REVIEW: Wired Magazine: May 2000

"HARDWARE - A Brighter idea, by Jef Raskin - Finally a flashlight that never needs bulbs or batteries and has no parts that'll wear out. A rnust for your emergency kit. Nightstar will probably work as well in a decade or two as it does today.

"Instead of tapping traditional cells, this torch charges up when it's gently shaken for a half minute, and provides illumination for 5 to 10 minutes.If you need light in a hurry, a couple of shakes gets you useful brightness in 10 seconds. NightStar generates electricity by passing a powerful magnet through a coil and storing the energy in a capacitor.

"All in all, this is one heck of a tough, reliable light in a compact, waterproof package. The glow-in-the-dark on/off, switch works by way of a magnet outside the case. Step on it or drive over it and it probably won't break. Niqhtstar even uses a long­lasting white LED instead of a conventional bulb.

REVIEW: PopularMechanics: May 2000

"Shaking Up Flashlight Design - To build a better flashlight, get rid of the bulb and battery. Besides a switch, the only thing the NightStar has in common with a conventional fashlight is the beam reflector. And it surrounds a light-emitting diode. A capacitor replaces the battery. You charge it by shaking the light, rocking a magnet inside a coil and produing current. (Graphic caption said, " The coil and the powerful magnet that forms the power supply can be seen in the middle of the transparent light.") ...(The manufacturer) says its shines from 40^o to 130^o F.

REVIEW: Outside Magazine: September 2000

"SAILING - It's true that the NightStar... won"t prevent monster waves from washing over your cockpit, but when they do, this waterproof, battery-­free flashlight will light your way to the loose mainsheet. The NightStar runs on electricity produced when you shake it back and forth, forcing a magnet to pass through a coil of wire; 90 shakes gives you five minutes of steady beam visible more than a mile away... The chemical-resistant plastic casing is unaffected by salt water, and the LED should give you 100,000 hours of use. Attach a small flotation lanyard... to make the NightStar unsinkable-although if it goes overboard in the dark, be sure to grab it back before the beam dies.

REVIEW: Men's Fitness: May 2000

"NightStar - The NightStar uses neither batteries nor a bulb: Power comes from a magneto that produces electricity when you shake the flashlight, and the light source is a white LED instead of a filament bull. Made of practically indestructable waterproof poly­carbonate, it even has a glow-­in-the-dark on-off switch. Even if you haven't used it in years, 30 seconds of shaking will provide five minutes of light, and it will hold a charge far several days. ...just think of the money you'll save on batteries.

REVIEW: Tech Directions: October 2000, Technology Today, by Alan Pierce,

"Forever Light - Battery-operated devices seem to know when you can least afford them to fail. Even a rechargeable emergency flashlight, if not frequently fully discharged and recharged, might not work when you need it. Most rechargeable batteries can develop "memory" if they are continually recharged before they are fully discharged. A battery that has developed memory will hold its charge for only short periods, and even if you recharge rechargeable batteries properly they still only have a life cycle of a few hundred recharges.

"No more batteries. (The manufacturer) has developed a new flashlight that will work forever without batteries. Completely different than any other flashlight you might have seen, it doesn't even have an incandescent liglttbulb as its light source. A renewable, energy source that is, excuse the pun, always at hand powers the NightStar flashlight. In fact, recharging NightStar is child's play. Just shake Nightstar up and down for 30 seconds, and it's ready to give you a full-spectrum, blue­tinged white LED light for about five minutes.

"Nightstar is definitely full of interest­ing technology that you will want to share with your students... The flashlight contains a magnetic repulsion system that repels the charging magnet back and forth through the charging coil. This repulsion system actually reflects, with minimum loss, the mechanical energy that you create each time you shake the device. As the charging magnet travels back and forth through the light's solenoid wire coil, it generates electricity. A high-energy capacitor then stores the generated electricity.

"How it works. NightStar's on/off switch is made from a material that absorbs room- or sunlight. The material then glows in the dark, using the energy it absorbed when it was exposed to light. This switch and all other NightStar components have, been designed to operate under very adverse conditions to water depths of 180 feet.

"Once thrown, the perma-glow switch completes the electric circuit sending electricity from the 5.5 capacitor to the white LED. LEDs have come a long way since they were used in displays on digital watches. Many laser printers and electrostatic copiers now use LEDs in place of lasers to create printed images. LEDs survive severe impacts, don't give off heat, use very little electricity, and usually last over 100,000 hours. White­light LEDs are so energy efficient that research and development labs are now exploring ways to use them to replace all present-day incandescent lighting systems.

"Available soon. Even the case of this flashlight is special. It is made of the polycarbonate used to make safety glasses and bulletproof glass. Since NightStar is made of such rugged materials, its manufacturer backs it with a lifetime warranty, guaranteeing that it will work "in any environment on the planet."

"Key features: High­-brightness white-light LED • Magnetic charging system • Capacitor energy storage cell • Luminescent switch • Waterproof, lightweight, and high-impact resis­tant housing."