Flashlight panel carabiner things

Grant Lamontagne · **on:** November 17, 2022, 05:30:46 AM

I saw these advertised on Instagram or Facebook or something and I thought "Hey, that could be really handy!"

Basically it was a small LED panel in a housing that included a carabiner, bottle opener, magnet on the back, small stand and it is USB-C rechargeable. Not too shabby, right?

I found them online, the price was right and so I grabbed a couple to see what they were like. Initially I was very pleased- I haven't tried the bottle opener yet, but the carabiner had a decent snap to it, not the greatest, but far from the worst, the magnet was a little weak, but good enough to do the job and the LED panel was nice enough to make up for everything else. It has three settings, high, low and seizure inducing flashing, and you cycle through them with the power button, mounted on one side. The USB-C port is mounted on the other.

There isn't a lot of difference between high and low mode that I saw- they are both hugely blinding, but in my book the whole point of a light is to make things less dark, so if it's bright, I'm happy. I could see a lot of uses for this light, although out of a Molly powered rave I am not sure the flashing mode would be that useful, but what the heck.

It seemed like a pretty nice little light, and for the price, I was quite pleased with it.

And then....

Def

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2022, 05:40:11 AM

After playing with it for a day or two I noticed the power switch seemed a bit wonky. The more I tried to turn it off and on, the more it seemed like the switch was sinking into the body of the light.

I put it away for a few days since I have been working a lot lately and didn't really have the time to get into it, but we are having a pretty good storm tonight and my work crew decided they'd rather be indoors, out of the high winds and heavy rain and away from the lightning. What a bunch of wussies, right?

Anyways, this gave me the opportunity to fiddle with this thing a bit, and, after pulling out the rubber cover I noticed the switch wasn't falling inside after all. What was happening was the rubber button extension that is supposed to hit the switch that lives deep inside the unit was slipping off the button itself, and so when I was pressing it, it was going down the side of the button instead of pressing it.

I was trying t think of a way of keeping the rubber button in contact with the actual button, and all I can come up with is some kind of glue. Unfortunately I am not sure that would work- I'd have to find a glue that works with silicone or rubber, won't seep into the electronics and won't get messed up when I try to slide the rubber cover into place.

I'm open to suggestions, but in the end I'll probably leave a bad product review and get on with my life, which is too bad because I really like the concept of this light. Maybe I'll pull the other one out of the box and see if it's any better, but this seems more like a design flaw than a one off. In the end I'd suggest folks stay away from these- as cool as they could be, without a functional switch they are a complete waste of cash.

Def

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2022, 05:18:54 PM

I contact the seller about the poor design and they send me a message asking if I was pressing the right button.

[Sarcasm]Thanks for letting me know, I was pressing buttons with my toes since all of my fingers are stuck up my nose.[/sarcasm]

Def

nakken · **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2022, 06:05:14 PM

Quote from: Grant Lamontagne on November 17, 2022, 05:18:54 PM

[Sarcasm]Thanks for letting me know, I was pressing buttons with my toes since all of my fingers are stuck up my nose.[/sarcasm]

It's a shame it had a faulty design, I thought the concept was interesting too.

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #4 on:** November 18, 2022, 04:52:01 AM

Me too. I will open the other one and see if it suffers the same fate or not.

Hopefully it was just this one.

Def

MadPlumbarian · **Reply #5 on:** November 18, 2022, 05:40:04 AM

Interesting, maybe only touch this one with your opposing hand vs with your normal hand and see if it changes the effect, lol..
JR

GearedForwards · **Reply #6 on:** November 21, 2022, 03:54:08 PM

I'd imagine some superglue and maybe some cut up rubber would remedy it. I have the True Utility version of this concept, which lacks the magnet and kickstand. They carabiner is utter naff on it, but the button is much better, it's in the middle of the back of the light letting you cycle through brightness levels, red, and red flashing.

I like these little things, hopefully you find a decent brand one, they are handy to have around and weigh basically nothing.

Sos24 · **Reply #7 on:** November 22, 2022, 04:46:45 AM

Thanks for sharing. I have seen them a few times and considered purchasing but now glad I didn’t.

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #8 on:** December 02, 2022, 02:14:46 PM

Last week they offered me $5, and today they upped their bid to $2.

I'm not sure if they know how bribes work?

Def

pfrsantos · **Reply #9 on:** December 07, 2022, 01:16:55 PM

Quote from: Grant Lamontagne on December 02, 2022, 02:14:46 PM

Last week they offered me $5, and today they upped their bid to $2.

I'm not sure if they know how bribes work?

Def

Wait a little longer. When they ask you to pay them $10 to change your comment, take it!

pfrsantos · **Reply #10 on:** December 07, 2022, 01:20:51 PM

Wrong button?!

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #11 on:** December 11, 2022, 01:00:24 PM

Yes, there is only one button, and apparently they figured I was still dumb enough to press the wrong one.

Quote from: pfrsantos on December 07, 2022, 01:16:55 PM

Wait a little longer. When they ask you to pay them $10 to change your comment, take it!

It's going to take a lot more than $10.

I'm not suggesting that my integrity can't be bought, I'm just saying hat it can't be bought cheaply.

I had a similar incident on Amazon last year with a hose Megan had bought. They kept offering me more and more money to change a review that said the hose leaked a lot, and I kept refusing. They gave me sob stories about how I was causing their kids to starve because my comments were hurting their sales so much, and they had improved the product etc.

It got so bad that I ended up having to report them to Amazon. A few exerpts:

Quote

It's really hurting our business

Quote

If I don't convince clients to delete enough reviews, I risk losing my job
It is not easy to have a job in these difficult times, and I need this income to support my family

Quote

Our country is in the period of virus My small business is on the verge of bankruptcy due to COVID-19.I hope you can help me delete this bad review and let me save My company as much as possible.

I am a heartless smurf....

I'd also like to point out that they had read receipts for all of their emails, so if I didn't respond fast enough, they sent more emails saying things like "I see you read my message" and I think they were up to $50 and a free replacement to delete my review.

I can't fault them for trying, but they got really, really annoying with it, and the reason I bought that hose in the first place was because of all of the positive reviews. I wonder how many other bad reviews they bought off?

Maybe if they had a better product, they wouldn't have to buy out bad reviews and then they would have more money to feed their kids?

Def

Farmer X · **Reply #12 on:** December 12, 2022, 06:10:12 AM

Quote from: Grant Lamontagne on December 11, 2022, 01:00:24 PM

Maybe if they had a better product, they wouldn't have to buy out bad reviews and then they would have more money to feed their kids?

So true.

1053r48 · **Reply #13 on:** April 27, 2023, 06:08:02 PM

It's been a while since this thread was first started, but did you ever get around to checking the second one, Grant? Also, how are the runtimes? Thanks.