Predict the future

Look into your crystal ball or your imagination and tell me what you think the future holds for flashlight technology. What will be a common light in 5, 10 and 25 years? What will a tactical/performance light look like? What will the power source be? What will the light source be?

My predictions:

5 years: There will be a greater integration of LED and incandescent bulbs. There will be more emphasis on rechargeable lights. Technologies like NiMH and Lithium Ion will be more popular. Lights will become more digital. Onboard battery monitors, voltage regulators. There may be a couple of HID lights in the high end. Plastic bodies will be even more popular.

10 years: Mag-Lite files for bankruptcy (unless they evolve). There will be very few alkaline and lithium powered lights. A new battery technology will have exceeded even Lithium Ion. Tactical lights will be less common. LEO and firefighters will use the next generation of night vision / thermal imaging equipment for all medium/high risk low light situations. HID and LED will be dominant. Incandescent lights are history.

25 years: People who work in the dark will not have flashlights. Night vision will be very common and unnoticeable. Video-phones / PDAs / MP3 players / Internet devices will have integrated into a single small package smaller than a pack of cigarettes and will have a very powerful light built in. The power source will be a fuel cell or some technology yet unimagined. This will fill the needs of most common people. HID and LED will be on the way out due to a new "bulb" technology.

Does this mean that the flashlight is doomed in 25 years? Nope. Watch an episode of "Star Track, Next Generation" and you will see the most pathetic hand-held lights, even by today's standards. I laugh when I see these silly, wimpy lights being used on an "away mission" to some dark planet. I am not a "Star Track" expert, but I would think by the 24th century that night vision would be standard fare for explorers.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kb0rrg:
Watch an episode of "Star Track, Next Generation" and you will see the most pathetic hand-held lights, even by today's standards. I laugh when I see these silly, wimpy lights being used on an "away mission" to some dark planet. I am not a "Star Track" expert, but I would think by the 24th century that night vision would be standard fare for explorers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Night vision probably would be standard fare, but putting night-vision goggles on anyone but Geordi would interfere with Hollywood's penchant for having the stars' faces in full view (Riker's beard notwithstanding). Blame this on Hollywood, not lousy technology.

100 years out (but maybe sooner):

Direct optical nerve stimulation via internally grown and integrated nanochips allow light-adaptive vision based on environmental needs (from infared thru ultraviolet, including amplification by specific wavelengths) making all forms of vision correction or enhancement obsolete.

Brain wave queery interface allows translucent graphic overlays for data integration and mode selection.

Illumination from within.

Mark

Nice thought, kb0rrg

10 years ago, I could never have predicted that I could get a great light like the GM E2, and buy it over the Internet ......

Will HID ever overcome the start-up delay - I thought that that was inherent in the fundamentals of the principle (if you see what I mean)

But the speed of R+D is now such that 25 years time is what, about 5 generations away, instead of the old fashioned one single generation every 25 years ?

By 2026, Spudshooter (?? I've lost track of names) will be launching entire washing machines to the Moon, from the comfort of his retirement home in New Florida, an orbiting Federated State of the Solar Union.

(Of course, by then, washing machines will be just 20cm cubed,and weigh only 2 kilos.)

In AD2026, Go Go Gadget will be admiring his just completed Luxeon Supernova LED into an Incandescent conversion, just for the old times sake .......
(and wishing he had finished it when he got first got the parts, way back in AD2016).

There's sure to be the unexpected, is what I'm trying to say.

Next in line has to be fuel cells, and so a great improvement in energy storage. And they are saying D size fuel cells on the market in only 5 years time. Maybe they'll be affordable in 10 years time ?

Definitely there will be some better energy management features too:

Hey, if I disable my SureFire XX5000's regulation system, it will give out 10 more Lumens !
And this year's new force-field focused reflectors focus 90% better !

Chris M, can JDH give us his general opinions on probable bulb improvements ?

Kris - I see you are gracing the CPF board with your cynicism once again, you old cynic you !

lightlover

EDIT - sounds good Luffokc

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by **Something Ridiculous**:

Kris - I see you are gracing the CPF board with your cynicism once again, you old cynic you !
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey! Who you callin' old? I'm still below the half-century mark, and by over a decade!




(It is funny how, the older we get, the older "old" gets. My mother is 65, and that no longer seems old to me.)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kb0rrg:
Look into your crystal ball or your imagination and tell me what you think the future holds for flashlight technology. What will be a common light in 5, 10 and 25 years? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As a kid I liked to read the future expectations of the 50ies and 60ies (in technical magazines). For example, they predicted no cars at all in the early 80ies, everybody should have some kind of flying saucer. I compare all of these expectations with this experience.

Anyway, HID lights will not improve that drastically, maybe a 5 or 7W one will be possible, but not much higher eficiencies. But LEDs have some potential, 100lm/W should be possible. And when LEDs become real light sources, appropriate circuits will be available for no money.

LOL Lightlover!!

Are you saying I'm a procrastinator? How'd you know!!

And how many members will CPF have by then?


I imagine:

There will one day be fuel cells the size of D's that run on water. And we will modify them for extra capacity and/or power.

LED type lights will achieve all new levels of power output, ie: 3mm leds with the output of 100 Lumens ala Surefire and zero heat.

HID style lights that fit in a pager size case, putting out Lexus headlight quantities of light, using the generated heat to catalyze the fuel cell process.

You think SMD devices are hard to work with now?! Just wait! We'll have to start a new forum for microscope discussions!

Barring the limitations of physics, I think we'll see some pretty neat $h!t in the future.

Not to mention cures for every imaginable illness and mandatory sterilization.

Either that, or we'll blow up the planet before we get that far! Doh!!