American Red Cross Blackout Buddy H2O | Water-Activated Emergency Flashlight

Etón's been making preparedness gear since 1986, starting with shortwave radios and working their way up to hand-crank emergency radios by 2002. Somewhere along the way they partnered with the American Red Cross to build safety products that harness nature's energy — solar chargers, NOAA weather radios, that sort of thing. This flashlight runs on water. Pour it in, get light. No batteries to corrode in your junk drawer, no hand-cranking in the dark. It's the kind of backup gear you hope you never need but feel substantially better having within arm's reach when the power cuts out at 2 a.m.

Pour water into a flashlight. Receive light. It's either clever engineering or a science fair project that escaped containment and got mass-produced. Either way, you'll spend the first thirty seconds after activation wondering if you've been scammed, then the next thirty realizing it actually works, then the rest of the blackout feeling like you've outsmarted the grid.

• Water-activated — add water to generate light, no batteries required
• Emergency backup light for power outages and blackout situations
• Designed in partnership with the American Red Cross
• Compact enough to stash in a drawer, glove box, or emergency kit
• Requires water, which means it's useless in a drought but extremely smug during a flood
• Runs on Etón's nature-powered technology platform