The American Red Cross Blackout Buddy H2O water-activated, emergency light, RCBBH2010WSNG

I would rate these a 10 out of 10 if I could. We had a power outage on Christmas eve, so I pulled out one of these (I bought them for my earthquake kit) pulled off the tab and dunked it in water. It lit up and was bright enough for me to pee without missing (okay, TMI). I left it in the bathroom and kept watching it to see when it died so I'd know the real life time (the ads say 72 hours, but you know how advertising goes...) Well, here we are ten days later, and the darned thing is still lit up. Dimmer than before, but I dunked it again tonight and it got brighter again (though still not as bright as when it was new). I highly recommend these for anyone that needs an emergency kit for any reason. I just bought two more packs of them.(As an aside, in reading the other reviews, I'm confused. This item doesn't plug in so I'm not sure what product all those reviews are referencing).Edit: We are now at January 11, and this thing is still going.

Never buy this product !!!! I received the products of a three pack to send to my 30 years old schoolmate in Singapore, it was the worst experience and embrassing experiences that I ever had. Pls look at the photos ( I tried to add the photos by clicking the below button but unsuccessful, Amazon, pls tell me why?) of how worst my buddy told me about the it. He followed the instruction to put in right amount of water, however, there are yellow "ACID" like spill out from the cells, it is really crazy and the LEDS only light up for one hour and it died totally !!!!!! The LEDS are so dim that to light up anything. I strongly will not recommend this product from ETON, the large and well known company made the s***ty products, it really scared us out about the yellow acidic liquid and also the product performance. Though of if the liquid spill into kid's eyes or user's eyes what will be the results. I will try to contact CPSIA for a real complaint for such a immature and dangerous product launched in the market, pls recall and quarantine all the products in the market and scrap them all ! Also, I could not get back these product now and I want Full refund from Amazon and Eton too.

Item works well. It is a one time use product and is smaller than I expected. It is about the size of a zippo lighter and doesn't put off a great deal of light, probably because of the size. If it were bigger and reusable it would be great for emergency kits.

Wells it's been raining cats/dogs/buckets of rain here in the west coast, 8weeks straight after 5years of drought. Now we have floods, dams are overflowing, power outages. Have used these gems long ago. Add a few drops of water and they last for 72H/3days. Bright, 3LED flashlight. When they dry, add a few more drops of water. I have managed to eck out more, up to nearly 76-80hrs (I'm cheap, I purchased ten). They're in my backpack, @home, @work, goto travel backpack (Genius Pack with suiter), luggage, shaver kits, conference shoulder bags, etc. Very useful, rugged. Another quality Eton item. RECOMMEND: Buy 10 (I did).

I bought a 3 pack to test and see if I liked these for gifts or even for keeping around in case of an emergency. The tiny size was nice and I thought I should try them.I think the technology has potential, but these do not work well enough to justify the price.First off, in case anyone is not clear, these are one use only. The description on Amazon is not clear on that, but I did find that before I bought these and it is clearly indicated on the package. Even the info page from ETON does not mention that these are one use only. I assumed they would be, but had to dig a little to find that specified.I took the first light from the kit, wet it and was not really impressed with the illumination. It was not bad, but honestly not even on par with what you can get from a single white glow stick. Sadly, even that level of illumination does not last for very long. First the center of the 3 LEDs stopped working. If I squeezed the sides of the light together it would work but stop as soon as I released the pressure. I opened a second light and got it wet. While not having the same issue, I did notice the brightest intensity lasted about the same, 2 to 3 hours. It was visibly dimmer after that point and 'refreshing' it with more water did nothing to increase the light intensity.The next morning the lights were still on but dimmer than I had left them. I attempted again to 'refresh' the light but it did not increase intensity in one unit and it killed the unit that had the 1 LED that did not work. It will no longer illuminate after only 13 hours and the one which is still illuminated is, for all practical purposes, unusable. Yes I could use it to illuminate a small path in a pitch black room and keep from tripping, but that is about the extent of it. I wish I had a better way of measuring the output, but it is very dim.The one light that was still working did not last into the next evening, even with a 'refresh'. In a completely pitch black room I could tell that it was active, but that is it. It could not even be used to light a path.So, while the idea of these are cool, if you want it for more than 24 hours you will be disappointed, If you want a bright light for more than 3 hours you will be disappointed. There are so many other options for less money that I just could never justify these for their purpose or recommend them for purchase.EDITED REVIEW ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------I have not talked to the manufacturer yet. I see they commented below, but I wanted to update my review and rating. I took the last of 3 lights from my 3 pack and it worked better than advertised. Well, let me clarify, the max intensity appeared to last about the same 2 to 3 hours, but it was becoming daylight so I could be wrong about that on this particular light. When I used it again that evening it was dimmer and a refresh did not increase the intensity.I did not expect this, and honestly was just going to 'burn it up' since I had no use for it in storage. But, I am now willing to believe that I may have purchased a bad batch or something. The final light from the kit was activated 5 days ago in the early AM. It is still functioning and giving off usable (think night light not flashlight) light if your eyes are dark adapted. I can see some usefulness for this item.Even after using one that works well and lasts longer than advertised, the price point still seems a little steep when compared to other options, like chem lights, which can provide much better lighting, albeit a much shorter duration of lighting capability. But that is not my call, that has to be the buyer's decision. My 1 star eval was about the functionality and I think I need to revisit that based on this new information.

These little guys are so cool. I bought 12 to give away to family for Christmas and I was absolutely thrilled with the result. We had one left over and decided to test it and the light was tremendously bright, it's easy to use, and for us, it lasted almost four days, and even after the four days it had a dim light.