Life+Gear 6IN1DC Flashlight Review

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It never fails.  The power goes out in the middle of the night and your flash light is out of batteries.  Now that we are getting to the heart of the hurricane season, before the next storm hits maybe you should  get your family a Life+Gear 6IN1DC.

The 6IN1DC is touted as a quad power device. The device can run on 3 AAA Batteries,  a DC Adapter (not included), an AC Adapter (also not included) and backup power.  Note that without the AAA Batteries, AC or DC adapter, the clock on the face of the Life+Gear 6IN1DC will not work.  When living strictly off of the backup power, the clock does not function or at least it did not work for me.

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Backup power consists of a crank.  Just flip the crank out and turn for 1 minute and you get 1 hour of light.  Extremely handy for those situations where you just forgot to go get new batteries.

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The 6IN1DC flash light has a super bright 20 Lumens of light power.  The first press of the button brings all 20 Lumens of power, the second press of the button  reduces the light by half.  The third press will flash the light and two red LEDs.

There’s also a built in siren.  Pressing the siren button will start the siren and flash the lights simultaneously.  Good if you are trying to alert someone to a problem or to make sure people see you.

There is also a built in FM Radio.  Reception was pretty crappy as there is no aerial but it would be sufficient to get storm information.

Lastly, there is a port to plug a little dongle plus adapter into the side of the flashlight for plugging your cell phone into it and charging it from the crank.  Not sure how much juice this would give your cellphone as I did not have any of the adapters.  The adapters are advertised as being free from Life+Gear, but when I went to the site the free adapters cost $5.95 for shipping.  I can’t imagine it costing that much to ship a adapter.  Also, the iPhone is conspicuously missing from this list.  In fact, most of the phones on the list looked a little dated.  Luckily, my G1 is supported by USB Mini B and there were lots of phones that use that.  I just might order the adapter before my next camp out.

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The Life+Gear 6IN1DC light is designed for being stashed in your disaster kit.  You don’t even have to have any batteries as you could live completely off the backup power source in a pinch.  Even if you wanted to use it for camping, it would be a perfect device as it will never leave you in a lurch.  If your batteries die, just crank it up and your back in business.

The Life+Gear 6IN1DC flash light is available at Walmart.com for $22.00.

What I liked: Takes multiple power sources.  Can operate without any batteries at all.  If your batteries die, you still have a light.

What needs improvement: If the adapters are free, the shipping should be too.  Otherwise, you can’t use this feature.  The radio also needs a antenna of some sort to improve the reception.  If one can’t be installed, at least put a headphone jack so the headphones could be used as the antenna.  Also, the NOAA Version is a better choice for disaster kits in my opinion.  If given a choice, go for the NOAA Version.

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About the Author

Joel McLaughlin
Joel is a consultant in the IT field and is located in Columbus, OH. While he loves Linux and tends to use it more than anything else, he will stoop to running closed source if it is the best tool for the job. His techno passions are Linux, Android, netbooks, GPS, podcasting and Amateur Radio.