Flashlights

Raw lumens are the specification everyone shops on and the least useful one. Beam shape decides whether a light is any good indoors: a tight hotspot throws far but blinds you with reflected light in a hallway, while a wide flood illuminates a room and reaches nothing past it.

For anything defensive, the controls matter more than the output. A momentary tail switch you can operate without changing your grip, a mode order that does not put strobe between you and full brightness, and a common battery you can actually source. A brilliant light with a fiddly interface fails at the moment you need it, and a rare battery format means it is flat when you reach for it.