I love these little guys. We keep one in the glove compartment of each car, keep several in the house in case of power failures, and we've given some as gifts. It's wonderful not having to deal with batteries. I highly recommend these.
I am on my 5th set of these flashlights. I bought two of my kids these for Christmas and they love them. They are perfect for them. They can go to sleep with them at night and when they finally run down, they just wind them up again the next night.
The problem seems to come by way of the winding mechanism. It's the same problem every time. They work until they don't. Something about the winding mechanism fails and the crank just spins and spins without charging the light. I get about 2 months out of a light at most.
The fact that they are L.L. Bean lights makes it as snap to return, especially since the store is about 10 minutes away. I am just fortunate that they don't seem to fail when we are camping.
I bought about 20 of these flashlights for emergency supply kits for area daycares because we wouldn't have to deal with batteries. Unfortunately, 2 of the on/off switches didn't work when the flashlights arrived from LL Bean. I"m a little concerned about their reliability.
