Over Christmas, I realised that I don’t actually own any torches, and whilst I have no interest in throwing myself into yet another expensive, niche hobby, I wondered if the folk here could help suggest a possible flashlight.

I’m wondering what kind of options are for a headlamp style flashlight, ideally one that can be detached from the headlamp mounting, if that’s a thing. In the most ideal world, the flashlight itself would be small enough I could fit it in my everyday carry tool pouch, which is a tool pouch that’s around A5 size.

I used to have a basic headlamp which had three lights on it and a button which toggled between modes so it had some variable brightness. I liked that I could tilt it up and down. I used it mostly for digging in unlit storage units, or illuminating in and around my car when unloading at night. It wouldn’t need to be too bright (the brightness aspect is one of the things I find most overwhelming about fancy flashlights, because there’s a lot of in-group lingo to be learned which I haven’t had the brain for.

One of the worst parts about my old headlamp was that its charging adaptor was specific and it’d often go uncharged if I couldn’t find the specific charger for it. I don’t know how fancy flashlights™ are generally powered, but I don’t want to get a nice gadget I never use because it’s awkward to charge. Proprietary connectors are a bit of a nightmare.

My budget would be up to £100 as a maximum, and only for something that ticked all my boxes. I have no idea how reasonably my goals are here, so thank you for reading this. I’d be glad to hear any suggestions anyone has, whether they be product suggestions, or questions that might be useful for me to consider in narrowing this down. You don’t need to explain your recommendations too much — I can go away and research stuff once I have a place to start, but at the moment it just feels a bit big

Thanks

Edit: I feel like I’ve got plenty to go on now, thank you to everyone who answered, I love y’all, wonderful nerds

  • @Bach37strad
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    35 months ago

    Pick up an emisar d4v2. Amazing flashlight and tons of custom led configurations depending on your use case. The firmware it runs on has so many modes and custom config Its crazy. Click 3 times and it’ll display battery voltage ffs. Only like $50ish too.

    Iirc they are custom made by this dude in China so shipping does take a while, but soooo worth it.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      15 months ago

      The firmware it runs on has so many modes and custom config Its crazy.

      I gotta say, as a chronic tinkerer, I can see the appeal of items like this, even if I’m trying not to fall down the rabbithole