Flashlights

When you need to see in the dark, you can use a flashlight. Those of you used to using your phone's flashlight app to illuminate dark spaces might be surprised to learn that you can actually get a standalone flashlight, which doesn't leak your personal information.

Before you run out and buy the first one you find, there are a few things you should know which will help you select the most suitable flashlight for your needs.

The following factors determine brightness levels, beam range, and ultimately how well your flashlight serves your purpose.

Key takeaways about flashlight brightness:

• Lumens are the measurement of the total energy output from a source of light.
• Candelas measure how intense or focused a light output is.
• A lux is a proportional measurement that calculates the amount of light on a particular surface.
• Watts are a measurement of the power consumed by a product.

Lumens (lm) are a measurement of the total energy output (or total visible light) from a light source in all directions. Lumens help you understand one crucial piece of information: how much light is emitted by this flashlights

While lumens are a good understanding of the total output of a flashlight, it doesn’t help us understand how intense or focused our flashlight might be. By understanding candelas (cd), we can get a good idea of whether or not our flashlight will have a “floody” or “focused” beam.

If you’re shopping for a flashlight to cut through fog and smoke or want a very hot center to your beam, you’ll want to pick a flashlight with a high candela rating. Conversely, if you plan to do a lot of up-close work or need to evenly illuminate a space, you’ll want to stick to a lower candela rating.

A flashlight with high lumens and a smaller candela rating suggests a flood beam that might be useful in lighting up larger areas at a close distance. Conversely, a flashlight with a lower lumen rating and a higher candela rating may provide a tight, focused spotlight better suited for specific tasks or long distances.

The tightly focused beam wins, even though both having the same lumen output!

The following features influence the beam distance of a flashlight. And often it’s a combination of several of these factors to achieve the farthest beam:

• The size of the reflector (the bigger the reflector, the farther a beam can travel)
• The size of the LED die
• The type of TIR optic (there are many TIR optics ranging from 140 degrees width, to 10 degrees, the narrower, the better)
• The divergence of the beam
• The type of light source (LEP flashlights can throw farther than LED flashlights, even with the same flashlight dimensions)

It’s important to note that to reach the full potential of your light, you need to ensure you are using the recommended battery type. Some dual-fuel lights can take AA/AAA/CR123 batteries but at the cost of performance.

Some flashlights have fixed rechargeable USB batteries. While these can be cheaper in the long run, they are not very practical if they die on the field and you have to sit around waiting for your flashlight to recharge.

Disclaimer: BONK may not work wit pocket flashlight 💥

“Tactical” has lost almost all meaning due to excessive use in marketing. Most “tactical” flashlights are just a generic flashlight with a tail switch and a strobe mode, and they aren't meaningfully better than any other flashlight for defense.

A tactical EDC light is first and foremost a utility tool, not a defensive tool. Any features that add to its usefulness as a defensive tool should not take away from its usefulness as a utility tool.

EDC-sized flashlights aren't intense enough to temporarily blind an attacker. It's just not a thing. What you can do is shine the light in their face so they can't see anything except your light.

What you really need:

• A tailswitch: I find that EDC sized lights with tail switches give me a much better grip than EDC sized lights with side switches, so I look for a tailswitch.

• High intensity: I look for the highest intensity (candela/throw) light I can get, not necessarily the highest lumen output. In the size of light I like to carry, 20,000 candela is a good high number to shoot for.

• Quick access to turbo: It's important to be able to get to max brightness really quickly in a defensive situation.

• Momentary on: This can be useful when you only need to turn your light on for a brief moment. Great for signaling, and most of my EDC uses for a light are just for a couple seconds so momentary on is handy.

• Quick access from the pocket: It's important to be able to access defensive tools quickly so I like lights that can be snatched out of the pocket fast.

A couple more points of advice:

• An overly aggressive bezel: Super aggressive bezels can tear up your pockets. EDC size lights don't have very much mass anyways, so they aren't especially effective as striking devices. Having a strike bezel won't disqualify a light for me though.

• Zoom: Zoomable lights are hugely popular right now, but they are a really poor solution. A zoom mechanism adds many failure points, compromises water and dust resistance, and makes the light less optically efficient (light gets trapped inside the head). A well designed fixed flashlight beam gives you a bright hotspot for throw as well as wide spill for flood without having to zoom your light in and out. Zoom disqualifies a light for me.

If you don't know where to begin searching for a flashlight of your own, the following flashlight models have been evaluated by AMI faculty members:

• Streamlight ProTac 2AA-X USB

• Maglite - Maglites are the classic American workhorse of flashlights, have an all-metal casing, and come in a multitude of sizes and colors. Get the giant D-Cell models if you want something that can knock someone out with a single blow. LED models are generally brighter.