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

  • @solrizeEnglish
    2•11 months ago

    I’m going to suggest the Nitecore HA11: http://parametrek.com/blog/ha11.html

    Pros: very small and lightweight, has a red nighttime mode, runs on a standard AA cell (best used with Eneloop), doesn’t go too crazy for high lumen output. Relatively cheap (20 USD retail here, no idea about UK).

    Cons: no built in charger (but you can get a very small external one), UI is a little bit fiddly, red nighttime led is longer wavelength than ideal though I still use it. Body is black so it is hard to find in the dark. I stuck Countycomm glow in the dark tape all over mine and that makes it very easy to find at night.

    Being able to remove a headlamp from its headband usually isn’t that useful. A headlamp is generally perfectly good as a flashlight. Just hold it in your hand and don’t worry about the headband.