How Many Lumens Should You Look For In An EDC Flashlight?

Different flashlights with various lumen ratings are intended for specific purposes. A large, heavy-duty flashlight with lumens in the thousands, for example, is intended only for professional applications like emergency search and rescue. For a flashlight you can use to navigate a dark room during an unexpected power outage, or while taking a stroll outdoors in the dim early morning, the sweet spot for your ideal flashlight would be somewhere in the range of 50 to 150 lumens.

You may be tempted to immediately jump on the brightest, most powerful flashlight you can buy. The whole point of using a flashlight, after all, is to light things up so you can see. However, you might want to think twice before buying a flashlight rated at 10,000 lumens. Not only would it likely be an expensive purchase, but for everyday carry (EDC) purposes, such a light rating would be severe overkill.

There are a few lumen ranges in flashlights that are considered optimal for different kinds of tasks. For example, a flashlight packing 1 to 50 lumens would be ideal for reading a book in the dark, searching for something you dropped under a car seat, or just generally doing anything that doesn't require you to see far away. On the higher end, a flashlight rated for 150 to 300 lumens is best suited for navigating unpaved terrain, such as when you're on a hiking trail or walking your dog in the grassier part of a park. This is a level of brightness sufficient for making out fine details at a distance, making it a good lumen range for a camping flashlight, for example.

Considering these ranges, the optimal lumen level for an EDC flashlight used for purposes more elaborate than up-close tasks, but less serious than navigation, would be around 50 to 150 lumens. This range is considered ideal for standard-use cases, as it's bright enough to see clearly in front of you without being absolutely blinding. Light in this range is best-suited for helping you look under your couch or walk on a paved road in a residential neighborhood, as well as performing minor mechanical tasks like small home repairs or campsite tasks. Besides having a reasonable level of lighting, this would also be the optimal choice from a pricing standpoint, as you can get a simple keychain flashlight with 120 lumens of light for around $10.