What to look for in an everyday-carry (edc) torch light?

As a battery and torchlight enthusiast, I believe that everyone should carry some sort of light with them, EVERYDAY. No, it does not need to be super bright or super chunky. Just a small reliable light that works when you need it to. I rarely get the chance to use my trusty LRI Photon III but when have to, I'm really glad that I have it with me. Two years ago, my friend and I had to walk through a short unlit underpass in Orchard area. Having my light on my keychain means that it is extremely easy to find and it allowed us to see about 1-2 metres in front of us. We couldn't see that much because we entered the underpass from inside a brightly lit building and our eyes needed time to adjust to the sudden darkness. But still, my trusty little keychain light is enough to guide us through the steps and emerge on the other side of the road. In this situation, we only needed the light for about 1 minute or so. But that 1 minute of light reduced a potentially clumsy situation into a simple stroll.

My broken at tattered blue Photon III

My dad bought this for me when he traveled to the US many years ago on a business trip and it has been on my keychain since. Fortunately or unfortunately, in Singapore, the country where I live in, blackouts are extremely rare and street lamps are virtually everywhere. But that doesn't mean that we should be complacent and not have a torch light with us! Well, if you have a smartphone, chances are, it has an LED light that works as a flash for the in-built camera and it can double up as a torch light. Given the battery that most cellphones use, the in-built LED light will probably be brighter than most keychain lights. However, turning the light on does drain the battery a lot faster than normal. So, why not bring along an EDC light?

What qualities should we look for in an EDC light? In short, I think something like Photon III makes a very good EDC light.

1) Compact and light: Being small means that it is easy to carry around and it will always be with you whenever you need it. For the smallest form factor, lights that use coin sized batteries offer the smallest package while (usually) giving decent runtime

2) Reliability: Just like an insurance policy, and EDC light is rarely used but it needs to be relied upon whenever the situation requires. Lights with low maintenance are necessary. In this case, the battery plays a very huge role since most LED torch lights do not need much care. Use only lithium batteries as they do not leak, have an extremely long shelf life of 10 years (some forumers say 20 years). Most coin sized batteries are either lithium or alkaline types (not interchangable and their sizes differ). So choose one that can accept lithium.

3) Lock out or auto-off function: A light that is moved around all the time has the possibility of having it turned on accidentally. To prevent this from happening, some brands adopt either methods to prevent the light from draining the battery accidentally.

An EDC light need not be very bright or last for many many hours on a single set of batteries. Anything with a simple 5mm nichia led will do just fine because sometimes a little light is all that is necessary to change a potentially dangerous situation into a minor inconvenience.

I hope this little write up can help you choose your EDC light  :)