My son and I love this flashlight. I did not expect so much power in this small flashlight. It opens from the bottom to put the 3aaa batteries in, that are included. Seriously don't go black lighting your what you think is a clean kitchen. I need to have my deep clean after doing that????????. But switching modes is easy. You have a button at the bottom that powers it on and switches modes. If you want to switch modes tap the button lightly but if you want to turn it on or off push all the way down. I recommend this flashlight.