The military went to tritium compasses for the same reasons a long time ago. But not until after the Radium Girls got poisoned. Tritium hadn't been discovered yet back then. The National Institute of Standards and Technology lists the half-life of tritium as 4,500 ± 8 days (12.32 ± 0.02 years). I usually round it down to 12 years and figure that if it sits on the shelf for 2 years a sight may still be good for 10 years. But it depends on how much tritium it has to start with, and how dim is too dim to be useful. Tritium decays into helium-3, tralphium, by beta decay. Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 mm of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin. It's still a bad idea to break the capsule and let the tritium out. Inhaling it is a lot different than just having a few beta particles bounce off your skin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls If my new sight is in one room with the light off and I'm in another room with all the lights on, I can stand in the doorway and see the sight glow in the half-lit room. My old one was so much dimmer I had to stand inside a closet with the door shut to see it that well. The same thing goes for my 3-dot tritium pistol sights. Those military lensatic compasses they make are pretty tough too. An ODA* Team member took a round to waist from a sniper over a km away. It knocked him down, but the slug only hit his compass and didn’t penetrate the metal casing. That's solid aluminum, not plastic like my transparent one I can lay right over a map. You can buy the tritium compass 3H in OD green, coyote brown, black, Realtree camo, or pink. Are you tough enough to carry a tactical pink compass? They also have phosphorescent lensatic compasses, tritium Beta-Light knives with grips that remain self-luminous for over 12 years, and mag loaders, etc. And it says on their site, Black Friday - Cyber Monday Sale 30% off and free shipping with coupon black30#. I guess I'll take a look and see if there's anything I want, and if the sale is still on. Some places have extended their sales for several days or weeks beyond Cyber Monday.
https://cammenga.com/ *A Special Forces company normally consists of six ODAs (Operational Detachments-A) or "A-Teams." Each ODA specializes in an infiltration skill or a particular mission-set (e.g. Military Freefall (HALO), combat diving, mountain warfare, maritime operations, etc.).
I always have at least 2 flashlights in my bedroom. One is a 2 C Maglite with a Nite Ize LED upgrade. It's 55 lumens but they also make a 74 lumen High Power LED upgrade. Those are roughly 2 and 3 times the 27 lumen brightness of the original Xenon bulb. You just take the bulb out and replace it with one of these. I got the cheap one but the other one would be worth the cost too. The other flashlight I always have is a 2 AA Mini Maglite. It's only 14 lumens and I made a red filter for it. That light is on a shoelace (actually the drawstring from an M65 field jacket hood) and I hang it on top of the bedpost. I can walk all over my house without turning any lights on or using a flashlight, except the basement where I painted over the windows. But if I want to find a certain small object, a button on my laptop for instance, if I don't know right where it is I can use the red light. It's bright enough to read by but won't destroy my night vision. Also, when I loop the drawstring around my neck the light angles out over my chest far enough to see a little way in front of me. I can walk around like that, or have both hands free to handle something in the light. If you're in a dark bedroom at night and don't ruin your night vision, good night sights will show up like LEDs when they're new. If what they said in basic training was right it takes 1/2 hour of darkness to achieve 100% of your night vision, or 20 minutes in red light and 10 minutes of sitting in the dark like we did. But unless a bright light hits me right in the eyes I can see in the dark pretty good in under a minute.
https://www.niteize.com/
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