I Design Gadgets for a Living, and My Favorite Flashlight Is $8
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Kiran Malladi and I are part of a large group chat of bike geeks that is ostensibly about cycling but often delightfully off topic. As a veteran product designer (at Apple, Peak Design, and nowhis own company)with an engineering background, Malladi has takes on gear that are some of the most insightful I’ve come across anywhere. So when he announced that he had landed on an $8 key chain after going “medium deep” on flashlights, I had to know more.
When it comes to flashlights, I’ve learned the most important feature to me is the speed of deployment. How quickly can I have it in my hand, shining light on stuff? The way I use flashlights is intermittent and question oriented:What is that over there? Can I look into this little hole on this thing I’m building? Am I about to step in poop?
I live in San Francisco, and there are a couple of poorly lit blocks on my way home from work where I know there’s going to be dog poop on the sidewalk and I need a quick way of determining if I’m going to step in it. A phone gets the job done, but it’s slow and cumbersome. This is what ultimately led me to try the Laughing Rabbit Industries Photon I key-chain light after futzing around with various pocketable USB-rechargeable options. And I’m so glad I did because I love it so much I’ve put one on every set of keys I own, and now I want everyone I know to have one too.
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The Photon is as simple as a flashlight gets. There’s no strobe, there’s no color, there’s no brightness adjustment. It simply throws a surprising quantity of light for something the size of a Swedish Fish gummy. The design is similarly basic: just a coin-cell battery and an LED encased in the least possible amount of plastic, and as far as I can tell, you are just squeezing the leads at the LED to touch it. They probably didn’t tune the switch by trying a hundred prototypes, but they might as well have. The spring force to turn it on feels great. It’s stiff enough to resist false press but not so hard that I have to strain to activate it. The battery is replaceable, and it lasts forever because I can’t accidentally leave it on. As a product designer myself, I don’t look at this thing and think I can make it better. That’s exceedingly rare.
A big part of the Photon’s appeal is that it feels fairly priced. It neither over- nor underpromises. There is no claim that this is the only flashlight you need or the brightest. It doesn’t promise to have the farthest throw or the longest run time. You’re getting exactly what it says on the tin. There are cheaper dupes available, but the internet is full of people praising the durability and reliability of the original. It even comes with a lifetime warranty.
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This version has an on-off switch but is only water resistant, not waterproof.
There are a few variations, but I have the most bare-bones model in its purest form and it’s the one I recommend. The Photon II adds a handy toggle switch, but this compromises its waterproofing (it’s merely water resistant). Subsequent models increase day-to-day complexity without adding utility (how often will Ireallyneed a color-changing LED or the ability to spell out S-O-S in Morse code?).
This simple device is made in Oregon, and thecompany’s website is incredible— it’s so GeoCities. It gives the impression that the company has never spent a single dollar on marketing. While I have no idea if this is actually the case, it seems like the product of a bunch of engineering nerds who happened to make a couple of things really well 30 years ago and were like, “Let’s just sell these and live our lives.” It’s what I aspire to in my own work.
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