Phone flashlights arent bright enough for long distances - if you walk in the dark, you’ll see a couple of inches in front of you. You’ll have to be very up close to see finer details. A powerful flashlight can come in a small and cheap package and light up the entire block like a helicopter searchlight. Makes things safer because not every street is lit, and a tiny phone light can be ambiguous when seen by someone else.
I dont want to pull out my phone for every single task
“ Right, because you have too many light laying around...” What? You do understand that it will still leak if you have a single flashlight right? That’s how alkaline works
If your phone dies, you won’t have a light
Powerbanks will, again, drain as you use them. What happens when it’s gone?
You can’t be hands free with your phone light
An unused flashlight with proper batteries will last a long time. You will likely use your powerbank frequently and drain it.
A dead phone requires several minutes of charging before turning on again, and even then you only have a few minutes before it dies, and you may not be able to afford to wait to get a decent charge. You can instantly swap batteries in lights and get it to 100% capacity.
You can check the health of your battery cells ahead of time and be prepared. Your phone will likely have a vague percentage health indicator, and if you have an iPhone, replacing it with non Apple batteries completely destroys your ability to check your battery health. This could make charging even worse as it’ll drain even faster without any warning, or not charge at all
Phones break. If you send it off for repair or drop it at certain angles, you break your screen or your flash lens, you no longer have a light. Good quality flashlights will not break if you drop it on its lens.
Not everyone knows how to use or own a phone. A child or old person will intuitively press a flashlight and the light turns on. There is no gesture or swiping or pressing some icon. A child might not be able to afford or be allowed to have some smartphone with a light, but he can rummage in their drawer for a flashlight.
Phones are getting larger by the day. I can carry a tiny flashlight and maneuver in tight spaces
Sweaty or wet or bloody hands won’t be able to swipe around or press buttons on phone 100% of the time. You can simply press a flashlight button to activate it
Phones can be tracked. Flashlights cannot
Phones are expensive. Batteries and flashlights are cheap
You might need your phone and a light at the same time. Certain apps or activities restrict flash usage, and certain activities require you to have exclusive retention of the phone so another person cannot navigate, or you may to create more problems by trying to shine your phone around while using it for other purposes. Do you want to put your phone on speaker while you’re walking around just to shine its flashlight at the same time?
Although alkaline is inferior, they’re still more common which means you can quickly get a working light. You will not find a phone battery at a grocery store.
Phones are planned obsolete items. It’ll get slower as time goes on, stop being updated and supported, or even deliberately sabotaged by the manufacturers (see apple). A good flashlight will last practically forever. Flashlights can have poor QC, but you will probably never need to wonder whether someone forgot to put a parenthesis in their code and brick your light a year from now.
Your phone can be hacked and locked. Sure, supply chain attacks can work on physical items (see stuxnet, recent hezbollah pager bombings), but it’s unlikely that you will be a target for a flashlight bomb. You WILL be a target for phishing, scams, ransomware, viruses, etc. Especially if you use Android.
Flashlights are faster to use. I’m on my phone right now, and I have to unlock my fucking phone just to adjust the flashlight brightness. Sometimes face ID will just be disabled and I have to press my passcode to unlock. Turning on your phone too fast makes it think you did it on accident. And certain phones lock your entire phone of all functions except SOS phone call if you enter the password wrong too many times. My flashlight can be adjusted to reasonable brightness within two clicks - again, intuitive and easy for anybody to use.

I find it very strange that you’re unable to imagine a single scenario where a flashlight is useful. If I’m in an emergency situation, I don’t want to risk my phone being damaged or dying because there’s no other way to effectively communicate. I rather have specialized tools because an all-in-one tool can break, and then it risks becoming a nothing-in-one. What’s the point of a screwdriver set when you can just buy a swiss army knife? I’ve had very few instances where I needed anything more than a small phillips head.

[–] Hexamerous@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago

Tactical breakdown and analysis:

I don't need to light up an entire block, when would you need this? The flash is good enough for walking home, even in the forest, I use it to see ice patches in the winter.
But you could, right?
If you have one flashlight you'll be able to drain the battery and switch it out in time before it starts leaking.
pulls out power-bank
Flashlight will also drain, no matter how many you have, they will eventually drain. What then, hu?
put the phone down facing the flash up Also you need to hold most flashlights so...
Nah, I have one in the kitchen that I only use for traveling and emergency power. It's always charged.
I plug in the power-bank before that happens.
It's the same technology used to indicate battery health.
I fire up my old phone. I keep it charged for just such occasions.
90% of people know how to use a phone. And you still only need one flashlight in the kitchen. Again, how big is your house? Elderly and child accessibility is a good point tho.
What?
Dry your hands on your pants or/and make the tactile side button activate the flash when you click it.
So in this emergency scenario you don't want to be found?
You can charge the phone (with a power-bank for example), you don't need to throw it away every-time the a battery is drained. And you already have a phone, that's the whole point. No need to buy even more electronic crap and ship it around the globe.
put in wireless earbuds I'm out here listening to some guided meditation, trying to calm down because my hands all bloody for some reason. Hopefully they can triangulate my position using the cell towers. Right now I'm using the phone GPS to reach the closest road.
What do you mean quickly, you have to go to the store to get it. If I can walk to the store I can find an outlet to charge my phone. If I have a car, I can charge the phone (and the power-bank) from the USB outlet.
What? They're not going to brick your phone when you're using it. The flash doesn't drain processing power, wtf are you talking about?
So in this scenario, a unnamed shadow organization have hacked your phone, at the very moment you need a flashlight?
dubble taps the side button

Conclusion: Sir, I have demonstrated effectively and with high probability that 19 out of 20 possible tactical scenarios that could justify an array of Light Casting Devices can be condensed into a single form factor for easier deployment, accessibility and portability at a comparably cheaper price point than having multiple instruments and units deployed at the same time requiring less technical knowledge, serviceability and training to achieve the same results while using less resources to do so, sir!

Sir! This WILL increase mission efficiency, sir!