Something that occurred to me that I would like to check with the driver boffins, mainly out of curiosity.
Is there anything wrong with leaving a flashlight on battery check instead of beacon? It gives regular flashes, with pauses, and to my mind would serve the same purpose, except for possible run-time considerations.
So say you want to leave your tent to go wandering the trail, and leave a flashlight on ceiling bounce in beacon mode just in case you miss the spot on the way back, or get back much later than anticipated, or want someone arriving late to be able to find you. That seems to me to be a typical use for beacon.
Would battery check be a bad idea? Does the driver consume much more power by running circuitry to measure the battery level, or is this level always available to the system anyway so it makes no difference? I know this will likely vary from driver to driver, perhaps not?