Sometime in late 2024 we got a long message through the chat widget from an electrician in Germany. He bought a dozen of our cordless work lights for his crew and was mostly happy, but he had one real gripe: when the battery ran flat on a job, the whole light was dead until it charged, and on a late finish that meant packing up early.
His point was simple. A power tool lets you swap the battery in five seconds. Why does a work light, which arguably matters more when the light is already going, make you sit and wait an hour and a half on the charger?
He was right and we didn't have a good answer. Our lights at the time had the cells sealed inside, which is easier to make waterproof but terrible in the field. So Henry and the engineering side spent a few weeks on it.
The redesign uses a removable battery pack that clips into the base with a sealed contact block, so you keep most of the IP rating but the pack pulls out with a quarter turn. The electrician gets to carry a spare charged pack in his bag and swap it on the spot. We sent him three of the new units to try before we even finalised the moulds, because frankly he'd earned it.
He sent back a video of one of his apprentices swapping the pack with gloves on, in about four seconds, and that was the sign-off we wanted. We didn't want a design that only worked with bare hands on a clean bench.
Funny thing, the swappable design is now one of the first things Brad mentions to the Australian crews too, because mining shifts are long and nobody wants to babysit a charger. One complaint from one electrician ended up reshaping half the range. That's why we read every message that comes through the chat box, even the grumpy ones. Especially the grumpy ones.
