Best torches for a power cut: a UK buying guide

The torch is the single most useful thing in a household emergency kit, and it’s the one most people get wrong. Not because they buy a bad torch, but because they buy the wrong kind, or they buy a good one and then store it in a way that guarantees it won’t work.

Here’s how I’d choose, and what I’d ignore.

Brightness matters less than you’d think

Torch listings compete on lumens and the numbers are quoted generously. Mostly you can ignore them.

For moving around the house, reading a label and getting the children up the stairs, 100 to 300 lumens is plenty. Anything above that is for searching a field at night.

Very bright torches also eat batteries, and in a power cut, runtime beats brightness every single time.

Runtime is the number that actually matters

A power cut can last twelve hours. A torch that runs for three hours on maximum is no use to you at hour six.

Look at the runtime on the lowest setting, not the highest. A good household torch will do twenty hours or more on a low setting, and low is almost always enough indoors.

Buy the torch with the best low-mode runtime, not the biggest number on the box.

Wind-up, battery or rechargeable?

This is the real decision, and the honest answer is that you want more than one type.

Wind-up. The great advantage is that it can never be flat. The disadvantages are real too: most give you a modest amount of light for a fairly short time per wind, and the mechanism is the part most likely to fail after years in a cupboard. Have one. Don’t make it your only torch.

AA or AAA battery. The workhorse. Batteries are easy to buy, easy to store, and you can raid the TV remote in an emergency. This is what most of your torches should be.

USB rechargeable. Bright, convenient and excellent right up until day three of an outage, when it’s flat and there’s nothing to charge it from. Fine as a second torch, poor as your emergency one, unless you also have a charged power bank.

The mix I’d go for: one wind-up, a battery torch per person, and a lantern.

The battery mistake nearly everyone makes

You buy a good torch, put batteries in it, and put it in the cupboard for three years.

Standard alkaline batteries leak as they age. Not sometimes, routinely. You open the drawer during a power cut to find crusted white corrosion welding the battery into the torch, and a torch that will never work again.

Two ways round it:

• Store batteries separately from the torch, in the same bag, so you load it when you need it.
• Or use lithium AA batteries, which cost more but don’t leak and hold their charge for a decade or more in storage. For a torch that sits untouched for years, this is worth the extra.

Either way, check them when the clocks change.

What else to look for

• A wide beam, not a focused one. Indoors you want to light a room, not a distant tree. Torches sold on their “throw” are the wrong tool.
• Some water resistance. IPX4 or better. You may well end up outside in the rain at the fuse box.
• Something you can stand on end, or that has a hook or magnet. A torch you have to hold is a torch that stops you doing anything else.
• Avoid zoom mechanisms. The sliding focus head is the most common point of failure on cheap torches.
• Ignore anything described as tactical or military grade. It means nothing, it costs more, and the strobe function has never helped anybody find anything.

Don’t overlook the head torch

The most underrated item on this list.

A head torch means you can carry a child, make a sandwich, or work on something with both hands free. During a long power cut it’s genuinely the thing you’ll reach for most, and they’re inexpensive.

Get one for each adult at minimum.

And a lantern for the room

A torch lights wherever it’s pointed. A lantern lights the room where everyone’s sitting.

When a power cut goes on for hours, the family ends up in one room. A single lantern on the table there does more for morale than four torches pointing at the ceiling.

Torches for children

Give every child their own. It matters more than you’d think.

A child holding their own light is a child equipped for the situation rather than caught up in it. Choose light, simple, and their own colour so there’s no argument about whose is whose.

My picks

Best all-in-one: torch, radio and power bank

iRonsnow Wind-Up Solar Emergency Radio. Three things in one: an AM/FM radio, an LED torch and a 2000mAh power bank, powered by USB-C, solar or the hand crank. There’s an SOS alarm mode too.

It holds 4.5 stars across more than 8,000 ratings, and reviewers consistently pick out the sound quality for something this small, the loudness of the alarm and the value for money. Quality and functionality come up most often.

Three things worth knowing before you buy. The NOAA weather band is an American service and does nothing here, so treat this as an AM/FM radio and ignore that feature entirely. The 2000mAh battery is a real power bank but a modest one, closer to half a phone charge than a full one, so think of it as a top-up rather than a solution. And the listing says two versions ship at random, one with a single light offering three brightness levels, the other with three lights at one level. Either is fine, just don’t expect the photos to match what arrives.

Good choice if you’d rather have radio, torch and phone top-up in one item than three separate things in the cupboard. The torch on it is modest at 1W, so I’d still keep a proper torch alongside it rather than relying on this alone.

Best torch and lantern in one

VFAN Emergency Hand Crank Torch and Lantern. Two lights in one body. A focused beam at one end for seeing across a room or down the garden, and a long side panel that turns it into a lantern for wherever everyone ends up sitting. Given that a torch and a lantern do genuinely different jobs, having both in one item is a sensible use of cupboard space.

The runtime figures are the reason it’s here. The manufacturer quotes 18 hours on the torch and 15 hours on the lantern from the built-in 2600mAh battery, and says a minute of cranking gives more than 30 minutes of light. If those numbers hold up, this is one of the few options that would still be working at hour twelve of an outage, which is the thing that actually matters. It charges by USB-C as well as by crank, and can push a small amount of charge back out to a phone.

Be aware of the split in the reviews, though. Quality, portability and brightness all trend positive across 231 ratings. But reliability, phone charging and battery life are all flagged as mixed, with some buyers saying it works perfectly as a backup and others saying theirs didn’t work at all. A few also find the crank awkward to turn.

That pattern usually means variable manufacturing rather than a bad design. The practical answer is to test it the week it arrives rather than putting it straight in the cupboard, and return it if it’s a dud. Do that and you’ll know which one you’ve got long before you need it.

Best lantern

Collapsible Solar and Hand Crank Camping Lantern. The one to put on the table in the room everyone gathers in.

It collapses down for storage and you pull the top up to switch it on, which children find genuinely satisfying and which means there’s no button to hunt for in the dark. There’s a torch in the base as well, a hook on top for hanging, and a 3000mAh battery that doubles as a phone charger. Charge it by USB, by solar, or by the crank when everything else has run out.

Two numbers stand out. It’s rated at 350 lumens, about right for lighting a room. And the quoted runtime is up to 35 hours, with reviewers reporting real-world figures well over 30.

Across nearly 4,000 ratings, brightness, charging options, versatility, battery life and value all trend positive. The one thing flagged as mixed is size, with a fair few people finding it larger than they expected from the photos. For a home kit that hardly matters, but check the dimensions if you were planning to keep it in a grab bag.

Worth noting the light is a cool 6500K, which is bright and slightly clinical rather than cosy. Fine for seeing by. Less lovely for a long evening.

If you’re choosing between this and the VFAN above: this is the better lantern, that’s the better torch.

Best head torch

Blukar Rechargeable Head Torch, 2 Pack. If you only click one link on this page, make it this one. Head torches are the most underrated item in a household kit and this is the one with the strongest evidence behind it by a distance: 4.7 stars from over 13,000 ratings, with brightness, value, battery life, ease of use and comfort all trending positive and nothing flagged as mixed. That’s a rare pattern.

Two in a pack, which covers both adults. USB-C rechargeable with a 1200mAh battery, a washable headband, and it tilts through 45 degrees so you can aim it at what you’re doing rather than at the ceiling.

Three features that matter more than the spec sheet suggests:

• The dimmer. It goes down to 30% brightness. A head torch on full beam is unbearable at close range and blinding for whoever you’re talking to. Being able to turn it down is what makes it usable indoors.
• The red light mode. Much gentler on the eyes in the dark, and far less likely to wake a child you’re checking on.
• The wave sensor. Hold your hand in front of it and it switches on or off. Useful when you’re carrying something in both hands, which is most of the time.

Two honest caveats. The 2000 lumen headline is far more than you need indoors. And it’s rechargeable only, with no batteries to swap, so it doesn’t work as your last line of defence on day three of an outage. Keep it charged, and keep a wind-up somewhere as the backstop.

Best value on this page for what it actually does.

Best for children

EverBrite 6-Pack Mini LED Torches. Six small torches in six different colours, with the batteries included. For a family, that solves the problem the whole way: one each, in their own colour, with spares for the car and the grab bag. Nobody argues about whose is whose, which on a dark evening with tired children is worth more than any spec on the page.

They’re tiny at under 10cm and 38g, with a wrist lanyard, so a small hand can actually hold one. Across more than 17,000 ratings every indicator trends positive, including one specifically for suitability for children.

Two honest limitations, both of which I think are fine for this particular job:

• They’re dim. 20 lumens, a fraction of what the other torches here put out. For a child that’s arguably a feature, since it won’t dazzle anyone when it inevitably gets shone straight into a face. But it’s not the torch you’d want for anything that needs proper light.
• Three hours of runtime. Short, and I’ve spent this whole guide saying runtime matters most. With six in the pack you can rotate them, but keep spare AAAs with the kit.

One thing worth doing the moment they arrive: take the batteries out and store them alongside rather than inside. These come with alkaline AAAs, and alkaline batteries left in a torch for two years in a cupboard are exactly the corrosion problem I described above.

Cheap, cheerful, and the item most likely to turn a frightening evening into an interesting one.

Best on a budget

Kssvzz Wind Up Torch, 2 Pack. Two torches for very little, and no batteries in either of them.

Three LEDs, a hand crank, a small solar panel and a built-in carabiner so it clips onto a bag, a belt loop or the handle of your kit box. Nothing to leak, nothing to replace, nothing to remember. If you want to go from no torches to a torch each without spending much, this is the cheapest sensible way to do it, and the second one can live in the car or the grab bag.

The manufacturer says a minute of cranking gives around eight minutes of light. Test that when it arrives, because it’s the number that decides whether this is a torch or a novelty.

Reviewers are positive on build quality and split on brightness. It’s a much smaller pool of reviews than the big sellers, so treat that split as an early signal rather than a verdict.

One caveat the listing buries: it’s not water resistant, despite the outdoor and survival marketing. Keep it indoors and in the car rather than relying on it out in the rain.

Cheap, and it will always work. That’s a good combination for the thing at the back of the cupboard.

How many do you need?

One per person, plus a lantern for the main room, plus a wind-up as a backstop. For a family of four that’s four torches, a lantern and a wind-up.

The kit builder works out the numbers for your household alongside everything else you need.

Read next

• The 72-hour kit, explained for families who aren’t preppers
• Are candles safe in a power cut?
• Car emergency kit: what to keep in the boot