this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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An option is tritium vials. They’re pretty cheap on eBay and last something like 7 or 8 years.
Dang, that's dope. Any cool projects using those you'd know of / wanna share?
They're typically used in gun sights to make them luminous and visible at night.
Not a whole lot of other uses where a small, relatively expensive glowing dot is particularly useful. In most other applications, you'd rather just include an LED and a battery or wiring to power it.
My girlfriend got herself a pair and taped them to corners of her desk. She doesn't want to turn on the light when she gets up at night but she also doesn't want to bump into the desk. Tritium vials fit that use case well.
Could we have gone with dimmable lights or something homebrewed with low-power LEDs? Sure, but tritium vials are affordable and don't need a power supply, a remote, or much in the way of setup; they'll just keep doing their thing for about a decade before you have to even think about their light output.
They're a solid choice if you have the specific use case of wanting something to be easily located in (near-)complete darkness but you don't want to use electricity for some reason.
Yeah, I have some of those already 😅. Was hoping for some weird nixie tube type clock or something, idk.
Well, I suppose they're sometimes also used in watch dials, to make the watch readable at night?
you can melt your jaw off with'em, if that's your jam
Hell yeah, is there a good guide you can link?
crikey, d'ya hear that?! That's the unmistakeable sound of an aspiring young content creator - they've just spotted their elusive prey - an unfilled niche! Let's go poke em with a stick, see what happens!
(RIP Steve Irwin, zero shade meant to a real one)
Just about every gadget on Kickstarter these days has the option to add tritium vials. "Find your tool anywhere any time" -kinda thing
Oh neat, idk I could see lil glowy + magnet or Velcro for camping gear or something being useful.