Speaking for myself: I can’t remember being overwhelmed by too much real innovations lately
My feeling is that most everything I read is about efficiency, AKA evolution.
Which is not a bad thing in itself. But you also might just call it: more of the same.
Meaning schlepping around big lights with big batteries and lots and lots of XHP 789.x emitters.
Batteries: every now and then you read about a new chemistry with a double energy density.
That can be loaded to a 100% in 5 minutes. And the university that came with the idea,
thinks it can be made outside a lab in a size bigger than a grain of rice within the next decade.
Though still cylindrical.
How about making a 2 component battery with totally harmless silly putty like characteristics, .
Which can be stowed away in any “dead” corner of the flashlight housing.
The red stuff connected to the + lead of the driver, and the green stuff to the - lead.
Maybe even make the flashlight housing itself from the same silly putty plus some solidifier.
Emitter: we have seen incandescent’s in the flavors carbon and tungsten, vacuum and halogen.
But except at the very start we have not seen a giant leap for mankind.
Then came the LED. A short period HID was the new wonder. And now there is the LEP.
For the inventors I hope it is well patented, for us I hope it is not.
To direct the light we have reflectors, lenses, TIR’s and the very well patented Wavien collar.
Why no (electro)magnets? Light is an electromagnetic wave, after all.
But maybe somewhere there is a hermit in a celler working on a sort of Chitauri Scepter.
Just waiting to be silenced by an ambulance chaser reprogrammed to be a patent hunter.
Cynical? Maybe. Depressed? Nah. Give a kid its first flashlight (parental guidance).
Simple and solid design. To small to serious hurt someone, too big to swallow.
Watch those eyes light up as the light goes on. Even beats eating a big bar of chocolate.