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Illuminator Flashlight
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Vendor Commercial
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ASOTVI Review
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June 30, 2008
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| | | ASOTVI RATING: DOES NOT WORK AS ADVERTISED |
What is it? A crank-up flashlight
Major Claims:
- “One minute wind-up provides up to 1 hour of continuous ultra bright light.”
We put this product to the test, exactly as specified on its packaging. We wound it up to charge it for a full minute. Please see the video, and specifically note that we shot the wind-up clip in one continuous shot, with a clock for reference to show that, indeed, a full minute of winding was performed.
We then immediately shot one continuous clip of how long the “ultra bright light” lasted. For the sake of running time, we accelerated the playback speed of that clip by a factor of two. So if you watch it and time it on your own watch, just double what you see and that is the accurate duration.
When pressed, the product’s on-off switch also toggles between its three LEDs being illuminated and just the single center one. In our video you’ll see we toggled back and forth a few times to show the difference.
All total, the product lasted five minutes and thirty-three seconds (5:33) by our clock before its charge was extinguished. The three LED arrangement died long before that. Up to an hour? Hardly.
We observed this product to be misleading to consumers in two ways:
Firstly, it is deceptive in terms of its very packaging, in that it allows you to “Try me!” right in the store. That is, the crank handle is accessible and will turn even in the package, and the on-off button is accessible as well. So a consumer can crank the handle for a minute as instructed, and hit the of-off button, and they’ll see, just as we did, the unit working great for the first few seconds or so—plenty long enough to convince the buyer it does its basic thing just fine, with no way to know it only has about four minutes left before it’s dead. Who is going to stand there in the store staring at a bulb for several minutes to see how long it lasts? When you try a light of any kind, what do you do? You turn it on. If there’s light, it works.
Secondly, the use of the phrase on the packaging regarding the light lasting “up to one hour” might not be an outright lie, but it is misleading. That is, it can certainly be argued that the phrase “up to one hour” can include all amounts of time from nothing up to 60 minutes – i.e. even though it didn’t last six minutes, that amount of time fits in the range of “up to an hour.” The phrase “an hour” was in reality a “maximum” you see, not a minimum, although the common sense inference of the phrase “up to an hour” would tend to imply in common parlance some amount of time in that general vicinity. For example, if it had lasted fifty (50) minutes, you might have thought, “Well, they said ‘up to an hour,’ so I guess that’s not too bad.” But only working less than 10% of that? Missing the mark by over 90%? We consider that clearly misleading.
So “technically” they didn’t “lie.” But from our observation, this product does NOT work as advertised. On the other hand, if you want a five minute flashlight that takes a minute to charge, this is the product for you.
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Product: Illuminator Flashlight
Available From: Mark Feldstein & Associates, Inc.
Summary:
- Compact and light
- Requires a full minute of cranking to build up a charge
- Observed to only last for under 6 minutes
$8.50 to $19.99 + S&H
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