I too feel like some sort of out of band configuration would go a long ways in terms of making configurable microprocessor-controlled UIs more palatable.
They already are. My Pixal 6a has a neutral white 90CRI flashlight already measured on opple. It’s quite good for what it is.
Just like cameras, I think excellent flashlights will be built into smartphones in the future.
Just like smartphone cameras will never match the image quality of digital reflex or mirrorless camera’s due to physicals restrains such as sensor size and the size and weight of lens optics a phone flashlight will not be able to beat a simple 14500 flashlight.
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The problem with making flashlights more advanced (like the OS) also makes it less desirable to some folks. More things to go wrong? Surefire lights still sell at their prices because they’re rugged and Just Work. You can say the same about Maglites. Yeah, availability and name recognition are probably more to do with that, but the product still has to be good enough.
How many of us specifically ask for Muggle flashlight recommendations? We do so because we know our friend/family won’t want something that requires a college degree to operate. I’m actually leaning that way myself. I like simpler flashlights now, but high CRI and preferably without an e-switch. Why? It increases the change of it Just Working.
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Thats why my next light will be a Malkoff. I dont own one and was curious how they compare to the Chinese lights.
Like most technologies, improvements in lighting seem to be following a sigmoid curve. Here’s how that looks:
Basically, things start out slow and accelerate upward, getting better faster and faster. Toward the middle of that curve, dramatic change can happen pretty quickly. But then things start slowing down, because eventually the realm of possible improvements is smaller than what has already been done.
For example, flashlights just a couple decades ago used incandescent bulbs which produced only 5 lumens per Watt. Then LEDs started getting good, and pretty quickly we had lights which emit 100 lm/W. That’s a 20X improvement, and it happened in a short time. That’s the steep part of the curve shown in the graph. Some lights even get 150 lm/W now.
However, that will never happen again. The exciting part of the curve is behind us.
The theoretical maximum efficiency for white light is 300 lm/W. So even if a flashlight improved to the absolute limit, it would only be 2 to 3 times better than what we have now, not 20X. And we won’t actually be able to reach 300 in a practical sense, because nothing* is ever 100% efficient.
With lighting, we’ve already reached the point of diminishing returns. There is still more improvement to be had, but it’s slowing down. There simply isn’t as much room to improve, compared to what has already been done. The low-hanging fruit is already picked.
(*) Nothing except heaters. Heaters** are 100% efficient.
(**) Except for heat pumps, which can technically be more than 100% efficient***, because they move heat instead of just generating heat.
(***) Heat pumps are cool. … Literally.
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You have been holding out on us, you are an engineer at heart 
We’re well into diminishing returns insofar as lumens per watt goes and I’d expect R&D specific that area to largely cease.
But for LED there’s always cost, thermal ruggedness, color consistency, reducing thermal sag, and increasing surface intensity to address.
In general there’s the possibility of better thermal conductivity from novel materials, better batteries, improved microcontrollers, better power electronics, perhaps even some interesting advances in micro-optics, and other possibilities I’ve not considered.
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Exactly that is the reason, i still like, use and prefer simple P60-lights for simple jobs! 
Use a triple or quad Nichia dropin in a proper host, f. e. Solarforce and you get a rugged flashlight with high CRI that just works. No parasitic drain, no fiddeling with tons of options, just use it.
Super interesting topic with some great points and interesting info.
I think in many ways there is still a lot of innovation and advancement to be had. We may not end up with LEDs themselves pushing massive leaps in efficiency, but flashlights can still get better and improve in a number of ways.
For example, you have the active waterproof cooling in the Acebeam X75 that enables super high sustained output (like 20k lumens iirc). I could see a lumen monster coming out with a self-enclosed water cooling system or vapor chamber tech that could push sustainable output even higher on even smaller lights.
Cd/mm^2 can also improve, and throw is perceived more linearly than lumens, so while a future light might be 2x more lumens than we have now and won’t be a huge visual change, if it throws ~50-100% further, that will be incredibly impressive to see.
You have the osram “brilliant mix” concept using a red and white LED calibrated together to achieve high CRI light at 110lm/W. It likely has limitations in terms of cd/mm^2 but it’s still an interesting, new technological development.
Inflation has certainly put a dent in lumens per dollar, but in the long run costs will continue to go down. Whether that gets passed on to the consumer is another question.
You have some interesting uses of different optics that really change flashlight performance, and hopefully we’ll continue to see more creative uses of that.
You have LEPs and LEP-LED hybrids now which are really cool, new, and have a lot room to improve into something more interesting and practical as time goes on.
Battery tech has room to grow, which could significantly improve flashlight performance regardless of future more efficient LEDs. Physical size and thermal limits might make some here wary of even higher turbo modes, but to me that would be awesome. I find a short burst of a lot of light to be quite useful, and the more the better. If you could have a single cell in the future able to push as much power as what now takes 2 cells in series to achieve, you could get some insane numbers out of tiny lights, even with today’s LEDs. Or an AA size light with the runtime and power of an 18650.
There’s a lot of room for growth and innovation in UI, which is more design than tech, but still exciting. I think there’s real untapped potential in two-stage E-switches. I’d love to see something like the Fenix PD32 V2 or Nitecore P18 but with a programmable UI. We also don’t have enough rotary lights.
There’s also a lot of room in the market for new form factors and novel designs. Every smartphone nowadays is just a glass rectangle, but flashlights have a lot more variety even though the basic tube style is quite ubiquitous. There’s not enough two-cell lights in a side-by-side config IMO. You also have lights like the DT8 (which isn’t the first light like that I know) allowing more LEDs with almost the same pocketability as the D4V2. Maybe there are other form factors still to come. More modular designs would be cool. Or perhaps imagine a light with a removable head and different attachment spots on the body, allowing you to use it as a standard light, swivel head light, or headlamp.
And we can certainly see drivers improve. As mentioned, there aren’t enough lights with Buck/Boost + FET drivers. And there’s certainly still ways of improving sustainable lumens.
I personally think there is a market for more flashlights with bespoke diffusers/swappable optics for use in mobile photography/video.
I do agree, I guess I’m just making an additional observation that just because the lm/w or other tech may stagnate, there’s still plenty of innovation and reasons to be excited about the future of flashlight development.
Not implying anyone is saying there isn’t, just that I personally am still excited about flashlights even if the tech is reaching theoretical limits in some aspects.
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Wait. A convoy s2+ was $9.50?!?
I got my first s2+ this week and I was just thinking Jesus I can’t believe they can build a light this well AND ship it across the world for less than $20.
Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out if I can hide a usb flash drive in between some blank pieces of paper so I can send it lettermail rate in an envelope otherwise Canada post wants $23 to send it as a parcel.
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Use a cereal box, cut 2 rectangles out of the sides of the box. Tape them together with the flash drive in between them. Bits in an envelope nicely. I received a flashing pogopin adapter that way.
Indeed, i wish i could customize the UI without having to buy extra hardware or learn fancy software.
Or even order it customized.
You can but i think its a few bucks.
There is a plastic sleeve the post office uses to determine if its a letter or a package, a flash drive in an envelope will fit through it. Its a few bucks extra but far cheaper than a package.
That said taping a flat flash drive to a piece of paper then using a standard envelope might work as long as the letter stays under 30g.
Or use and SD card/micro SD card. Its very thin.
That said encrypt the data in case the letter is lost and is there a reason you can’t use the internet to send it?
That might work. I was thinking I’d fold it up in a few sheets of that hard paper people used to print resumes on or something but cereal boxes are cheaper
Ya I ordered 1 flashdrive and amazon sent me a bunch so I put them all on ebay so they’re still in that original little cardboard packaging it comes in. No info or anything on them just selling an empty new flashdrive. And if I take out of the packaging I don’t think I’ll get a good rating from the buyer lmao
Fair enough, no data security issues.
What size are they and how much are you asking for them?
Just be careful. A buddy of mine used to (up to less than a year ago) a mail processing facility. The machines would destroy and spit out flash drives many time per his shift. If it is critical, put it into a box.
They’re 128gb Samsung BAR plus drives. They’re on Amazon for $25 here so I figure I can’t ask for more than like $20 tops. And if shipping is $20 and eBay takes a commission too, well, can’t do much.
I ordered 1 of them and Amazon sent me this whole box like how I assume Best Buy would receive their order. Still sealed from the factory in taiwan and everything. Looks like some amazon worker saw the box, maybe didn’t realize how small flashdrives are and that wasnt a box labeled for retail sale, just slapped a sticker for 1 flash drive on it the whole thing anyways and sent it out lol
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Ya that’s what I’m worried about
Interesting.
Amazon didn’t want them back?