TeamDroid

My friend Greg sent me an email today about some flashlights he bought today.

I thought I would send along a mini-review of a flashlight I just bought at Costco to everyone I knew likely to buy one. They come in a package of two flashlights for $20. They are about the size of your hand, and look like Star Trek weapons.

They advertise on the box that they run for 45-minutes after charging with the integrated hand-crank. I, in fact, did have mine on for quite an extended period of (unmeasured) time with no visible diminution in brightness after a couple minutes of charging. And they are quite bright enough to be useful. There is a bluish cast to the light, but colors are easily discernable, and they are not really a compromise in total light output compared to say, a mini mag-light. In other words, when using them, you are not thinking “cool, but I wish it was brighter.”

The three LEDs seem to be pretty precisely focused. I would not discern from looking at the beam’s outline that the light did not come from a single point source.

Charging is a mildly noisy process. It would wake someone in your room, but probably not in an adjoining room.

Pressing the button a second time puts the flashlight into about a 4-Hz flashing mode. That is a feature I’d like to turn off. I don’t know why lights can’t turn off the emergency mode if the button isn’t hit a second time within, say, two seconds of the turn-on. On the other hand, it is proof that there is circuitry between the LEDs and the capacitor (battery?), which is a clue as to why the light doesn’t seem to get dimmer–there is probably a voltage regulator in the circuit. If that’s the case, then the light would probably blink off suddenly rather than fading over time, which is a good thing. I couldn’t stay up late enough last night to wait out the event and find out.

These are the coolest things I’ve bought in at least…well, two days.

The only things I would change would be to make them water resistant, and make the flashing option turn off a second after the light was turned on.

Here are some photos:

Looks neat, I have to get one of these.