Badabinski

I have a little tritium vial on my keys because I am a clumsy oaf with ADHD and the little greeny glow has been useful a couple of times. It’s great when I’m out at night and my keys yeet themselves out of my pocket and onto the darkest possible area.

I mostly got it because it’s cool though. Radioluminescence is fukken rad!

That’s basically all I use from my Anduril flashlights. I don’t bother with the candle modes and all that shit. I’ve only ever used Anduril v2 flashlights, so maybe Anduril v1 was less intuitive?

I like the shutdown mode because the moonlight mode thing it does is great at night. Like, I use it if I need to find something in my nightstand and want to avoid waking up my partner.

EDIT: also, hello fellow flashlight nerd. I’m writing this with an Emisar D4K in my pocket.

lmao, kinda. There are a fair number of flashlights that are sold with Anduril though. I’ve personally never installed it/flashed it.

EDIT: if what I’ve described sounds like an acceptable solution, you should check out the Wurkkos I mentioned. I absolutely hate lights that put a strobe between me and the the mode I want, and I’ve been very happy with mine.

Flashlights that use the open source Anduril v2 interface are… tolerable, I’d say. It’s not good, it’s not intuitive, but it does at least make it easy to just turn the damn flashlight on and off.

1. Click once to turn it on, once to turn it off
   • While it’s on, hold the button down to change the brightness
2. Click twice quickly to put it in turbo mode, click twice quickly to take it out of turbo mode. One click turns the light off
3. Click twice and hold your second click to turn the light on in turbo mode. Once you let go of the button, the light turns off. I actually really like this mode
4. Strobe is three clicks, but it’s not the discotheque-ass crazy strobe, it’s usually an SOS pattern. One click turns it off
5. Click four times to lock the flashlight. This stops it from turning on in your pocket. This is a big deal for some flashlights because they’re bright/hot enough to burn you if left on in an enclosed space. Four clicks takes it out of lock mode

The interface gets way more complicated after that, but I don’t bother with any of that shit. Luckily, it’s hard to accidentally activate the crazy bullshit.

There are also lights that mimic this pattern, but differ in a few key ways. The Wurkkos FC11 is a great option that’s relatively cheap. The 4000 K version is $35 and is bright with a nice neutral color temperature (I find it much easier on the eyes.) It follows the interface rules I outlined above except that it’s missing number 3 and the strobe is of the flashy hold-a-rave variety. Still, you have to specifically press the button 3 times in a row pretty quickly to trigger it. I never have accidental raves with mine.

Ahhh, I’d love it if I could tie that in with a Bluetooth OBD dongle and Home Assistant. It’d be awesome if I could set up a BLE proxy in my carport to automatically update stuff. It’d be especially handy if I could get alerted about check engine codes.