That title is no word of a lie, and I've actually proven it to be true. My trusty i3T EOS has saved the day on more than one occasion but here's a story of one time that my brilliant, little AAA EDC pocket torch was literally more useful to me than leaving the house with shoes on my feet.
My wife and I had moved to the UK in mid/late 2020. We arrived with our clothes, a few basic essentials (my entire EDC collection included... obviously), moved in with family, waited out our self-isolation period and then started looking for jobs. Everything was new to us, the village we were living in, the bus routes, the cold, the time the sun sets in autumn/winter, we still had to adjust to all of it.
I found a normal 9 – 5 work-from-home job and my wife found a reception job at a hotel where she'd have to work late shifts on at least one day out of the week. On her way back home from her first late shift, we learned 2 things: the village we were living in only used street lights on the main roads, and that the bus doesn't actually enter the village after a certain time at night.
It was a few minutes to midnight and I received a message from her saying that the bus had missed her stop and that she was walking home alone in the dark. Without a thought, I got up, threw on some warm clothes, grabbed my phone, couldn't be bothered to find my shoes because my slippers were already on my feet but I did make sure to grab my EDC pouch on my way out of the door.
I left the house on foot, in my slippers and immediately took out the i3T because the sky was pitch black and there were no street lights in sight. I walked about 20 minutes, met up with her just as she was leaving the main road and entering a footpath covered in nothing but complete darkness. She was using her phone's flash LED to light her way but there's only so much use one can get out of a measly little flood flash on a phone.
We walked home from that point with complete ease, being able to see the entire path in front of us at every turn, chatting about the importance of focused and directional lighting and laughing at my poor choice of footware. Yes, we would have been fine without the Olight, but having it with me made life so much easier for the few minutes that I needed it. We got home safely, ordered her an i1R 2 EOS to add to her keys.
Buying the i3T EOS was a very impulsive decision I made years ago. I had seen it gaining popularity in EDC forums and eventually figured “yeah, what the heck” and got one for myself. Ever since opening the packaging, it's been my go-to light source and I don't see that changing any time soon. It's replaced every cheap Chinese AAA torch that I had previously. It's even remained my number 1 choice of the torch after trying out a few newer options from other companies. Nothing beats the solid and grippy aluminum body, reversible pocket clip, nice crisp tail switch and very respectable 180 lumens.
I honestly feel naked leaving the house without it and life is constantly giving me reasons to use it. While typing that last sentence I remembered that last week I opened up and fix a part of the laptop with the i3T clipped to a cap as a light source; Its usefulness knows no bounds.
In conclusion: EDC pocket dump photos are littered with i3T's and for good reason; they're built like tanks and they perform as expected and prove their worth, over and over again. They're portable enough to be taken everywhere and useful enough to be needed anywhere. If you don't have one in your collection, I suggest ordering one or 2. Word of warning though: You may end up accidentally starting a collection of them. It's a very deep rabbit hole... but at least it won't be a dark trip down said rabbit hole.
