- 22/12/2023
It's dark and grim out there so be safe and be seen with the best bike lights. In this group test Michelle and James put five brands against each other.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 [music]
00:07 [music]
00:13 A good front light is an important part of your riding safety arsenal,
00:16 and not just for winter.
00:18 A decent front light can be an excellent partner to keep you visible during the day,
00:21 and of course, helps you to see the way when you're riding at night.
00:25 We've chosen five front lights here from some of the market leaders,
00:30 and we're going to showcase and compare them to find out what are the features
00:34 you need to be looking at when you're choosing the right bike light for yourself.
00:38 We are comparing and contrasting these, and we will pick a winner,
00:42 which is the most recommended product of these five, at the end of this video.
00:47 Now, these are all lights for seeing.
00:50 We generally break lights into two different categories.
00:53 There are lights for being seen and lights for seeing.
00:56 These all come into that second category.
00:59 There are more powerful lights that you can use,
01:02 but these are five that really give you all the features you need.
01:07 They've got enough light for you to actually see the way properly,
01:11 and best of all, they won't break the bank in terms of how much they cost.
01:15 If we look at them from the left to the right,
01:17 what we have here is we have Lezyne's MicroDrive Pro 800XL.
01:22 Next to the Lezyne is Xposure's Sirius Mark IX Daybright.
01:28 In the middle, we have Nog's Blind Air Rode 600.
01:32 We then have the CatEye AMP 800.
01:36 Last but not least, we have the Kryptonite Insight X6.
01:40 So James has been testing all of these five lights for our magazine group test,
01:44 so you've been putting them through their paces for quite some time,
01:48 and we're going to run through the key features,
01:51 and I'm hopefully going to ask all the questions,
01:53 the burning questions that you, the readers and viewers, have.
01:57 So if we start with the Lezyne, because that's right here in front of me.
02:02 First of all, it's got a maximum of 800 lumens that's claimed from the dual front LEDs.
02:10 There are in total eight different light modes.
02:15 You need eight.
02:17 Well, this is one of my issues with this.
02:19 If we want to talk about some of the problems,
02:22 as well as some of the real good things about it, there's almost too many.
02:26 The issue with it is there's five different standard non-flashing light settings,
02:33 and then three flashing settings.
02:36 In total, it's crazy amounts.
02:39 The thing is, as well, is some of those you can only activate by pressing a button in a certain way.
02:44 So the way that it works, you've got a single button on the top, like so.
02:48 Press it once, nothing happens, but it does show you a different colour on the top.
02:54 That colour indicates how much battery life it's got.
02:56 So that's a really neat feature about it.
02:58 You can see if you need to charge it or not.
03:00 So press and hold it, and obviously the light turns on.
03:03 Then cycle through, goes one like this.
03:07 And it doesn't tell you which mode you're in.
03:09 So that's kind of like the one slight issue.
03:12 It does have a memory, so when you turn it off,
03:15 when you turn it back on again, it will turn it back on on that mode that you're on.
03:19 But what I found when I was using it was I would be putting it on a mode,
03:23 going, "Is that the brightest setting? I can't work out if it's the brightest setting."
03:26 So I'd click it down, and then you kind of go, "Oh, I can't remember."
03:29 So you have to go through them all, and there's so many you have to go through.
03:32 In terms of how long it lasts, this is one of the areas that it does do very well.
03:36 So it's got decent electronics inside.
03:39 So even in that highest, brightest setting, it'll last for nearly two hours, or an hour and 45 minutes,
03:44 pretty much what they claim.
03:46 And I got it to run for about that length of time as well, so it's pretty decent.
03:50 All the way up to the femto setting, which is the 15 lumen lowest setting,
03:54 will last for 80-odd hours.
03:57 And charging-wise, it's got a standard USB-B charging,
04:01 so it charges about four hours or so to do that, which is nice.
04:05 And because it's a standard cable, we've got them.
04:09 Everyone's got them, so that's really neat.
04:11 And the weatherproofing is brilliant.
04:13 I used another Lezyne light when I did Land's End John O'Groats last year,
04:17 and it was on my fork leg the entire time, rained every day, and I had no issues with water.
04:23 And the same goes for these.
04:25 They're absolutely bomb-proof lights.
04:27 And the other good thing as well, the strap, so the bracket on here,
04:31 is obviously designed to sort of fit around a round handlebar,
04:34 but you can use it on aero handlebars, and this is one of the things that a lot more people have got now,
04:39 and one of the things that when we tested these, we worked out if you use them,
04:43 and you can take off this little adapter, like so,
04:47 and then it means you can actually run it on a much bigger diameter handlebar.
04:51 And it's still rubber and grippy, and so that's brilliant.
04:54 So this is actually the cheapest light on the test.
04:58 So it retails at £60, which is really good for the actual capacity,
05:04 the brightness and everything that we've got.
05:06 So moving next, we have the Xposure Sirius Mark IX Daybright.
05:10 I'm going to call it the Sirius from now on, OK?
05:12 I mean, you've got to love an Xposure. Who doesn't love an Xposure light?
05:15 So for those people that don't know, Xposure is a British brand.
05:18 They make these in-house, so everything's machines,
05:22 even the lens itself, they manufacture in-house,
05:25 and it's backed up with a pretty formidable customer service.
05:29 This is the smallest on test, a dinky, really, really little.
05:33 It weighs just over 90 grams with the actual bracket itself,
05:38 so it's the lightest on test by some way.
05:41 So Xposure, it's a metal body, so it's machined aluminium.
05:45 It's got some beautiful cooling fins on here as well,
05:47 so it's allowing it to dissipate the heat.
05:50 It produces up to 850 lumens, so it's on paper the most powerful here.
05:57 But again, it has a few little tricks up its sleeve that kind of sets it apart.
06:02 And I must say at this point, this is also the most expensive light on the test.
06:07 So this retails at £100.
06:09 It uses a very, very simple bracket, so this is just a simple piece of plastic that it clips into,
06:15 which you kind of like on the look of it, you go, "That's not going to hold it in place."
06:22 But it does, and I can testify to this because this is the same bracket
06:28 that Xposure have used for over a decade.
06:30 So for over 10 years, they've used the same style of bracket.
06:33 It just literally clips in like so, and it's solid, absolutely solid on there.
06:37 So you can just leave that on your bike, or it's so simple, you can just take it on and off as well.
06:42 So I tend to keep it all together because if you lose that, well, you can't really use that.
06:47 It uses its own charging cable, so that's the one thing about the Xposure system
06:52 that some people might not like is if you don't take your cable with you,
06:57 well, you're a bit scuppered really, so you can't just use any normal cable.
07:01 It uses a little charging port in the back.
07:04 It's got a real, real solid rubber cover on here, which is really waterproof.
07:08 But this is one of my problems with this light, is it doesn't just pop on easily.
07:12 You kind of have to like really fiddle with it, so you can't just pop it on and off.
07:16 The switch, there's a big chunky silver one on the back, but when you turn it on,
07:21 it's a double-click to turn it on.
07:23 You can see here you've got different colours.
07:26 So like the others, it has a traffic light system.
07:29 So on the first click, it tells you which mode you're in.
07:32 So it's really simple and really obvious from that point of view.
07:35 So to access the flashing mode, you have to then press and hold it enough
07:40 until it starts the flash mode, so you can't cycle through to that.
07:43 But not so long that it turns it off. It's a press and hold middle ground.
07:46 No, it's a fine line. Fine line.
07:48 And then if you press it again when you're in the flashing mode, it will return back to the constant.
07:51 But then you have to press and hold it until it doubles the flash to turn it off.
07:55 So it has something called OMS, Optimised Mode Selector.
08:00 It's user programmable settings.
08:02 So there are actually seven different programme settings you can then choose,
08:08 which basically tells you, or it can dictate how much light each mode sets at or gives out,
08:13 or even how many modes you actually have.
08:15 The technology in this is insanely good.
08:18 There's like some very, very cool features about it.
08:21 What's also then good is the side visibility.
08:25 Now this is something that we kind of often forget about road users,
08:29 is when you're riding along, there's always cars and other people on the side.
08:32 So this has got great cutouts on the side.
08:35 So it's actually got very, very good visibility from the side.
08:38 So I like that from that point of view. So that's really, really decent.
08:43 In terms of runtime, well, as I said to you, you can programme this.
08:47 So the highest, the 850 lumens will last for an hour and a half, which is brilliant.
08:52 Then it will go all the way down to like sort of 36 hours in the lowest constant mode,
08:58 flashing then for even longer than that.
09:00 So it's got more than you ever really need.
09:03 It's a bit more expensive. It's a bit confusing to use.
09:06 And the last thing that kind of is a slight issue is if you've got aero handlebars,
09:11 this bracket won't work as standard because this strap is too short.
09:16 But they do sell a longer one. Then you're looking at another £5 on top.
09:20 So you're looking at £105 compared to £60.
09:24 So there is a bit of a difference in terms of price.
09:27 OK, so next on test, we have a Nog Blinder 600.
09:32 As the name would suggest, 600 lumens, right?
09:35 600 lumens. Nog do things slightly differently.
09:38 They're kind of like a cool company when it comes to their lights.
09:41 And they aim at like road users and commuters mainly.
09:45 So they're super simple to use.
09:48 Very, very small. And that one's great because it's designed to sit on the front of your handlebars.
09:54 So it means it doesn't take up a lot of space on your handlebars themselves.
09:58 So for like riding as normal, it's pretty brilliant from that point of view.
10:02 And it's a real simple system as well.
10:04 So it's just like almost like a little cam lock that just clips over the top.
10:07 And it's pretty solid.
10:09 So 600 lumens max. So that is the lowest power setting we have here.
10:13 But it's still a very usable amount of power.
10:15 And we will compare the beams as well just to see.
10:17 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
10:19 And there's only four modes, which actually is one of the lowest choices on the list.
10:26 And also what's quite nice is that on the top, it looks exactly like what's on the inside of your car.
10:32 You've got that kind of half beam. You've got the full beam.
10:35 So, you know, if someone is a little newer to cycling and maybe they've been driving a bit longer,
10:39 you know, those are very kind of standard signs that pretty much anyone would recognize,
10:45 which I think is quite a nice touch.
10:47 The real neat thing with this, as you're fiddling with it at the moment, is how you charge it.
10:52 So underneath the bracket is a little USB plug.
10:57 So you can either plug it into your laptop or plug, or it does come with a little cable.
11:03 Yeah.
11:04 There you go.
11:05 It's sort of hanging around, right?
11:07 It is, but like, you know, most people would be aware that there's a massive thing sticking out the side of your laptop,
11:13 so you wouldn't damage it.
11:14 Nog do claim that it lasts, on the brightest setting, about an hour,
11:18 up to nine hours on the lowest setting, like the flashing.
11:22 So less than all the others.
11:24 Less than the others, but then you can just plug it in every day and then you're all fine.
11:27 Price-wise, this one isn't as cheap as some of the others, so it's $79.99.
11:32 Wow. OK.
11:33 So moving on, we have this fairly chunky unit, which is the CatEye AMP800.
11:40 And CatEye have been making bike lights and bike computers for as long as I've been going to bike shops.
11:48 They're pretty much, they're very often on the shop floor, aren't they?
11:51 They're in the fossil record, so you've been going for that.
11:54 But not this light in itself, as a brand.
11:56 No, and this, I think, is one of the lights that is showing a turning for CatEye, I think.
12:04 So it's aluminium, so it's decent in terms of heat dissipation as well.
12:09 It's got a really, really good design to the lens.
12:13 And overall, it's actually a pretty decent looking light.
12:17 So, yep, it's got the original CatEye bracket.
12:22 That's one of the things that people will either love or hate about it.
12:26 It doesn't look like it's changed for quite...
12:28 I mean...
12:29 It hasn't.
12:30 Generally, brands are going towards the kind of elastic band sort of approach.
12:34 And this is quite old school, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad school, right?
12:39 No, because they don't fatigue as... like, rubber can fatigue.
12:42 So I've had likes of rubber band snap.
12:45 Those things don't snap.
12:46 But again, you've got a bit of adjustability in terms of side-by-side or side-to-side movement, which is nice.
12:52 It's easy to move on and off.
12:53 And it means you can take the light, leave the bracket on.
12:56 Jobs are good.
12:57 It does clip off really easy as well.
12:58 I find sometimes with elastic bands, I mean, generally it's my preference, I have to admit.
13:02 But with elastic bands, when you've got big gloves on, sometimes it's actually quite hard to operate it.
13:08 Whereas this is really easy.
13:10 And you've got side visibility as well, which...
13:12 Yeah, there's a little bit of side visibility.
13:13 So the lens extends around the side.
13:15 It doesn't have any, like, windows.
13:17 So it just relies on light being reflected within that clear plastic.
13:21 But it does have a bit there.
13:23 When you press the button as well, like the first two lights, it does have an indicator as to battery life.
13:31 So it uses a three-coloured system.
13:33 So blue, yellow and red.
13:35 And then blue is obviously, you know, more than 50% charge.
13:39 And then going down to wherever you want to charge it.
13:42 How many modes have I got here?
13:43 So you've got in total five modes on that.
13:46 So it's almost the sweet spot in terms of usability.
13:51 So three constant settings, so high, medium, low.
13:54 And then two flashing modes.
13:56 As we said, it's 800 lumens and it will power that light for 800 lumens to up to an hour and a half.
14:02 So it's pretty decent.
14:04 All the way down to 30 hours for, like, the flash mode on there.
14:07 The standard USB charging on there.
14:10 I was a bit, had misgivings about where the charge port is because it's at the bottom of the light in the front.
14:17 So it does get covered in water.
14:20 Yeah, well, funny enough, you've used these lights before.
14:22 Yeah, so we had these for the Red Bull Time-Lapse event we did and it did definitely rain.
14:27 It was very wet.
14:29 And they worked when we were using them for 24 hours and they worked fine.
14:33 Charged them up, no issues at all.
14:35 And actually, yeah, even though the little rubber cap feels quite flimsy when you take it off,
14:39 it pops in place so well.
14:41 CatEye say you can use that as your helmet light.
14:44 So they sell a bracket which is about £10 to fit on your helmet.
14:48 And the other good thing about it is price-wise, £64.99.
14:52 So that's, it sits right in the middle.
14:56 And I think, you know, it's got some great features about it as well.
15:00 So I think CatEye, back on the up with that one.
15:03 And finally, the last light that James has been putting to the test is the Kryptonite Insight X6.
15:10 Now this light is a little different to the rest, isn't it?
15:13 Because we're not talking about lumens, we're talking about looks.
15:17 Because Kryptonite has to be different.
15:19 Yes, so if we start with that, everything else is measured in lumens,
15:24 which is an easy way for you to work out where things sit in terms of a tier.
15:29 It's a comparative scale.
15:31 Exactly. So whereas Kryptonite, kind of go, right, lumens is great,
15:37 but that basically measures the light power, the output from the light itself.
15:42 It doesn't actually tell you what amount of that light lands on an object.
15:47 Whereas lux is a measurement of the light to hit an object.
15:53 I mean, the theory on lumens versus lux is, lux makes perfect sense.
15:57 It tells you how much light you're actually going to be able to use, right?
16:03 Yes, it's usable light, exactly.
16:05 Exactly.
16:06 It's £64.99, so it's actually a pretty decent price.
16:10 And it's got some great features as well.
16:13 So there are seven modes.
16:16 So it's up there in terms of how many modes, but one of them is auto light sensing,
16:22 which is pretty cool.
16:24 Sounds fancy.
16:25 So it basically, it measures the ambient light and will adjust the brightness
16:31 according to how much light it thinks you need.
16:33 So when you turn it on, the great thing on the top is you've got two different displays.
16:39 So it's got a little readout on the top, and that tells you how many hours of battery life
16:44 you have left in that mode.
16:46 There's four little red LEDs at the bottom, which then tell you what mode
16:51 and effective battery life.
16:53 So it gives you different ways of actually quickly reading or properly reading
16:56 how much battery life you've left.
16:58 I'm going to say it doesn't weigh as much as the Cat Eye one.
17:01 It's actually the heaviest.
17:02 Is it really?
17:03 Yeah.
17:04 Different material.
17:05 Not by much.
17:06 It's like 162 grams.
17:08 So it's heavier.
17:10 It takes up a bit more space on the bars, and it doesn't feel that quality.
17:16 It's not very solid.
17:17 It's plastic as opposed to aluminium.
17:19 So when you turn it on, it's got two windows on the side, so it's good from that point of view.
17:23 And the other real cool thing is that bracket.
17:25 It's almost like a double safety system.
17:27 So you've got a reusable zip tie like that, and then you clip it up with the cam.
17:34 I don't feel like it works as well as the Cat Eye one because I'm just thinking,
17:38 if this is on my handlebar, I've got limited space in here to flip this off, actually.
17:43 It works fine off the bar, but as soon as I put it on the handlebar,
17:46 I don't actually have that much space to get to that button.
17:48 No, it's a little bit tricky, but you can do it.
17:51 With practice, like anything else, you can do it.
17:54 With practice, you can get there.
17:56 Standard USB charging.
17:58 So pretty decent.
17:59 One thing I do have to say before we go to the beam test is this one here is probably the one
18:06 that's going to make you the best friends with oncoming drivers.
18:11 So the way that the beam is designed is designed to throw the light into a point that's usable
18:18 for the rider and not to have any light escape upwards.
18:23 So it means that you can angle the light exactly as you want it without fear that it's going to blind drivers.
18:29 So it's now time for lights out.
18:32 We're going to switch off the lights in here, and we're going to run through each of the lights
18:36 individually and have a look at the beam pattern and see how much of this room is illuminated
18:42 and by what distance and what kind of spread the light has.
18:46 So we've set the lights up all on one handlebar.
18:49 They're in exactly the same position in the room, and we'll run through each one.
18:55 So looking at the design, I turn this on.
18:58 So I mean, the entire back wall is illuminated.
19:03 Yeah.
19:04 So they can stand here. I've got a pretty big shadow now.
19:07 You've got a very wide and round light pattern there, haven't you?
19:11 Yeah. So obviously when we look at it from this point of view, it's always difficult to see the exact beam pattern of it.
19:18 But if you think about where you actually want to angle your light when you're actually out on your bike,
19:23 you want it to be positioned at a point where the brightness is around about 30 feet ahead of you.
19:28 So it gives you enough time to be able to anticipate anything that's coming.
19:32 And then obviously means that you can see everything around it.
19:36 First thing you notice is there is more of like a spotlight.
19:39 So you've got a bright central part on here.
19:42 So that's kind of very characteristic of this type of light.
19:46 Then there's quite a diffuse light.
19:48 So even though we're stood at the sides here, we're still illuminated here as well.
19:52 So the good thing here is when you're riding,
19:55 it means it's going to create an area of visibility that covers all aspects of the road.
20:01 If we look at it on the side here, you can see there that you can see that classic sort of almost spotlight on there.
20:08 It's that bright central setting.
20:10 So that's the Lezyne. So if we move to the exposure light next.
20:14 So I'm just going to turn this off.
20:16 OK, so this is not dissimilar, I would say, but maybe a slightly brighter spotlight.
20:22 So that kind of pivotal key point is just that bit brighter.
20:28 So if I was to turn this on and then turn the Lezyne on.
20:32 So if I close that off, turn the Lezyne on. There's the Lezyne.
20:37 And then definitely that spotlight is brighter.
20:41 The exposure is very, very good at putting the light where you need it.
20:45 So it's a very, very bright spotlight on here.
20:49 So you can see that you have that same sort of visibility on the outside as well.
20:55 The area around that is still well illuminated. Huge, huge amount there.
21:00 It is a brighter white light. So they use a different type of LED on their light.
21:05 So you can see it's quite bright. So it's not as nice in the eyes, but it does pick things out properly when you're actually out and about.
21:13 So that's the one noticeable difference there because it is so beam focused.
21:18 So it's so central beam focused.
21:21 The other thing you need to be aware of on this light is even though it's got a cap on the top, it's still going to be dazzling people.
21:27 Just turn the nog on. So this is in the brightest setting.
21:30 So you've got both the LEDs working on here and you can see straight away, we don't have that bright central section.
21:37 It's still more of like what we call a floodlight than a spotlight.
21:42 So whereas the first two were more of a concentrated sort of bright setting, this is more sort of an even spread of light.
21:49 I mean, it gives you a good amount of light. There is a good amount of visibility.
21:53 But I think if you're on unlit country lanes, you're less likely to have good visibility of things like potholes, debris that you want to avoid.
22:00 I think you would not feel quite so confident using this on unlit lanes as the former two.
22:06 Yeah. One of the things that you get on a slightly lower power setting like this is it actually creates bigger shadows.
22:13 So when you when you create a big shadow, what it can then do is it gives you just almost like a false perspective of what's coming up in front of you.
22:20 So you have to be a bit aware of that, whereas a brighter light almost burns through that.
22:24 Riding on your own, riding on lit roads or at gentler speeds and commuting, this works really well. It's a good bright light.
22:33 So let's move on to the CatEye AMP800. That again is a very, very similar beam.
22:42 Not quite as wide, though. No. So if we go back, so the closest comparative light to this one is the exposure light.
22:53 So I'm going to blank that off and turn on the exposure. Let's go back to the brighter setting.
23:01 So that's the exposure. And blank that off. Go to that one.
23:05 You can see it doesn't quite have that same bright point. Look at that. When I turn that on top of it, you can see we've got that.
23:14 So if I turn that exposure off, it's almost similar to the Nog.
23:20 It's good, but it's not brilliant. I think that that would be my conclusion there. It will do the job.
23:27 You've got that bright central section, so you're kind of well covered for potholes, debris, things you want to watch out for.
23:34 I can see a good amount of spread around the room. So there is good illumination, but clearly it's not as bright as those first two.
23:45 Pretty decent side visibility, though. Even though there's no windows, it actually does light up quite well.
23:51 So moving on to the Kryptonite. We turn this one off.
23:56 So the Kryptonite should be very different, shouldn't it? Because it has its wonderful looks measurement.
24:03 So let's see how that compares. Let's move that up to the brighter setting.
24:07 This looks a bit like a candle, really, doesn't it? In that kind of shape, it's completely different to the others.
24:13 It's really, really interesting to point out. So what we've got here is we've got kind of quite a large, bright, rectangular type area.
24:22 If I move it up a little bit, we can actually see it on. Oh, yeah.
24:27 Oh, so we've got a few things going on here. So that's that brightest point.
24:34 Now, if we put it to where we'd have it on the bike, that illuminates that large area there in front of you, which is great.
24:40 That bit there is that 60 lux. So that's all of that bright light.
24:45 And then we have an area in front of it which is darker, but still we've got a bit of light.
24:51 So we can see, however, there's something missing. Yeah.
24:56 As long as everything you want to see is within this area. Yeah. You are sorted. Everything's great.
25:03 But what if there is a bunny rabbit that's going to run out from a hedge and it's here?
25:09 This is the one thing that I found using this light at night on unlit roads is it concentrates your world into such a small area that you have no awareness of what you're doing.
25:20 You have no awareness of what's going on around it. And that can be pretty frightening.
25:26 And when we then look at the front section, so kryptonite will say that there's no wasted light.
25:32 It's all usable light. However, if we go above Michelle's ankles, that area there is coming at you at speed.
25:40 So there are obstacles coming towards you and you're on your bike.
25:43 And if you go more than walking speed, your reaction time is actually quite minimal.
25:48 So trying to use this light and ride at a speed that's normal, so 15 miles an hour or plus than that, is almost impossible.
25:58 So, you know, perhaps this light might work well in town centres and cities if you want a good amount of bright light.
26:06 But you're commuting in a town, it's lit or there are car lights going back and forward. Probably a good choice.
26:13 I think exactly right. You know, this is a light that is of the five, the only one that I would say is only for commuting.
26:20 We've shown you all the different beam patterns and effectively what we look, what they're looking at.
26:27 Let's turn the lights back on, get on and then find out our verdict.
26:32 OK, so James, you've put these through some pretty heavy testing over the last few weeks.
26:37 We've talked about each of the kind of features of each of them and we've also looked at the beam patterns.
26:43 There can only be one winner. So what is the verdict?
26:47 It's quite tricky to choose between the Exposure Sirius and the Lezyne Microdrive 800XL.
26:53 So they're both really, really good lights and it was difficult to fault them.
26:58 But each of them isn't perfect. If we look at the Exposure light, it's expensive.
27:05 The button and then the programmability is great, but it also makes it a bit confusing to use.
27:14 And the fact that you have to buy another additional strap if you want to run it on aero bars boosts that price up a bit too much.
27:22 But obviously the Exposure does beat everything in terms of brightness.
27:27 So the actual beam pattern and everything is spot on.
27:31 And longevity from experience, although we've not had this one for eight years or 12 years in your case,
27:36 we have had Exposure lights for that duration and been very happy.
27:40 I think that's it. It's like, you know, the fact that they build everything in-house, they've got that customer service is so brilliant.
27:48 You take your Sirius light that you bought this year and send it back to them and they'll be able to either repair it or offer you a replacement.
27:56 And it's just great. You know, you've got a light for life really from that point of view.
28:01 But there's a big initial outlay or more so than the Zyne.
28:05 Yes. And that's kind of like the difference between the two.
28:07 So the Zyne is £60 compared to £100. So that initial outlay is a big chunk.
28:14 So you could buy a really decent rear light and have the full set for the price of that front Exposure light.
28:21 Brightness is brilliant. You know, the beam pattern was spot on. It's very, very similar to the Exposure light.
28:28 I really like the way that you've got the battery indicator and the fact that it uses a standard USB charging port as well,
28:35 which has been really, really nice and reliable. And the fact you can put that remote switch on is a really good option.
28:42 I look quite like it. So they did send one to me. But obviously for the sake of this test, I've only used it without.
28:48 But it's super simple. Extra £15. The bracket works. It's not perfect.
28:56 So the bracket isn't perfect in terms of like the strap isn't. I would like it to have been a bit longer.
29:04 And the difference in terms of the modes, the fact you've got to cycle through so many different modes.
29:09 There's too much choice there. So that's why that kind of like doesn't win out.
29:14 So personally, I think these two are both winners. If I was to buy a light myself, it probably would be the Exposure purely for that sort of longevity.
29:25 But from a value for money point of view, for people that just want the best bike light for bang for buck, as we say,
29:33 the Zyne Microdrive Pro 800 XL gets a win in that respect.
29:38 So, yeah, out of the five, those are the two that I certainly would recommend.
29:44 I hope you've enjoyed this lights group test. I hope you've enjoyed this video.
29:49 Please let us know what you thought in the comments. Ask any questions and we'll do our best to answer them.
29:54 Do like this video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more of us in the future.
30:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
Recommended
2:53
10:56
8:24
10:16
10:09
4:25
9:50
7:32