I stumbled on this light on US Cavalary's website today in my internet searches. It boasts a 90 second (that's right, 1.5 minutes) recharge time, 270 lumen output. It's a bit pricey at $169, but for flashlight junkies for myself, that is definitely not out of reach.

They are marketing this light as one you will never throw away. It will be interesting to see if their claim holds up. They have a video explaining the light if you're interested.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with US Cavalry or 5.11 Tactical in any way. I just think this is a really cool light and an even more amazing advancement in technology!

5.11 Tactical Light For Life

Original link (in case the one above doesn't work)
http://www.uscav.com/gs/Productinfo.aspx?productID=17903&TabID=1&CatID=302

Looks like it could be very useful for police and such, where they're in and out of their cars often to use the DC charger. I would prefer an AC charger for normal home use though. Pricey is right ... $169 is more than I'd want to spend myself. But on the plus side, the website shows it has a 5-star customer rating. Not bad, considering it is still a pre-order item!

Using a high end capacitor for power storage is interesting instead of a battery. 90-second charge makes me wonder what would happen if you accidentally or purposely DISCHARGED the capacitor? What kind of zap could you expect? Could you "taser" yourself???

It will probably be stolen before you get a chance to throw it away.

It will be interesting to read the reviews once this has been in the field for a fair amount of time. Don't the shake lights use capacitors instead of batteries? If so, I have high hopes for this new light since my shake lights hold a charge for a surprising length of time.

On the linked page, below the video, I found it ironic that they ask "Need extra batteries?".

I was laughing about that too!

One thing that is noticably absent from both the product description and the video is the runtime of the light between charges. It is no accident that they don't mention that, so I'm betting it will be pretty short, perhaps in the range of 15-20 minutes on low. That might be fine for many uses where the charger would be accessible, and could be handy around the house.

In any case I'm interested to see how this technology develops, it certainly has a lot of potential.

They do metion run times in very small print at the bottom of the graph...

60 min full power...
15 min at 270 with 25 min stand by power...

Page 4:
http://content.511tactical.com/LightForLife/files/LightForLifeBrochure.pdf

Not the best survival light but pretty decent street/duty light...

I stand corrected, thanks for the info. That runtime is pretty descent for a light that will stay close to its charger.

Don't ultracapacitors leak?

I'm wondering if this would fit the role for a rechargeable natural-disaster light. Burn it up, then a quick trip to the car and 90 seconds later it's ready to go again. Other rechargeables become useless in a power-outage situation once their batteries are used up.