the dedicated items for me yet, but they really are good enough for most day to day situations.

I'm also really looking forward to the day when we can plug our phones into our cars and have them control the navigation, music, etc. We're not far off. And it would probably work a lot better than most stock interfaces.

Anyway, back on topic, the problem I usually have when showing off lights is that I often do it in daylight which makes people way less impressed haha.

Phones are jacks off many trades, but master of none, in my opinion. This is why there is still a market for high end cameras, GPS units, and in relation to us, flashlights.