How Amazon is Allowing Flashlights to Get Out of Hand

[Music] welcome back to ttc the phenomenon is in no way exclusive to the recent amazon prime day sale from this month but there seems to be an ever growing amount of let's just call it unbelievable flashlights with numbers like 90 100 120 000 lumens in their titles that's just 30 40 50 dollars too some quick napkin math would infer that even with leds most of these would probably set firewood ablaze and drain a sizeable battery in a couple minutes but these same lights also advertise figures like 6 8 and 20 hours on high just these handful of lights would be over 400 000 lumens but really the only way to get to the bottom of it is to just buy these things lumen test them test their lumens versus run time pull up the curtain on their battery size and then drop test them which we did so we bought all the most popular sort of no name pie in the sky examples on sale during prime day as well as one brand you may have heard of as a control so we're going to take a look using our very diy light integration sphere that admittedly is a painfully obvious budget build but we have had our results compared to and calibrated with a professional lab who does this sort of thing starting rather modestly in this bunch with the richoo s2000 a 2000 lumen rated flashlight that sold for only 15 bucks that low price point being due to this one being powered by double a batteries not included the only non-rechargeable on the day but 2000 lumens from double a batteries sounded on the optimistic side to me and those six double a's are meant to power this flashlight up to 2000 lumens for six hours which would be quite a feat it looks sort of brightish in person the amount in which if you handed someone one of these with fresh batteries they probably wouldn't think twice about the light it doesn't stand out just seems sort of normal for a flashlight but that's what the integrating sphere is for after being on high for 30 seconds per the ansi f01 standard it's seeing a whole 505 503 498 we're calling that 500 lumens and as with most alkalines it trails off there pretty noticeably low is 130 or so you look at the peaks with led lights that's just 25 percent of rechew's advertised figure perhaps that lower 500 level will allow this one to reach its six hour run time on high though time to turn things way up though with this nj forever pistol style spotlight rated for 90 000 lumens and a half kilometer of range up to 20 hours on high though some of his verbiage says 8 to 12 hours either way some top stuff with those specs you'll be finding these pretty much identical unchanged from dozens of sellers and brands on amazon seemingly all selling the same spotlight it's got various lens colors for hosting i don't know saturday night fever with your friends party mode settings included but its main attraction is this high candela spotlight focus beam good for 90 000 they say does it look bright in person well yeah sure but also this is a range of about six inches in a garage the most noticeable thing about this one is just how shockingly lightweight it is it's less than a pound if you assume this was a kid's toy just looking at it and picking it up you'd still be surprised at how light it feels let's see those 90 000 lumens though realistically we're at risk of melting our foam sphere with that type of output but i don't quite feel the heat coming off of this one just yet so we're seeing 1405 1415 1410 1403 we're gonna call that 1410 low is eight to 900 and its side light is roughly 160 lumen which they call out as 9000 lumens that means this light makes just 1.6 percent of its 90 it's side light making 160 lumens is coincidentally also about one point seven percent of the nine thousand they call this is a highly rated light promoted on amazon on prime day one point seven percent let's move on to some flashlights maybe this is specific to these quarter pound spotlights this is the alpha p 70.2 it goes for about 30 dollars and also advertises 90 000 lumens now anyone familiar with cree led chip part numbers already know the theoretical max of this thing seeing xhp 70 on it but let's take a look this is a light that's typical of the lumen range advertised using a two stack of 26650 lithium cells no markings or capacity written on it or advertised by the brand but could fit quite a few milliamp hours with those if you need to run the eight hours on high that it advertises this is what it looks like on in person it doesn't quite wash out a hand put in front of it so let's see what the sphere has to say of this ninety thousand fifteen fifty fourteen ninety five fourteen hundred trying that again yep peaks at sixteen hundred or so then drops quickly we're gonna call that 1500 after 30 seconds so another one about 1.7 percent of its claim sounds like our sphere is maybe maxed out but we've tested 2100 2200 lumen lights that are advertised at 2200 maybe it's because the xhp 70.2 from cree has a max of 4 000 lumens according to cree to begin with so even on paper this never had a chance to hit 90k and that's if it was an xhp 70.2 chip from cree which it's not it appeared to us to be an unmarked led chip and obviously not delivering 4000 lumens like the crete would what's going on how are people so easily fooled why are these still being sold on amazon and promoted by amazon we'll touch on that after our testing coming up and i hope you'll join us for that because there are things amazon has in place right now that could resolve a lot of this if amazon were so inclined let's keep climbing up that lumen ladder and see if that pulls us out of the slump this is the lilting xhp 90 a creature model that doesn't exist yet this is the most costly on the day at about 47 and advertises a cool 100 000 lumens it's also rocking a double stack of 2650s but with a 10 000 milliamp hour label on the side we'll be sure to test that and well it's bright it's hard to say staring at it that it isn't but also not quite bleaching the table at the moment with what should be under this one's hood let's take a closer peek of that 100 000 it looks like we're seeing 2000 2034 2042 i know it seems a bit silly to be getting excited of going over 2k from a group like this but it feels like a hill that we've finally crested this one's getting a 2030 rating from us 2.03 percent of its claim that's that's really looking up we have one last moonshot before we test these hefty runtimes another one from alifah this being the xhp 160.2 yet another cree led chip model that doesn't quite exist yet but this time a higher numbered one this 43 dollar example is shorter due to taking one 5 000 milliamp hour 26 650 and while advertising 120 000 lumens it's xhp 70 brother from the same brand here on the left looks fairly similar in brightness and according to the globe of truth well while this one is brighter this should be the brightest on the day and yet it's seeing 1680 1700 1705 1702 1700 lumens which means this one has some splaining to do that's 1.4 percent the most optimistically sold flashlight on prime day in stock at the time of our purchase so for a rule of thumb in this sky high lumen lights category it seems to be just multiply their claims by one and a half to two percent and you get a decent picture of their capability but what if you don't only buy the highest rated lights you've ever seen this is the anchor boulder led flashlight perhaps a brand you've heard of and yet is still very synonymous with being sold on amazon so we feel is more comparable on equal footing with the others from today compared to brands like surefire streamlight or nightcore and at thirty dollars it's also tied for being the most affordable rechargeable flashlight we're showing today pretty affordable it is only 900 lumens advertised but with over 15 000 reviews is certainly one of the best selling from the brand and that brand is known to make quite a few other reputable electronics and they probably won't pop up as another company name overnight if their reviews tank this one comes with an 18650 size cell something you're more likely to have a spare one of and it's 3 300 milliamp hours in capacity sure it does look less bright when compared to the last few lights but maybe not one percent as bright like the numbers would indicate let's see if we can get close to that 900 figure is our sphere just broken and only showing low numbers now the anchor boulder reads looking at the brief peaks here 903 925 908 914 919 we're going to call that 913 lumens fairly spot on this is why we included a control light like this one it's easy to bag on the one million lumen folks but then you might just walk away assuming everything on the site is playing by the same rules the anchor here gets a 101 percent rating about right for many of the name brand lights we test on this channel who we do see representative test numbers from these runtimes on high though this is the next mountain of optimistic claims for these lights even at these new more real-life lumen levels that we've tested these lights would need some serious amp hours or some high efficiency to reach these listed hours let's take a look at their lumen over runtime across all the models starting with the anchor on the left here in blue then the s2000 the 120k alifa the 90k elifa the 100 000 lumen light and the pistol spotlight so within the first 10 minutes or so all the lights drop out of high even if you try to force them back and it's not solely from heat has most of these lights are plenty big of an aluminum heat sink for their actual lumen output and don't really get that hot for us really the alkaline battery s2000 sinks down to not super useful levels first as most of those types of lights do but the pistol spotlight with its 20 or eight hours on high claim is first to go at two hours and eight minutes then the 100k flashlight with its rumored 10 000 milliamp hour battery then the anchor and 120k together followed by the 90k and s2000 later with around four and a half hours when you look at these curves basically all these lights live their beyond five to ten minute lies where most modern flashlights do of really any size in these 600 lumens and below range one shared attribute from every one of these overly optimistic lights we've noticed is that they all show these outdoor tree line shots screen grab from youtube videos or other action shots from other websites and on these images you can never really see the light being sold in the person's hand or even some shots like this one where it's clear the light in his hand isn't responsible for this light source this is the quickest way in my opinion to sort out some of these lights any of these with the similar looking nature shots in the main product image if the main product image is just the product like most real brands do that's probably a good sign but more to the point of our runtime testing this six hours here becomes four and a half not bad though not super useful for much of that time this 20 hours becomes more like two hours than four and a half two and a half three and a half hours and the anchor did three and a half hours as well i'm going to save you some time looking at charging rates and capacity testing here's what those boil down to these two are the only ones who advertise battery capacities that meet what our monitor is measured and this is the only light that charged over one amp two amps quick charging so all these take quite a while for their capacities though this one is supposed to be nine thousand milliamp hours and these are supposed to be around ten thousand milliamp hours and we're seeing about half that some super cheap 26650s in these only 2400 to 2600 milliamp hours of pop all right let's drop these on the ground real quick like and wrap things up the s2000 double a light took three drops just six feet before kicking the bucket a whole 20 seconds of testing for this one the pistol spotlight did better sort of eight feet it's lightweight which should be helping it here but it's split revealing three 18650s labeled as nine thousand milliamp hours combined but measured more like three cheap 1500 milliamp hour cells there's really not much to this light both the alifa 90k and lilting 100k look quite similar performed here similarly both 10 feet still under par for most flashlights that we test the 120k light and the anker boulder here though are another story each fairly robust the 120k did ultimately require spiking on the ground which some lights do on this channel while the anchor died at 20 feet just before resorting to that spiking so here's how that breaks down only the alifa 120k and the boulder being a level of durability that's worth bringing anywhere with you in my opinion the 120k also had an honest single 2650 cell capacity as well if it wasn't for this it would be a straight shooter advertise this light as a 1700 lumen light that lasts three and a half to four hours and you got yourself a good deal for around forty dollars if you have a video like ours to be telling you these facts but why don't they do this why don't they tell you how much lumens these lights make well they have these other models to compete with which this brand is also contributing to that issue a space race to the top of the lumen ladder as it were meanwhile anchor has to try and separate themselves from the specs static appearing to the casual consumer to bring just one percent of the lumens when really it's more like half for 50 to 25 of the size taken up in your backpack and in many cases at a better price so why does amazon just let this happen are they letting this happen yes it's pretty simple actually they want this to happen they promote these lights like on prime day more than any others as well you may be thinking what can a giant like amazon do to tame this sort of advertising it's just whack-a-mole after all this is false advertising which is something amazon's no stranger to in litigation i feel it comes down to this the fact that they already have requirements in place for products like these on the site but only ones that save them money i'll show you to sell lights like these rechargeable you need to provide amazon with a un 38.3 battery test summary this separates amazon from shipping hazards and liability associated with that if your product is overly large or overly heavy you have to pay amazon a fee for every product they ship until you personally pay for an independent lab to certify your product as sioc approved which means it can just ship in its own container now amazon wisely advertises this as part of their consumer friendly packaging initiative and about saving waste but it does not require you to make any changes to your packaging style merely certifies the amazon themselves don't need to use in addition to your packaging their box so this saves them money and on products that amazon has been sued over or gotten bad publicity from you need to submit a ul 1642 battery certification for battery-powered products so could they require any brand selling lights to employ a independent lab to certify that specific items lumen output like we some random youtubers were able to manage ourselves absolutely but there's no upside everyone's getting a taste right now of selling these fictitious flashlights to the masses and these shady reviews appear pretty strong so there's no reason to mess with a good thing unless you want to protect your brand from becoming the next ebay or wish but that's just long-term thinking in an age where tech giants are more concerned about quarterly profits not unique to amazon of course but they could probably make the biggest dent in this sort of willful misleading product information till then i say you support brands that are playing an honest game they may not be around forever otherwise this is why ttc storefront only features products that have tested the best for us a bit of a downer this episode i know sorry for that honestly i had a bit of fun testing this batch of flashlights frankly if you know what you're getting into many of these are sort of cool chunkers of a flashlight simply wish more people had ways to know what they were getting into in the first place every friday we make episodes like these subscribe to stick around and thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 1,406,364

Keywords:

Id: 6q_0wxzClkg

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Caiur]

Reminds me of when Atomic Shrimp debunks the dozens of fake 1 terabyte flashdrives on Amazon

[u/Waffleline]

I worked as an investigator at Amazon spotting counterfeit, materially different, etc. Basically this type of stuff. I made a quick rundown on what would happen when a device like this gets a customer complain.

1. Task arrives. The investigator does a quick scan of what the issues are and if the account is related blocked accounts to insta-block it due to relations. They have about 15 minutes to complete a full CCR/NA/Matdiff/etc investigation
2. "Advertised as 90k lumens, probably doesn't even reach 1k". The investigator has no idea what a lumen is. Checks the current enforcement policy and there is no mention about lumens anywhere. Seller is most likely aware which is why they are doing this in the first place.
3. Items are not CCR(counterfeit) either because it's no brand or just a generic brand. When the investigator checks in the brand registry tool, they discover that there is no other seller claiming the "Xiawou" brand, which as per policy means that even though there is no official registration for this brand in any government/international brand registry, as far as Amazon is concerned this makes the guy the brand owner. No need to ask for brand documentation. There are a thousand variants of the Xiawou brand like Xiowou, Xiuwu, Xiwau, etc. All 100% different brands as per policies. This means that since they are generic, it doesn't matter how many "fake" complaints the item gets, it's not fake, and basically, it's the buyer's fault.
4. The investigator checks for other issues. Some people say "not as advertised", but Amazon doesn't enforce a third-party lumen test of any sort, so complaints about lumens can be ignored. Could it be wrong item? No, people are getting what they ordered. Matdiff? No, the flashlight is made of the materials and components that they are advertised to be. Of course, maybe Amazon could have highly specialized investigators trained to verify what kind of LED the flashlight has and take a more educated guess based on pictures and realize there is no way a certain particular type of LED could output so much light. But then that would mean hiring more investigators just to make a highly specialized task, which means less money. Preposterous, what about frugality?
5. A coworker suggests that perhaps this could be transferred to CERT/PAT because "they have no policies" and technically can request anything to do the right thing. But CERT/PAT program managers need a way to control the team, so instead of SOPs which are a no no, they came up with "guidelines that need to be followed always", completely different thing. Nothing in the not-an-SOP mentions lumens either. CERT can only request supplier information, which doesn't matter because this is a non-branded item or the seller is the "brand owner". Whatever supplier/invoice information the seller sends is good as per not-an-SOP.
6. The CERT investigator has to "Pass" the investigation. Under 15 minutes, he gets to keep their job too!

[u/predictingzepast]

I've looked up what a 100k lumin flashlight would actually cost, and although it lists 'Emergency fire starter' as one of its uses, I can't justify spending $700 on a flashlight, especially one I'd probably never even get the chance to actually use

[u/r3dk0w]

The US tries, but barely enforces truth in advertising.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising

[u/ReasonableAndSane]

Yeah Amazon doesn't give a shit.

And the Chinese sellers have no shame, they care even less than a shit.

[u/0ogaBooga]

Same shit happens with climbing ropes. Hundreds of fake unrated products listed above quality manufacturers like beal or black diamond.

Someone's going to die, but Amazon doesn't give a shit.

[u/Termin8tor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt8aAy_8Ub4

Obligatory flashlight power comedy sketch by Rhod Gilbert.

[u/mick_ward]

Amazon flashlight specs are too damn high!

[u/fprintf]

I rely on /r/flashlight to tell me which flashlights to buy. I bought two based on their recommendations and they were awesome!

For the record, I wanted 18650 based flashlights last year and after a search over there I ordered (not affiliate links):

• Wurkkos FC11 handheld LED flashlight

• Sofirn SP40A Headlamp

I've been super happy with both.