New Technology

You can only pre-order this new Light For Life flashlight because it's due out in June. It's expensive, and I'm not sure that the price will drop much in the next few years because the military and law enforcement will be buying these things by the thousands.

So what's so great about it? Instead of batteries, it uses a new kind of capacitor. Putting out 90 lumens (pretty doggone bright) for 90 minutes, then the electronics throttle it back twice over the next 45 minutes before it goes dark. There's a strobe feature too.

It recharges in 90 seconds.

Unlike rechargeable batteries, which are good for maybe 500 or so cycles, the capacitor is good for 50,000 cycles. Put another way, you can recharge this thing every day for 130 years!

This technology isn't brand spanking new, but we're starting to see it in more and more consumer products. As it improves, it could all but replace batteries.