Skip to main content

Need a light? This matchbook is packed with 8 match-sized LED flashlights

As the old adage goes, the best flashlight is the one you have with you — but who wants to lug around a flashlight these days? Even the compact ones are annoyingly large in your pocket, which is precisely why MBI created Matchlights. On the outside, this gizmo looks identical to a regular book of matches, but tucked inside you’ll find eight tiny flashlights the size of matches. Each “Matchlight” is waterproof, magnetic, and impressively bright; so no matter where you are or what the emergency, there’s no reason you can’t have a flashlight in your pocket or your purse.

Creator and MBI founder Guy T. Gwnn has been designing and creating cool “exotic” flashlights for the past 5 years. He is currenty based in Japan, where a risk of earthquakes and blackouts inspired him to make an extremely portable emergency lighting solution. Each LED is bright enough to navigate surroundings in your immediate vicinity, or light up specific areas to make repairs, for example. “It’s not quite as bright as a burning candle. Using just one Matchlight, I can comfortably see and navigate a typical staircase. And while it’s difficult to chop up a regular flashlight to share the light with eight people, people could use all eight Matchlights at the same time to amplify brightness”, said Gwnn.

MBI Matchbook - Flashlight the size of a match

Each Matchlight contains a lithium tube battery that can run for up to eight hours. A waterproof plastic-rubber coating around the body of each light hides a discreet LED/Switch mechanism. It takes one hand to turn each matchstick flashlight on, and two hands to switch the LED off, according to Gwnn. The first available Matchlight won’t be rechargeable, so MBI plans to make extra units available as spares to fit into the MatchBook case. Since the MatchBook itself is also magnetic, it holds the Matchlights in place when they’re in the case and switched off. It is also designed to work as a versatile stand for any illuminated Matchlight you don’t want to hold in your fingers.

MatchBook has been raising support on Indiegogo, but the campaign has already surpassed its funding goal of $10,000 with more than two weeks to go. Backers that pledge $32 can get their own MBI MatchBook with eight Matchlights, plus one extra. For now, Matchlights are available with white, red, and green tinted LEDs. The MatchBook is expected to retail for about $45 once the Indiegogo campaign is complete, and backers can expect to receive their perks in July 2016 if all goes according to plan.

Editors' Recommendations

Chloe Olewitz
Chloe is a writer from New York with a passion for technology, travel, and playing devil's advocate. You can find out more…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more