Rechargeable Bicycle LED Headlights Information
|
|
LD98-1200 above NOW IN STOCK just CLICK here: LD98-1200 LED Headlight
or CLICK on photos to be taken to purchase page
or CLICK on photos to be taken to purchase page
|
|
WB500 above NOW IN STOCK just CLICK here: WB500 Headlight
or CLICK on photos to be taken to purchase page
or CLICK on photos to be taken to purchase page
Amongst the vast array of LED lighting products designed for outdoor use, LED bicycle headlights are perhaps some of the most potentially confusing and, it would seem, often the most prone to failure of some sort.
Just like the plethora of cheap and dodgy LED head torches that flood markets such as eBay and Amazon, the same can be said for bicycle LED headlights.
With rechargeable LED lights the failure issue can more often than not be put down to cheap products with sub-standard manufacturing; poor weather sealing, low quality electronic components and inferior quality rechargeable batteries being the primary culprits. Add a lack of quality control and you may end up with a worthless piece of junk. All the things that you certainly do not expect when paying a premium price for a well known, top brand of rechargeable LED headlight.
When we first started looking into bicycle LED headlights we found that most of the popular cycling magazines and websites only tended to review top brand lights - many very expensive - and many of the various reviews covered the same brands with very little variation.
We also found that though most of the features and initial performance was covered, longevity and weather resistance rarely was. Furthermore, when researching specific headlights, particularly when looking at Amazon reviews it was apparent that even the top brands were not themselves completely immune to issues, many of which may not show up or be evident over a short review testing period.
By simply entering ‘Best Bicycle Headlights’ into Google search, we found that we were confronted with websites that were very evidently out to promote various headlights and various brands, with much of the information simply copy and pasted from other websites, and with links to the purchase pages. Clearly most of these websites were not providing independent reviews but instead appeared to be just marketing tools, no doubt receiving commissions on the products they listed. Also many of the bicycle lights featured were very expensive big brand names.
The first thing that anyone thinking of buying a bicycle LED headlight needs to consider is what will they be using it for? This is important because it can dictate the price you need to pay… there is no point in paying excessively high price for a light that has features or very high power settings that you do not need or will never require.
If you are commuting through a town or city at night, with relatively well lit streets, then in all probability an urban headlight of around 400 lumens will be perfectly adequate and you will certainly not require more than 600 lumens. In fact higher lumens would likely be offensive to oncoming road users and pedestrians alike.
If you cycle out of town on unlit country roads then having 1000 - 1200 lumens available might be the way to go. But you would need a headlight that gave you lower lumen options when faced with oncoming traffic so as not to blind them.
Now, bearing in mind that most halogen car headlights are around 1200 lumens on high beam, anything more than 1200 lumens on a bike would, in all reality, only be required for off road night time mountain biking use.
Another good reason not to go any higher than 1200 lumens is that the power draw will start to become excessive and so reduce the useful burn time (working time) of the headlight, unless the size of the headlight is drastically increased to accommodate more batteries.
A 1200 lumen headlight with half decent batteries will typically give 3 - 3.5 hours from a full charge on full power, whereas, for example, an 2000 lumen headlight on full power might only be capable of 1.5 - 2 hours, so this is certainly something that should be taken into consideration. Also battery drain vs lumens is not linear. For example a 500 lumen setting will not necessarily draw only half the power of the 1000 lumen setting, and to our human eyes 1000 lumens does not necessarily look like twice the brightness of 500 lumens. All being equal, our eyes will find it very hard to distinguish 1000 lumens from 1200 lumens.
But here is the problem… can you trust or believe the stated lumen of the headlight? This is one area where the big brand names are very good; their stated lumens are generally very accurate… something that cannot be said for many cheaper brands that often grossly exaggerate this figure.
OK, let’s look at some specifics.
LEDs:
The actual LED/s used in the headlight is generally the most reliable component with a longevity that will far exceed the headlight as a whole. The LEDs are the one component that rarely give any problems if electronic circuitry is employed to stop them from overheating when used on higher powers, and most good high power lights do feature this protection. LEDs are also now incredibly efficient, with many capable of providing high lumen outputs and running at high powers for long periods. Generally high power headlights will employ one or more Cree XM-L or Cree XP-G LED’s, with the XP-G models giving a slightly longer throw of light.
Good LED bicycle headlights will have electronics that feature a constant current circuit, so instead of the illumination gradually dimming as the battery/s run down, this circuit will maintain a constant current - so maintain the brightness - right up to the point that the battery voltage drops so low that it can no longer meet the power requirement. And when this happens with good headlights, before the battery is completely drained the unit will automatically drop to a lower level and still provide some light for as long as possible, so you will know time is running out and it urgently needs recharging, but won't be plunged into instant darkness.
Batteries:
Batteries are a very different story to the LEDs.
The thing about rechargeable bicycle lights is that the great majority of them are completely sealed units with non-replaceable batteries. This means that, whatever the condition of the headlight, once the battery or batteries fail, then the light simply becomes a nice paperweight. This means that you have to trust that the components used are good; none more so than the battery or batteries, which is often the downfall of cheap rechargeable lights.
Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries do have a finite life span, but good batteries can be charged up to around 500 times, before suffering any great loss in capacity.
Some people complain of long, slow recharging times with some rechargeable headlights, so one thing worth mentioning is that slow and steady charging will preserve the life of the battery considerably. Just as with lead-acid car batteries if they are charged too fast with a heavy current the resulting heat can deform the plates, this damage can also occur with lithium-ion batteries if fast-charged often. Damage can also occur from fast discharging on high power settings due to heat, which is why good headlights can sense overheating and reduce power accordingly to save both the batteries and the LEDs.
Good LED bicycle headlights will also have over-charge and over-discharge and short circuit protection electronics incorporated to prevent runaway currents that could not only damage the battery but potentially become a fire hazard.
Most rechargeable bicycle headlights will have either one or two 18650 lithium-ion batteries or one (sometimes two) 21700 lithium-ion batteries. The 21700, being 21mm wide and 70mm long as opposed to the slightly smaller 18mm x 65mm of the 18650 unit. The last ‘0’ digit just denoting that the battery is cylindrical. All these batteries are extremely powerful, and if they are from a good reliable manufacturer you can expect a long life and high performance. As mentioned, good batteries can be charged and discharged hundreds of times with very little depreciation in performance – poor batteries can fail after only a few cycles or be pretty useless from the get-go.
Currently the highest capacity for an 18650 battery is around 3500mAh (but more common are around 2500-3000mAh), and for the larger 21700 battery around 5000mAh.
High power bicycle headlights will normally have two 18650 batteries or one 21700 battery, so are often shown to have around up to 6000mAh and 5000mAh respectively.
The greater the mAh, the longer the battery will last for any given power, bearing in mind that the greater the lumen setting the greater the power requirement. But as most rechargeable bicycle headlights are sealed and have internal batteries, you can never be absolutely sure how good or bad of a battery or batteries have been installed, and again this is where you can probably be a little more confident with the big brand names. Batteries are one of the more expensive components of a rechargeable headlight so this is the first corner that will be cut with cheapo lights.
AliExpress and eBay are flooded with cheap 18650 batteries claiming all sorts imaginary and fantastic mAh - 6000mAh to 10,000mAh are not uncommon… but they are impossible capacities for a single 18650 battery with present technology and hence fake rubbish; rubbish that in fact often provides only half that of a decent battery… if that. Of course, if unbeknown to you, these fakes are employed in your new bicycle headlight then it will likely greatly under perform and be short-lived - you will have thrown your money down the drain.
And when you see bicycle headlight selling for the price of just two half-decent quality 18650 batteries, then that should immediately raise a red flag.
Just as with the batteries themselves, you can also find rechargeable bicycle headlights on eBay and Amazon advertised with ridiculously high lumens. We have seen them with 50,000-90,000 lumen claims, which is not only impossible but clearly a dishonest sales ploy, and sellers using this tactic are obviously clueless or not to be trusted.
Waterproofness:
Waterproofness – I had to check, but yes, it is a genuine word! This is an area that even the best reviews and reviewers seem to neglect. The reviewer will often simply state the rating that the manufacturer gives and be happy with it. However, this is quite an important criteria, as on a bike you will often be confronted with intermittent weather and might have to cycle for miles through it, so more importance should certainly be placed on water resistance.
Standard IP (Ingress Protection) ratings give both solid particle (think dust) and water resistance.
Standard ratings for headlights tend to be IPX4 – IP65.
The third digit denotes the solid particle protection, with the fourth digit being that of water protection. Where there is an X, this means that it is untested. To be fair with bicycle headlights, this solid particle ingress is unlikely to be an issue if water cannot get in, so the third digit is fairly irrelevant to us.
However, the last digit is the one we need to consider:
A 4 denotes that the unit can cope with splashing water from any direction.
A 5 denotes that the unit can cope with spraying jets of water.
A 6 denotes that the unit can cope with powerful spray jets of water.
So you can see, the higher that last figure, the better. Any last figure greater than 6 denotes the unit can be submerged in water at a depth of 1 metre for at least 30 minutes. For our purposes, IPX4 - IPX6 would suffice nicely.
But again, can you always trust the rating that the manufacturer has given? From some Amazon reviews of some headlights it would appear not, especially when you see a China brand that gives an IPX6 rating, but then also states, in Chinglish, and I quote: ‘not soak in water or long time in rain’. Hmmm.
If the headlight has been effectively sealed from the elements during manufacture, the only obvious potential water ingress, and so weak points of headlights are the charging ports. The charging port weather protections are just silicone covers, and depending on how well and tightly they fit, how secure they are, or indeed their placement can make all the difference. That said control buttons are another potential weakness if they are not properly sealed or if they possibly allow water ingress when operated in poor weather. Of course seals also need to be good around the lens and any other place that the headlight has mating parts. Again these are things rarely ever even touched upon in bicycle headlight reviews.
This again is where you would expect big brand names to have paid attention to these important details, and why you are paying a premium, unlike cheaper units that may have neglected these finer points, irrelevant of the actual rating they give.
Functions and Features:
The amount of functions and features obviously add to the USP (Unique Selling Point), but they may, and indeed can, over complicate things. They may also provide more avenues for things to go wrong, so you do have to be a little careful here.
Ideally, we want a headlight with at least 4 lighting options:
* A flashing mode is a must really as this is the most useful light function to make you more visible to other road users during daylight hours. That said we find that too fast, strobe-like, epileptic fit inducing flashing, can be distracting to other road users and annoying to say the least. We do not see the need for fast flashing; a slow flash of certainly no more than five times per second (5Hz), preferably 2Hz, is more than adequate and also extends battery life, though should still not to be used at night.
You can get headlights with all sorts of functions, but sometimes if you don’t need the extra ‘bells and whistles’ then keeping it simple can be the way to go.
Most very high power lights will include circuitry that reduces the power to the LED if it starts to overheat, which is a good thing to save the LED and battery/s from damage, but expect visibility to reduce accordingly. Ambient air temperature will be a factor here.
One potentially useful feature is being able to use your headlight as a power bank in an emergency. For example, if you have broken down and find your mobile phone is dead, then you can charge it with your head light via the USB port… providing of course that the headlight battery is not flat too.
Though introducing more electronics that potentially could go wrong, having a small LED screen to display the level of your remaining battery power and charge is a really neat and useful feature. Though this feature will often add to the headlight cost.
Build Quality:
Build quality not only often determines the functionality and waterproofness of the head light, but if good will also give you confidence in the unit.
As a rule we only look at headlights with aluminium alloy shells/casings. Not only are aluminium alloy casing very strong and resilient, but this metal casing can act as a heat sink, so useful in effectively dissipating excess heat produced by the battery/s and high power LEDs and hence enhance cooling.
Various manufacturers may use the same alloy housing. In fact you often see very cheap headlights employing the same alloy housing as a big brand name. The difference will be what actually resides inside?
Optics and Beam Pattern:
This is another area of interest, as the optics can make a lot of difference not only to the lumen performance, but also dictate the beam pattern – the spread and/or throw of the light.
Poor quality, inferior plastic optics can affect the light transmittance so effectively reduce the claimed lumens by restricting and degrading the light output, and/or leaking light to where it is not needed or not required. Good, clean, optics with a well balanced, good beam pattern can make a 600 lumens light look as good as an optically inferior 1000 lumens light. And of course the better the light output, the lower the power requirement, and hence, all things being equal, the longer your headlight battery will last.
Interestingly Germany has very strict rules for bicycle headlights known as StVZO regulations. In Germany, to be StVZO compliant, bicycle headlights must be designed with a cut off beam that does not blind other road users. Whilst this may be good for road users, due to this beam cut off, StVZO headlights would be no good at all for off road use.
That said, realistically off road use would be a no-go anyway as under StVZO regulations they can be of no more than 305 lumens! It would seem that the lights are also prohibited from having any flashing mode (rear and front lights), though there does seem to be some confusion as to whether they are allowed to flash in daylight, which would then obviously require a flashing mode. Any StVZO compliant headlight without any flashing mode would give us pause for thought; after all in daylight a flashing light is far more noticeable than a non-flashing light.
But even in the UK there are lighting regulations that require you not to blind other road users, so when using high power bike lights there are considerations that have to be taken into account.
Mounts and Fixings:
This is a failure we see quite often. Heavier, more powerful headlights require heavier duty clamps and fixings that will not only firmly secure the headlight but also be able to take the constant vibrations and jolts it will be subjected to.
Mount a relatively heavy headlight on a poor plastic fixing and the constant road vibrations and inertia, the odd bump or pothole can see it failing and your headlight ending up trashed in the road. There is also the consideration of how well the light unit itself actually fixes to the mount. Here loose connections that rattle not only irritate, but are more likely to fail than a tight fitment with no play or movement.
Clamps made from unforgiving brittle plastics are the issue here, but it seems they can be quite the norm. The use of good POM thermoplastic would likely resolve the problem, or even better strong aluminium mounting brackets. No one wants their nice new bicycle headlight dropping off at the best of times, but if this happens on a night time commute down a dark country lane then it could create real problems.
We would never recommend compact high power handlebar headlights for night time off-road mountain biking as the strain on the fixing clamps can be just too great. Night time mountain bike rides will ideally require upward of 2000 lumens and be much better served with smaller remote handlebar LED units fed via cable to a separate secure frame mounted battery pack.
Here at STATION13 we are only looking at headlights for road bikes, but still the mounts and fixings are very important, so is an important consideration.
It is sometimes hard to know which mounting system is better as we’ve seen what look like relatively strong plastic clamps failing simply by over-tightening. That said, over-tightening is more likely if you are using a hard plastic clamp without any softer rubber shims. The rubber shims not only provide grip, but also allow a degree of cushioning and give that provides a more measured, graduated feel to tightening.
Silicone/rubber straps can work well, and hold very tightly but there is often limited adjustment and should it stretch over time you may find the light slipping. There are also some issues with these rubbery straps perishing over time. These straps are also probably better for less weighty units.
With all this research under our belt we knew what we wanted from a rechargeable bicycle LED headlight, so we took it upon ourselves to source a reliable manufacturer that could provide us with quality rechargeable LED headlights with specifications and functions that best served the majority of cyclist's needs, whilst also being reliable and affordable.
After receiving many samples from many varied manufacturers for testing and evaluation, we have now currently ended up with two very nice rechargeable bicycle headlights:
Our LD-98 1200 (Y98) which is a 1200 lumen headlight suitable for dark country lanes, unlit roads and can also be used for urban cycling, and our lower cost WB 500 with its 500 lumens which is suitable specifically for urban cycling.
Just like the plethora of cheap and dodgy LED head torches that flood markets such as eBay and Amazon, the same can be said for bicycle LED headlights.
With rechargeable LED lights the failure issue can more often than not be put down to cheap products with sub-standard manufacturing; poor weather sealing, low quality electronic components and inferior quality rechargeable batteries being the primary culprits. Add a lack of quality control and you may end up with a worthless piece of junk. All the things that you certainly do not expect when paying a premium price for a well known, top brand of rechargeable LED headlight.
When we first started looking into bicycle LED headlights we found that most of the popular cycling magazines and websites only tended to review top brand lights - many very expensive - and many of the various reviews covered the same brands with very little variation.
We also found that though most of the features and initial performance was covered, longevity and weather resistance rarely was. Furthermore, when researching specific headlights, particularly when looking at Amazon reviews it was apparent that even the top brands were not themselves completely immune to issues, many of which may not show up or be evident over a short review testing period.
By simply entering ‘Best Bicycle Headlights’ into Google search, we found that we were confronted with websites that were very evidently out to promote various headlights and various brands, with much of the information simply copy and pasted from other websites, and with links to the purchase pages. Clearly most of these websites were not providing independent reviews but instead appeared to be just marketing tools, no doubt receiving commissions on the products they listed. Also many of the bicycle lights featured were very expensive big brand names.
The first thing that anyone thinking of buying a bicycle LED headlight needs to consider is what will they be using it for? This is important because it can dictate the price you need to pay… there is no point in paying excessively high price for a light that has features or very high power settings that you do not need or will never require.
If you are commuting through a town or city at night, with relatively well lit streets, then in all probability an urban headlight of around 400 lumens will be perfectly adequate and you will certainly not require more than 600 lumens. In fact higher lumens would likely be offensive to oncoming road users and pedestrians alike.
If you cycle out of town on unlit country roads then having 1000 - 1200 lumens available might be the way to go. But you would need a headlight that gave you lower lumen options when faced with oncoming traffic so as not to blind them.
Now, bearing in mind that most halogen car headlights are around 1200 lumens on high beam, anything more than 1200 lumens on a bike would, in all reality, only be required for off road night time mountain biking use.
Another good reason not to go any higher than 1200 lumens is that the power draw will start to become excessive and so reduce the useful burn time (working time) of the headlight, unless the size of the headlight is drastically increased to accommodate more batteries.
A 1200 lumen headlight with half decent batteries will typically give 3 - 3.5 hours from a full charge on full power, whereas, for example, an 2000 lumen headlight on full power might only be capable of 1.5 - 2 hours, so this is certainly something that should be taken into consideration. Also battery drain vs lumens is not linear. For example a 500 lumen setting will not necessarily draw only half the power of the 1000 lumen setting, and to our human eyes 1000 lumens does not necessarily look like twice the brightness of 500 lumens. All being equal, our eyes will find it very hard to distinguish 1000 lumens from 1200 lumens.
But here is the problem… can you trust or believe the stated lumen of the headlight? This is one area where the big brand names are very good; their stated lumens are generally very accurate… something that cannot be said for many cheaper brands that often grossly exaggerate this figure.
OK, let’s look at some specifics.
LEDs:
The actual LED/s used in the headlight is generally the most reliable component with a longevity that will far exceed the headlight as a whole. The LEDs are the one component that rarely give any problems if electronic circuitry is employed to stop them from overheating when used on higher powers, and most good high power lights do feature this protection. LEDs are also now incredibly efficient, with many capable of providing high lumen outputs and running at high powers for long periods. Generally high power headlights will employ one or more Cree XM-L or Cree XP-G LED’s, with the XP-G models giving a slightly longer throw of light.
Good LED bicycle headlights will have electronics that feature a constant current circuit, so instead of the illumination gradually dimming as the battery/s run down, this circuit will maintain a constant current - so maintain the brightness - right up to the point that the battery voltage drops so low that it can no longer meet the power requirement. And when this happens with good headlights, before the battery is completely drained the unit will automatically drop to a lower level and still provide some light for as long as possible, so you will know time is running out and it urgently needs recharging, but won't be plunged into instant darkness.
Batteries:
Batteries are a very different story to the LEDs.
The thing about rechargeable bicycle lights is that the great majority of them are completely sealed units with non-replaceable batteries. This means that, whatever the condition of the headlight, once the battery or batteries fail, then the light simply becomes a nice paperweight. This means that you have to trust that the components used are good; none more so than the battery or batteries, which is often the downfall of cheap rechargeable lights.
Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries do have a finite life span, but good batteries can be charged up to around 500 times, before suffering any great loss in capacity.
Some people complain of long, slow recharging times with some rechargeable headlights, so one thing worth mentioning is that slow and steady charging will preserve the life of the battery considerably. Just as with lead-acid car batteries if they are charged too fast with a heavy current the resulting heat can deform the plates, this damage can also occur with lithium-ion batteries if fast-charged often. Damage can also occur from fast discharging on high power settings due to heat, which is why good headlights can sense overheating and reduce power accordingly to save both the batteries and the LEDs.
Good LED bicycle headlights will also have over-charge and over-discharge and short circuit protection electronics incorporated to prevent runaway currents that could not only damage the battery but potentially become a fire hazard.
Most rechargeable bicycle headlights will have either one or two 18650 lithium-ion batteries or one (sometimes two) 21700 lithium-ion batteries. The 21700, being 21mm wide and 70mm long as opposed to the slightly smaller 18mm x 65mm of the 18650 unit. The last ‘0’ digit just denoting that the battery is cylindrical. All these batteries are extremely powerful, and if they are from a good reliable manufacturer you can expect a long life and high performance. As mentioned, good batteries can be charged and discharged hundreds of times with very little depreciation in performance – poor batteries can fail after only a few cycles or be pretty useless from the get-go.
Currently the highest capacity for an 18650 battery is around 3500mAh (but more common are around 2500-3000mAh), and for the larger 21700 battery around 5000mAh.
High power bicycle headlights will normally have two 18650 batteries or one 21700 battery, so are often shown to have around up to 6000mAh and 5000mAh respectively.
The greater the mAh, the longer the battery will last for any given power, bearing in mind that the greater the lumen setting the greater the power requirement. But as most rechargeable bicycle headlights are sealed and have internal batteries, you can never be absolutely sure how good or bad of a battery or batteries have been installed, and again this is where you can probably be a little more confident with the big brand names. Batteries are one of the more expensive components of a rechargeable headlight so this is the first corner that will be cut with cheapo lights.
AliExpress and eBay are flooded with cheap 18650 batteries claiming all sorts imaginary and fantastic mAh - 6000mAh to 10,000mAh are not uncommon… but they are impossible capacities for a single 18650 battery with present technology and hence fake rubbish; rubbish that in fact often provides only half that of a decent battery… if that. Of course, if unbeknown to you, these fakes are employed in your new bicycle headlight then it will likely greatly under perform and be short-lived - you will have thrown your money down the drain.
And when you see bicycle headlight selling for the price of just two half-decent quality 18650 batteries, then that should immediately raise a red flag.
Just as with the batteries themselves, you can also find rechargeable bicycle headlights on eBay and Amazon advertised with ridiculously high lumens. We have seen them with 50,000-90,000 lumen claims, which is not only impossible but clearly a dishonest sales ploy, and sellers using this tactic are obviously clueless or not to be trusted.
Waterproofness:
Waterproofness – I had to check, but yes, it is a genuine word! This is an area that even the best reviews and reviewers seem to neglect. The reviewer will often simply state the rating that the manufacturer gives and be happy with it. However, this is quite an important criteria, as on a bike you will often be confronted with intermittent weather and might have to cycle for miles through it, so more importance should certainly be placed on water resistance.
Standard IP (Ingress Protection) ratings give both solid particle (think dust) and water resistance.
Standard ratings for headlights tend to be IPX4 – IP65.
The third digit denotes the solid particle protection, with the fourth digit being that of water protection. Where there is an X, this means that it is untested. To be fair with bicycle headlights, this solid particle ingress is unlikely to be an issue if water cannot get in, so the third digit is fairly irrelevant to us.
However, the last digit is the one we need to consider:
A 4 denotes that the unit can cope with splashing water from any direction.
A 5 denotes that the unit can cope with spraying jets of water.
A 6 denotes that the unit can cope with powerful spray jets of water.
So you can see, the higher that last figure, the better. Any last figure greater than 6 denotes the unit can be submerged in water at a depth of 1 metre for at least 30 minutes. For our purposes, IPX4 - IPX6 would suffice nicely.
But again, can you always trust the rating that the manufacturer has given? From some Amazon reviews of some headlights it would appear not, especially when you see a China brand that gives an IPX6 rating, but then also states, in Chinglish, and I quote: ‘not soak in water or long time in rain’. Hmmm.
If the headlight has been effectively sealed from the elements during manufacture, the only obvious potential water ingress, and so weak points of headlights are the charging ports. The charging port weather protections are just silicone covers, and depending on how well and tightly they fit, how secure they are, or indeed their placement can make all the difference. That said control buttons are another potential weakness if they are not properly sealed or if they possibly allow water ingress when operated in poor weather. Of course seals also need to be good around the lens and any other place that the headlight has mating parts. Again these are things rarely ever even touched upon in bicycle headlight reviews.
This again is where you would expect big brand names to have paid attention to these important details, and why you are paying a premium, unlike cheaper units that may have neglected these finer points, irrelevant of the actual rating they give.
Functions and Features:
The amount of functions and features obviously add to the USP (Unique Selling Point), but they may, and indeed can, over complicate things. They may also provide more avenues for things to go wrong, so you do have to be a little careful here.
Ideally, we want a headlight with at least 4 lighting options:
- Full Power
- Medium Power
- Lower Power
- Flashing*
* A flashing mode is a must really as this is the most useful light function to make you more visible to other road users during daylight hours. That said we find that too fast, strobe-like, epileptic fit inducing flashing, can be distracting to other road users and annoying to say the least. We do not see the need for fast flashing; a slow flash of certainly no more than five times per second (5Hz), preferably 2Hz, is more than adequate and also extends battery life, though should still not to be used at night.
You can get headlights with all sorts of functions, but sometimes if you don’t need the extra ‘bells and whistles’ then keeping it simple can be the way to go.
Most very high power lights will include circuitry that reduces the power to the LED if it starts to overheat, which is a good thing to save the LED and battery/s from damage, but expect visibility to reduce accordingly. Ambient air temperature will be a factor here.
One potentially useful feature is being able to use your headlight as a power bank in an emergency. For example, if you have broken down and find your mobile phone is dead, then you can charge it with your head light via the USB port… providing of course that the headlight battery is not flat too.
Though introducing more electronics that potentially could go wrong, having a small LED screen to display the level of your remaining battery power and charge is a really neat and useful feature. Though this feature will often add to the headlight cost.
Build Quality:
Build quality not only often determines the functionality and waterproofness of the head light, but if good will also give you confidence in the unit.
As a rule we only look at headlights with aluminium alloy shells/casings. Not only are aluminium alloy casing very strong and resilient, but this metal casing can act as a heat sink, so useful in effectively dissipating excess heat produced by the battery/s and high power LEDs and hence enhance cooling.
Various manufacturers may use the same alloy housing. In fact you often see very cheap headlights employing the same alloy housing as a big brand name. The difference will be what actually resides inside?
Optics and Beam Pattern:
This is another area of interest, as the optics can make a lot of difference not only to the lumen performance, but also dictate the beam pattern – the spread and/or throw of the light.
Poor quality, inferior plastic optics can affect the light transmittance so effectively reduce the claimed lumens by restricting and degrading the light output, and/or leaking light to where it is not needed or not required. Good, clean, optics with a well balanced, good beam pattern can make a 600 lumens light look as good as an optically inferior 1000 lumens light. And of course the better the light output, the lower the power requirement, and hence, all things being equal, the longer your headlight battery will last.
Interestingly Germany has very strict rules for bicycle headlights known as StVZO regulations. In Germany, to be StVZO compliant, bicycle headlights must be designed with a cut off beam that does not blind other road users. Whilst this may be good for road users, due to this beam cut off, StVZO headlights would be no good at all for off road use.
That said, realistically off road use would be a no-go anyway as under StVZO regulations they can be of no more than 305 lumens! It would seem that the lights are also prohibited from having any flashing mode (rear and front lights), though there does seem to be some confusion as to whether they are allowed to flash in daylight, which would then obviously require a flashing mode. Any StVZO compliant headlight without any flashing mode would give us pause for thought; after all in daylight a flashing light is far more noticeable than a non-flashing light.
But even in the UK there are lighting regulations that require you not to blind other road users, so when using high power bike lights there are considerations that have to be taken into account.
Mounts and Fixings:
This is a failure we see quite often. Heavier, more powerful headlights require heavier duty clamps and fixings that will not only firmly secure the headlight but also be able to take the constant vibrations and jolts it will be subjected to.
Mount a relatively heavy headlight on a poor plastic fixing and the constant road vibrations and inertia, the odd bump or pothole can see it failing and your headlight ending up trashed in the road. There is also the consideration of how well the light unit itself actually fixes to the mount. Here loose connections that rattle not only irritate, but are more likely to fail than a tight fitment with no play or movement.
Clamps made from unforgiving brittle plastics are the issue here, but it seems they can be quite the norm. The use of good POM thermoplastic would likely resolve the problem, or even better strong aluminium mounting brackets. No one wants their nice new bicycle headlight dropping off at the best of times, but if this happens on a night time commute down a dark country lane then it could create real problems.
We would never recommend compact high power handlebar headlights for night time off-road mountain biking as the strain on the fixing clamps can be just too great. Night time mountain bike rides will ideally require upward of 2000 lumens and be much better served with smaller remote handlebar LED units fed via cable to a separate secure frame mounted battery pack.
Here at STATION13 we are only looking at headlights for road bikes, but still the mounts and fixings are very important, so is an important consideration.
It is sometimes hard to know which mounting system is better as we’ve seen what look like relatively strong plastic clamps failing simply by over-tightening. That said, over-tightening is more likely if you are using a hard plastic clamp without any softer rubber shims. The rubber shims not only provide grip, but also allow a degree of cushioning and give that provides a more measured, graduated feel to tightening.
Silicone/rubber straps can work well, and hold very tightly but there is often limited adjustment and should it stretch over time you may find the light slipping. There are also some issues with these rubbery straps perishing over time. These straps are also probably better for less weighty units.
With all this research under our belt we knew what we wanted from a rechargeable bicycle LED headlight, so we took it upon ourselves to source a reliable manufacturer that could provide us with quality rechargeable LED headlights with specifications and functions that best served the majority of cyclist's needs, whilst also being reliable and affordable.
After receiving many samples from many varied manufacturers for testing and evaluation, we have now currently ended up with two very nice rechargeable bicycle headlights:
Our LD-98 1200 (Y98) which is a 1200 lumen headlight suitable for dark country lanes, unlit roads and can also be used for urban cycling, and our lower cost WB 500 with its 500 lumens which is suitable specifically for urban cycling.
