Recent advances in both solid-state lighting and rechargeable batteries, has enabled the generation of energy-efficient, compact portable lighting devices that people can carry with them. A portable lighting device is a lighting device that can provide its illumination function without a wired power supply, typically being battery powered by means of a battery on board the lighting device, or potentially instead being powered by another type of on-board power supply such as a manual dynamo, or even being powered using a wireless power transfer (WPT) technique based on radiative electromagnetic induction. A portable lighting device can thus be taken by the user from one location to the next. For instance, a portable lighting device may be taken from a living room to a garden terrace or to a bathroom to create a cozy or romantic ambience.
Typically the light emitted by known portable lighting devices can be controlled using one or more switches located on the portable lighting. Other portable lighting devices include touch-sensitive surfaces that may be at least partially capacitive. A user's touch may be detected based on a change in that capacitance, and light emitted by one or more light sources of the portable lighting device may be altered based on the nature of the user's touch.