For almost six years now I have worn a flashlight around my neck.
Yes, I’m apparently just that crazy.
It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s a pretty tiny flashlight, smaller than a lipstick. The exact model is no unfortunately longer being made, but it’s a FourSevens/4Sevens Quark Mini CR2 in titanium. Here‘s the basic model, updated, but no longer available in titanium. I wear it around my neck on a stainless-steel bead chain of the sort used for military dogtags, attached to the chain with a tiny titanium snap-hook so that it’s easily removed.
Wearing a flashlight around your neck has very much the same advantages as a neck-knife.. it “liberates” the flashlight from whatever I’m wearing. Unlike stuff carried in pockets, it’s in the same place, accessible in the same fashion, no matter how I’m dressed, I don’t have to remember to shove it in a pocket in the morning, and I’m not tempted to leave it on a dresser, especially if I’m not leaving the house soon. As a result, it’s there when I need it, every single time. I don’t know of any other way of carrying one that achieves that… and my pockets are overloaded with other stuff as it is. I know from experience that adding even one more item increases the nuisance factor considerably.
It’s been a very good flashlight. I splurged on it, a gift to myself one Holiday season and I have relied on it continuously ever since. It’s been through, as I say, almost six years around my neck, an incredible amount of use and some abuse, dozens of CR2 cells and at least a few replacement o-rings. About the only time I routinely take it off is when showering, I generally don’t even take it off to sleep, I’ve long since become unconscious of wearing it until it’s needed. I’ve often been thankful that I spent the extra for titanium, not just for light weight and durability, but for its corrosion resistance. For the past few months, for example, I’ve been doing my regular walks or run/walks most often in temperatures 85 and 100 degrees F and pretty high humidity, and I think corrosion from perspiration would likely have become an issue long ago with aluminum.
In EDC (“Every-Day Carry”) terms I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I use this far more than I do a knife, which I still consider more essential (since having one is, IMHO, more likely to be a life-and-death issue), and far, far more often than I do a lighter, since I don’t smoke. I use it at least a few times every day, sometimes several times a day, and occasionally for prolonged periods. The simple fact is that we generally live indoors and that there are a LOT of places, especially indoors, where the combination of natural and artificial light don’t reach very well, and we are visually-oriented creatures by nature. Almost ANY task is far, far easier if you can just SEE clearly.
I was tempted to refer to this as my most-used EDC, but I do generally wear glasses and a watch, and for the past several months a Fitbit Charge HR activity monitor. I don’t really know what counts as EDC and what doesn’t.
It’s been a great light, but for the past year or so I’ve been wondering if I could do better.
It puts out a nominal 180 lumens on “high”, which was phenomenal when I bought it, then very good, then just good, and now sort of dates it. Soon I expect it will be quaint, then classic, then “retro”. So it goes with tech. That doesn’t bother me much, I can’t remember a time when the highest setting didn’t provide enough light, unless the cell was about dead.
There have been TONS of flashlights released since I bought this one, and they’re often better in general, but so far I haven’t found anything new that has the combinations of qualities I’d be looking for to replace this one specifically.
Some criteria can be taken for granted. Smaller and lighter is better, I simply won’t go bigger or heavier. Brighter is better, longer life on a cell or charge is better. Extreme corrosion resistance, durability and waterproofing are a must.
The CR2 cells are a bit of a problem. They’re smaller and lighter than the ubiquitous CR123 cells, which allows the whole lighter to be smaller and lighter, which is a very essential quality for something you’re wearing around your neck… but they’re harder to find, and rarely discounted, so they tend to be expensive. I’ve gone through at least a few dozen. It adds up.
More and more small flashlights are rechargeable, usually, these days, via a micro-USB port, and those seem to fall into two categories, those that have removable cells and those that don’t. I don’t have any that work that way currently, but I’m pretty sure I want to eliminate any from consideration that don’t have a removable cell, as they can’t be put back into action quickly by having a spare, you have to wait for the whole charging cycle, and of course when the cell dies you’ve got no choice but to replace the whole flashlight. I’m not dead certain that I want to go rechargeable at all, since it limits how long I can go without access to household AC current, even with spares and portable power cells for recharging.
Here’s where I get into flak from some quarters: modes. I really hate to give up any that I currently have. The Mini CR2 has three brightness levels, a strobe mode, automatic SOS and high and low beacon modes. I’ve never used the strobe mode other than playing with it, supposedly it has some tactical application. The SOS mode is controversial, and apparently most flashlight aficionados hate it; I don’t care, I consider it a “must have”. I’ve heard all the arguments, they make no sense to me. Yes, I know how to signal an SOS in Morse code manually, that’s not the problem. Try, actually try, sitting down and doing that for even ten minutes straight- you’ll never want to do that again, and you most certainly won’t get ANYTHING else done during that time, which could be a very critical factor.
I’ve been told that any flashing signal would do as well. I can tell you with confidence that it will not. Especially on on near the water, flashing lights or lights that seem to flash from a distance are quite common and routinely ignored. Yes, it may attract the attention of search parties out looking for you, but that is only one possible scenario. An SOS signal is entirely different, it is unambiguously a distress signal, it can’t be mistaken for anything else, and it’s far more likely to get some response. I don’t know why this is so difficult for some to understand. I simply will not consider an EDC flashlight without an SOS mode, it could easily save my life someday.
The two beacon modes, one dimmer and one brighter, are just very slow strobes, a single brief flash every ten seconds. The idea is that you can leave something- your tent, your pack, car, a cabin in the dark and find your way back to it in the dark by the signal beacon. This I have used more than once, it works pretty well and is a good capability to have.
As it stands right now, most flashlight manufacturers (and there are more constantly) have a good selection of modes in the larger pocket models, sometimes omitting the SOS, but they tend to eliminate more modes on their smallest lights. It simply cannot be a matter of space, the several modes on the tiny Photon Freedom prove that, and if it were a few times brighter it would probably be my choice for neck wear.
I might be stuck with the one I have for some time to come. Despite some highly-desirable advances in the technology, the trends in tiny flashlights don’t seem to be going my way.
– Robert the Wombat