Photon X-Light's Signal Mode

My favorite flashlight just became even more favoritier. The Photon X-Light Micro is my preferred flashlight for pretty much everything - from backpacking to every day carry. And it's easy to see why: it's tiny, lightweight, has a number of useful different modes (from simple dimming, to strobe modes useful when walking on bike trails in the evening) and most importantly - it's super bright.

While checking out the REI reviews, I learned about another cool feature:

In addition to all of its well-known features, there is an undocumented one that many users might like. It is a setting that forces the light to turn off after 2.5 minutes of use. The purpose is to save the battery in case it gets turned on accidentally. To engage this mode, you need to:

1) press the button rapidly 6 times, which puts the light into "signal mode."
2) Then press and hold the button for about 5 seconds until the light goes out (this takes the light back out of "signal mode").
3) Continue holding the button for another 5 seconds until there is a brief flash of light.

Now the light is in "auto off" mode.

While the auto off mode is cool, I've actually found that I prefer to keep the flashlight in signal mode. This functionality is actually documented in the manual (who reads the manual for a key-chain flashlight??). It means that now the light can't accidentally turn on in my pocket and burn out its batteries. At the same time, it's still just a button press away from being useful.

I'm definitely not a flashaholic, but I have tried a bunch of lights, and this one is definitely the winner so far (even compared to other Photon lights) .