By Andrew Liszewski
LED flashlights can easily outperform their incandescent counterparts, but to really light up the night you need to use the same type of high-intensity lamps used in car headlights. But according to Popular Science, in order to get one into a handheld flashlight the designers of the Xenide had to shield the on-off switch “so that it wouldn’t short out from the massive voltage needed to ignite the lamp.” Cool.
The lights are commonly referred to as Xenon, but they’re actually made from Metal Halide. Xenon is just an inert gas that’s used in the arc chamber where the Halide is charged with electricity to create light plasma. So that’s where the ‘Xenide’ name comes from. The flashlight uses rechargeable lithium ion batteries and on a full charge has a projection distance of about 2200 feet. While the 90 minutes of run-time isn’t great when compared to LEDs, I think I’d still rather use one of these for trick or treating.
And like anything even remotely cool, the Xenide isn’t cheap. The basic 15w version costs about $350 while the high-end 25w version costs about $500.
[ AE Light Xenide Flashlight ] VIA [ Popular Science ]