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

  • southsamurai
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    2 months ago

    Yeah, I’ve used strobe a few times.

    The anduril settings make it easy imo.

    But, we use it they’re at the house plenty, the strobe. If I’m out in the yard at night, doing some kind of crap in the rain (hello helene, the most recent event that I used it), flipping to the strobe is a quick and easy signal I need help. It lets everyone else stay dry (er, until I need them to come out lol), and means I don’t have to fumble with my phone in the wet and dark.

    It’s not an every day thing, and it isn’t meant to be afaik.

    It’s handy enough that my best friend and his husband now use the lights I bought them after they saw how well it worked and wanted the same thing.

    We’ve also got a sort of awareness of it in the neighborhood now. My using it drew attention, and I explained why I was doing so. Everyone close enough to see the flash now knows that if it’s only on for a minute or so, it’s no big deal, and I know that after word spread, if I leave it going longer, they’ll know I need help, or at least check.

    One of the neighbors bought his own wurkkos as word spread. It’s such a good signal at night that it’s likely going to be a thing in the entire neighborhood rather than just our block.

    There’s even diffusers you can get for most lights that come in colors, so you could expand the signalling to have different meanings per color, if it became useful to do so.

    Seriously, you have no idea how nice it is to not be fucking around in a storm either running back and forth for things, or having someone else just standing around miserable while you work just in case you need help.

    It’s kinda niche, but at this point, I’ve got those kind of lights for everyone in the house just in case we need to be coordinated when sound is difficult (like in a freak hurricane lol).