do people know about "We Test Lights"?

Steve K

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 10, 2002
Messages
2,786
Location
Peoria, IL
hi gang.....

I was poking around Light and Motion's website, curious about their Enduro family of bike lights. They seemed like nice enough lights, but I was wondering about beam angles and that sort of stuff.

Their on-line support folks tried to provide a direct answer, but had to go check with their engineers. They came back with a link to test data that they came up with when testing their own products as well as those of competitors.
The link is http://wetestlights.com/ , i.e. "we test lights"

Upon a casual review, I'm pretty impressed! It has enough info to answer my initial question about the beam angles, and provides other handy stuff, such as graphs of light output as the battery discharges.

As a person who can overlook some obvious stuff now and then, I have to ask if everyone else knew about this or not. If not, I hope you find it helpful.

A secondary question: are there other resources like this that provide comparative test data on a broad range of lights?

A side note: I asked Light and Motion if they had any lights that were StVZO compliant (since it would be nice to ride on the local paths without blinding folks). They said no, but there is one in development. I'll keep an eye out for it!
 

Steve K

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 10, 2002
Messages
2,786
Location
Peoria, IL
Thanks for the post!
How did you find it?

their support folks sent me the link after I asked a question about beam angles. I'm not sure why they don't publicize it... or maybe I don't know why they told me (and was it supposed to be a secret??).
In general, I think they make a quality product and benefit from showing exactly how good their products are. They make their lights in the USA, so they aren't trying to be the absolute cheapest lights. Demonstrating good performance should be a way to justify the higher prices.


thanks for the reminder... I hadn't been over to MTBR for some time. I'm a road cyclist, so I would only wander over to their DIY subforum. Not a whole lot of DIY anymore, mostly because so many companies are producing decent lights for decent prices. I was at the L&M site because I was intrigued by the reasonable prices for their low end Enduro series of lights. Seems like the lights based on a 18650 cell and a 3 watt LED are much less expensive than was the case a few years ago (although I really haven't been watching the market).
 

abvgdee

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 25, 2014
Messages
49
Light and Motion

Used to be interested a while ago.. Same useless shoot-out photos that fans make.. I understand, abundance of bike lights, and lack of time and, probably, knowledge, so their "method" is simplistic, ok. But a company!? Why no beam patterns?? I, a hobbyist(!) did it, essentially without any equipment. A wall image, and a 3D perspective, in colored log scale.

FL-1: Some men exaggerate their inches, and cause confusion. Let's introduce a new standard for inches, so that our small inches will appear larger on the new scale! :)
 
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Steve K

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 10, 2002
Messages
2,786
Location
Peoria, IL
The data at We Test Lights isn't complete and doesn't have all the info that I'd like to see. However, I have to give L&M credit for at least providing some info, such as the polar plots, that can be helpful when comparing lights. Since most of the lights that they test have symmetrical optics, the polar plot is a pretty good indication of performance. Not all of the lights they tested have polar plots shown, which is unfortunate.

I do wonder why other companies with more sophisticated optics don't provide better data on the optical performance. They must be running tests to evaluate the performance, so why not publish it? Granted, companies that are trying to produce low-cost lights may not want to advertise a light that doesn't perform well, but companies that sell more expensive lights should want to show how much better their product are.
 

angerdan

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Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
290
Location
Europe
I'd made a list with measured running times of rearlights:

modell
minuteshours
Cygolite Hotshot 2W SL
5268,8
NiteRider Solas 403105,2
Bontrager Flare R2594,3
Light & Motion Vis 180 Micro2574,3
Light & Motion Vis 1802564,3
Knog Blinder Road R702223,7
Cygolite Hotshot Pro 1502163,6
Lezyne KTV Pro Rear2093,5
Cygolite Hotshot Micro 301722,9
Serfas Strip Drive1081,8
Serfas Scorpius 1001011,7
Cygolite Hotrod 50971,6
Lezyne Strip Drive Pro871,5
Thunderbolt 2.0 Tail Light851,4
Thunderbolt Serfas771,3
 
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