once a year I email my favorite flashlight manufacturer to ask if they’ve finally made a flashlight that just turns on and off when you push the button, and every year they’re like, “no, but thanks so much for your feedback!”

be honest, have any of you ever used the flashing feature on your flashlight? did it actually come in handy? handy enough that I have to scroll past it every single time I want to turn my flashlight on or off

  • @linearchaos
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    257 hours ago

    They put them in all the flashlights because of a combination of minimum features required and cost savings.

    To keep heat at a minimum and improve power usage, LEDs benefit from being run by a driver circuit.

    If you’re going to use a driver circuit you might as well allow for dimming if you’re going to allow for dimming you need to have timed button presses.

    There’s only a couple of companies out there that make the circuitry that does the LED driver / lithium ion charging, so everybody just uses the same chipset.

    If you want to flashlight that just turns on and off and doesn’t have a lot of features try to find one that doesn’t have lithium ion batteries. If you don’t need the lithium ion charger they’re more likely not to use one of them more extensive chipsets.