American Red Cross Blackout Buddy Emergency LED Flashlight, Automatic Blackout Alert & Nightlight , Pack of 2

I spread these units throughout my house and, thus far, haven't been disappointed. Here are the features/functions that I think are noteworthy, in no particular order:* The nightlight (which you can optionally enable/disable) is relatively bright and it casts the kind of 'cold' light that's typical of LEDs (i.e., its hue is blueish, not like the yellow produced by an incandescent). To me, the longevity and durability of LEDs are worth the compromise in light warmth...especially for this purpose.* The flashlight is on one end of the unit (top); the nightlight is on the other (bottom). I've seen other products that use one chamber for both purposes, but I like this design better. A nightlight is most useful when it illuminates the ground; an emergency flashlight is easiest to locate when it spreads its light over a large area. This unit accomplishes both.* It's sized more like a flashlight than a nightlight. However, because of the placement of its prongs, it fits into the bottom outlet without blocking the top one.* The light sensor that automatically triggers the nightlight works very well. It's sensitive and it immediately reacts to changing conditions.I hope I'll never have to find out how these units perform when truly tested under extreme circumstances. However, in everyday use, they've proven reliable and helpful. I highly recommend them.

I purchased this “blackout buddy” not really expecting a lot since our electric doesn’t go out very often. I put one in the kitchen and living room. Believe it or not, the day after we got these, the electric went off for three hours. The lights instantly turned on and gave a good light in both rooms. There was sufficient light to see where you were going and didn’t need to walk in the dark looking for a flash light. The best part is you can take it from the wall and the light stays on and a nice bright flash light. The quality is excellent, they are cool to touch when in the wall, and you can also turn the light on and use it for a night light. Overall, an excellent product.

These work great as a night light and a flashlight, the three LED's in the flashlight side of the unit gives off a good amount of light, far more than anyone would need to find these way thru the dark in the event of a power failure. The nightlight is quite bright so for the bedroom it may not be your best choice. The units are compact and seem to be very well made. It is good to know where a flashlight is at all times that is charged and ready to go, these fit the bill. It has a on or auto switch for the nightlight side and a push button switch for the flashlight. They feel good in the hand and give off a great light for there size. I think you will be pleased with this as a emergency light or just as a flashlight either way they seem to work great.

We noticed the Blackout Buddy when amazon offered it as one of their deals of the day for about $12 for a set of two. Seemed like a solid deal, considering what we've paid for typical LED nightlights in the past that didn't have the emergency light feature. Still, we were a little concerned with some of the reviews. We decided to buy two sets (four Buddies in total) and now wish we had bought more. We can only assume that the manufacturer has been listening, as the four we received don't seem to suffer from any of the problems some reviewers warned about. It might be a quality control/manufacturing inconsistency though. So, we might have just gotten lucky, but I thought it worth sharing our experience so far, just in case the manufacturer has improved the product since some of these reviews were posted.One thing that should probably be pointed out is that we noticed that many of the negative reviews are not actually for this Blackout Buddy, they're for a different model that activates in water. For some inexplicable reason amazon stubbornly combines reviews of similar products, even when so many people have complained about this practice and when it's clearly not ideal or is even misleading to do so. That again appears to be the case here, at least at the time of this writing.As for the Blackout Buddy emergency light/flashlight/nightlight model that we purchased, we couldn't be much more pleased so far. Compared to the various standard LED nightlights we've used for nearly a decade, this product seems very well made. It's not too heavy, but has a solid almost rubbery feel with flat white (ever so slightly gray) coloring that I subjectively find more appealing, compared to glossy white that's more slippery to hold (thinking about the flashlight function) and high gloss just makes plastic products seem cheaper IMHO. It also has a wall hugging low profile that only protrudes from the wall about 3/4 of an inch, which is less than most nightlights we've seen. It comes with instructions, but is so simply designed, they're not really needed.A single LED nightlight is on one end and a triple LED emergency/flashlight is on the other. The nightlight feature can be disabled if desired. It should also be noted, that when the nightlight is enabled, it too stays on when power is lost or when the product is used as a flashlight, unless manually switched off at that time. To conserve battery power when using the product as a flashlight, the emergency/flashlight 3 LED end can be turned on or off with the power button on the face too. It's very practically designed.None of our four units were defective upon arrival, nor had a toxic smell. If you put your nose to it, it faintly smells of rubber or plastic, but that's beyond nit-picking. I only mention it, presuming that's what some seemingly overly critical types or highly sensitive people are talking about. It's nothing heat related, which might prove more worrisome. And if it's remotely harmful, then all plastic/rubber products must be dangerous. After at least 24 hours of use in nightlight mode, none of the four we purchased have gotten excessively warm. In fact the case body itself feels positively cold to the touch. The clear plastic shield, where the actual LEDs are, might feel very mildly warm when the lights are on, but that's to be expected - LEDs still emit heat, just not nearly as much as incandescent bulbs of the same light output.The nightlight on this product is very bright, which is why it's probably ideal that it be pointed toward the floor as seemingly designed, but not required if you desire otherwise: conveniently, both prongs are the same size (not one small and one large) so you can easily place it however you want. Some have noted the light as being too bright or harsh. I would disagree with the former criticism, as I don't think "too bright" is a valid criticism for nightlights - seems antagonistic to their purpose in fact. Maybe that's a limitation of my imagination, but the only circumstance I can think of where this might be "too bright" is if used in a bedroom "and" the person sleeping has a problem sleeping with any light source in the room, like even many digital clocks. In which case one probably wouldn't want a night light of any kind, making the criticism somewhat irrelevant. For illuminating hallways, kitchens, etc so you don't have to turn on the light just to raid the fridge or go to the bathroom during a commercial break, the brighter the better, IMHO. And for those who don't have a problem sleeping with the light on: kids afraid of the dark who could otherwise sleep through a plane crash, or older couples who need some light in the room for late night trips to the bathroom without disturbing your significant other, it's fine for a bedroom too. In fact we intended one set of these as a gift for my parents, who put one in their bedroom and love how bright it is.I would agree that the light is harsh to look at directly though. This is my only real criticism of the product. Rather than a clear plastic shield over the nightlight, a translucent shield, like many LED nightlights use, would not only greatly reduce, if not eliminate the apparent harshness from basically looking directly at the bulb, but also disperse the light better in the room. As is, the nightlight puts out a bright focused beam, more like a small flashlight, but due to the mirrored reflector around the bulb, also can disperse even a large room with light. We use one in a large living room about 40 feet long, with a high vaulted ceiling and it lights up the entire room, despite being partially obscured behind a large recliner. Looking at the light directly, it will definitely make you squint a little - hence why it's probably best to point it toward the floor.I haven't been able to make much sense of the few criticisms that the nightlight isn't very bright though. In my experience, this is as bright as nightlights come (it could just stand to disperse the light better with a diffuser shield instead of a clear plastic one). So maybe their unit was defective, or like one reviewer, they too were trying to use the product outside as portable path lights - which is hardly what it was designed for.The darkness sensor works about as well as any we've used. It flicks off instantly when we turn on the overhead light in the room at night, but these things do seem to be calibrated to come on a bit prematurely IMO. Whether that's to help ensure reliability the early evening when you may appreciate, but not necessarily need a nightlight, or to make the bulb burn out faster so you'll buy more frequently than every 10-20 years, I haven't a clue. But expect it to stay on during much of the day, if not placed in direct sunlight or something like a sunroom. That said, we've used various LED nightlights for about a decade. Some are on almost 24/7 and are still going strong. And the amount of energy they use is supposed to be almost trivial. So the lights staying on more than they need to isn't necessarily an issue - even less likely one that you're going to be able to remedy, shy of only using manual nightlights, which this can be used both manually or automatically.If you desire to test the emergency light function within the products return period, all you need do is unplug it from the outlet. It should come on instantly. All of ours do, even having not charged it more than a minute. The instructions say the product needs three hours to charge.After receiving this, not only would we buy them again, but I REALLY hope amazon will put them on sale again, so we can buy more: both for our own home, but also for gifting this Christmas, as we have several relatives who could really use these in their house too. And at roughly $12 per pair, they're easily worth it. Not so much at the $20 price the two pack is currently going for, considering you can buy two singles separately for less. Not sure what amazon is thinking there - charging more rather defeats the purpose of the two pack, but I'll definitely be tracking this item waiting on another sale!

These work. Funny, I bought some and gave one to my mother a year ago Christmas as a gift, I sort of did an emergency theme for some of her presents. Her reaction at the time, was a raised eyebrow and a response of "oh, um, thank you."HA! About 2 weeks ago, we had really bad storms. and her electricity went out. What happened? Oh YES. This lit itself up, as a PROUD little light, forcing itself to be seen in the darkness. Her electricity went on and off for 2 days. How does she feel about my "practical" gift now??!?!?! I got text after text about how wonderful this product was and how great it works. That's right. The practical gift that becomes the great gift, like it is laying in wait to explode in awesomeness later. Yes. We have some too and really like them, and they work really well. Plus, if I just need a flashlight and can't find the one I moved from here to there and cannot remember where THAT is, I can just pluck this one out of the wall and WALLAA I have a flashlight. :)

Bought these after suffering a power outage during a winter morning. It was pitch dark, and I wasn't able to get my flash light, was late for work. These lights saved my ass several times last winter. Basically, they provide light when either the power goes out, or you disconnect it from the wall, the built in internal rechargeable battery will provide light for approx 4 hours (can stretch it to apporx. 6 hours, but will be dim). It can be used as a night light as well. Only complaint, is they emitted a strong chemical odor when they were new, this odor disappeared after a month or two.

Buscaba una lámpara de emergencia que no necesitara estar cargando/reemplazando baterías y que funcionara como luz de noche.Ilumina bastante bien como luz de noche y no le falta nada en el modo de emergencia.Tiene sensor de luz, 4 LEDs y 2 modos de uso. En el modo "Auto" utiliza el sensor de luz y está apagado mientras reciba suficiente luz, en cuanto oscurece se enciende 1 LED. En ambos modos se encienden 3 LEDs cuando hay cortes en la energía eléctrica.Bonito diseño, me da confianza que sea un producto avalado por la Cruz Roja.

No he tenido los problemas que reportan de calentamiento. Sin embargo, queda la incertidumbre por lo que no las he usado como lámpara de emergencia, las cargo y las desconecto para usar como lámpara de mano recargable.

This item appears to be as advertised, though the model that I received doesn't have the red cross logo which is actually a plus for me in terms of home decor. The flashlights are of good quality and are more powerful than any led lights that I have tried before. There was some confusion as specifications were contradictory in terms of battery life in that one source quotes 4 hours while another quotes 2 hours. Delivery came by post and was very quick and the price was reasonable.

work as nightlight and flashlight.