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Right there with you.
Why can't I get a light with super simple controls (say low/med/high/off) with like a 18650 battery?
Nope, you want a 18650,you get all sorts of goofy UI crap. Uggh.
I do have some Duracell led flashlights that use 4 AAA, with a single button, low/med/strobe (uggh)/off. OK price as a multi-pack from Sam's or Costco, about $7/ea.
But their runtime is about the same as an old incandescent, just with a lot more light.
It is basically I/O limitations, and the majority of lights in this area likely have an origin in cycling lights as far as the silicon is concerned. I think that is the original high profit niche that drove a custom asic for the application of a PWM LED controller with integrated charging. Pretty much all other lights are built to a price. The chip likely has additional functionality but the actual designs are all built to a bare minimum price (or max profit margin). From this perspective, you'll see a lot of the feature set differently. On a bike, one button is convenient as well. They usually fash too bright because of the default clock speed of the chip and a design that does not deviate from the chip's example implementation.
Maglite, the last one I bought has twist on and off. No flashing or buttons.
oh man, they're still offering incandescent models alongside their LEDs. none of them are really inspiring hope though, even the smaller LED lights seem to have pretty pitiful lumen output compared to what I'm seeing out there
Pick a battle. You requested no extra buttons or flashing or modes and now it's not bright enough?
It works for me. Has light and no extra flashing modes. Hasn't really failed me either. I drop shit, a lot.
I haven't looked into maglite since proper LEDs priced them out of the market. I'll take another look
https://maglite.com/collections/mid-size/products/ml25lt-2c-led-flashlight
This one is similar. 2 c cell batteries and no buttons.
I do appreciate you taking the time to look though.
that's what I was looking at. c-cell is kind of annoying, it's the only one that I don't have rechargeables laying around for, 18650 would be more convenient. but, mainly, the lumen output looks awfully low for a flashlight that size
it should just be, big button for power on and off, and another button for mode/cycle.
The most logical programming is
There's nothing logical about that to me. Double/triple click? No one outside the flashlight community would have a clue how to use these lights (and I own a handful).
Sequential click through low/med/high/off is intuitive.
I have labels on some lights so people can use them. Imagine that, having to read a label to use a flashlight. Oh, that'll be great in a power outage.
see, one of mine is supposed to be almost that easy. you press the button normally to turn the light on and off, and it always remembers the last setting. then, you lightly press the power button to cycle through modes. the problem is, there's no way to press the button hard without also pressing it soft first, so most of the time you're cycling at the same time that you're powering.
Banging idea, love this.
Only changes I would make is changing out the SOS for a five-second long-press, and changing reset to a ten-tap - to make sure people aren't just fucking about turning it on and off.
You need flashlights with a better UI.
None of my flashlights strobe without making the effort to make it do that or require me to cycle through modes just to turn them on and off. The worst one I have has 9 modes you select with a detented twist ring(Fenix SRT9), but has an on/off button so you always start on the mode you used last unless you twist the ring.
Strobe is useful for firearms lights to disorient a target. For emergency use it prolongs the runtime, like if you were in a flash flood, your house was bombed in the middle of the night, or you got lost on a hike and needed to signal for help. Strobe is unlikely to be needed, but can be a life saver.
You need flashlights with a better UI.
I mean, yea, I think that's what OP is saying.
But it can be hard to find, with a high output/good battery.
Lights using a 18650 seem to be the rage these days, at crazy cheap prices, but they all use some UI with clicks, holds, etc. I feel like I'm doing a dance to use any of mine, definitely not what you want in a circumstance requiring a flashlight.
Even the simplest of lights require something most people would find unusual (and certainly never guess). Setting an Anduril light to "simple mode" is still more complex than I want in a light. It would be nice to have a simple click control, and be able to disable the strobe nonsense (never once in my life have I thought "ooh, a strobing light would be great right now!"). Nevermind the arguments for it are debatable (to confuse an attacker? Research has shown it affects you too).
I don't know, but I hate that, too. Modern flashlights have every advantage over the ones of old, but they ALL seem to have stupid things like that.
Clicking through multiple brightness levels is one thing, but strobe, SOS, and 5 levels is ridiculous. Just give me on/high, low, and off.