Lately, I’ve been enjoying night rides more, especially with the current heat wave in the Philippines plus most of my ride out during bike commuting to university is night. My current tail light is the Addview Lepus Elite, a smart taillight with 50 lumens and a 600mAh battery. I’m planning to do longer night rides and intercity commutes, and based on my test runs, it only lasts around 3 hours — especially during stop-and-go riding because the brake light keeps activating (helpful for a bumper to bumper traffic)
I’m thinking of upgrading to the Magicshine Seemee 400. It has an OptiTracing LED that creates a halo light around the bike, plus a 1600mAh battery. But since the output is much brighter, I’m wondering if the larger battery might not make much difference in actual runtime.
Which setup is more practical?
Option A: Buy the Seemee 400 (priced around 60$) and keep my current Addview as a backup.
Option B: Buy another Addview Lepus Elite (13$) so when one dies, I can just swap them and charge the other using a power bank.
by roses-are-rosie-tk
17 Comments
Awesome and lights are the difference between safe and squished
Buy the cheaper one twice? That way, you have more reliability: you can use the other one if one gets defective.
you also have the mounting accessories twice. In car one gets damaged you can use the other.
400 is too much, you’ll blind other cyclists.
I have the seeme 300 and it lasts as long as they say, around 6 hours on high steady. The lenses are well engineered and its very bright, and the tracer is very visible, it creates a real halo of light around the base of the bike. It’s highest output is 100lms on steady, the higher output numbers refer to flashing as do the longer run times.
Been running the Olite/MagicShine 50’s on our recumbent trikes (750W Bafang assisted) for over a year.
Love them as the lites can be seen quite well from 100+ feet behind on our low-slung trikes.
Considering the 200 or 300 MagicShine tailites for longer battery life, and a bit more visibility distance on local roads.
I use the Seeme 400 for my commute, it was the only light with a down facing LED. It does light up the back of my legs so hopefully cars see more of a person shape and not just the single red light. I added an aluminum seat rail mount to its solid and easy to remove with a 1/4 turn. There are different levels of brightness and pulse or flash modes too. I haven’t tracked the actual run time though.
Nothing beats my Garmin Varia for awareness on longer ride but it didn’t work well in my short commute with a narrow tunnel bike/ped path so I went for more visibility with to Seeme.
I have one of the automatic tail/brake lights. Some things I insist on are side lighting, and a reflector function if the light quits. My first one got stolen on the first ride. I always put my headlight in my pocket. Now the tail light too.
I have the SeeMe 300, the battery seems to last pretty well, I don’t bother recharging it every time I use it but it’s never run out on me.
As well as the downward facing LED it also lights up brighter when you’re braking, and it’ll switch off automatically if you leave it switched on but not moving.
I strongly recommend down-grading the tail light to a AAA alkaline battery powered Bontrager Flare 1. They haven’t been manufactured since like 2012 but you can still buy them on EBay. Battery lasts 80 hours and the light output is perfect.
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/equipment/bike-accessories/bike-lights/bike-rear-lights/bontrager-flare-1-rear-bike-light/p/11367/
i have the seeme 300, lasts about 3 hours and a bit. idk how someone said it lasts 6 hours lolz. So i always bring a back up when it dies, a cheaper one, normally only needed for the last bit home. Most of the time i make it home around 3 hours mark.
Between these two options I would go for two of the cheep lights.
I think the “halo” ground effect is cool. I’ve been using bontrager flare R. It does not have many/ any fancy features but it’s small & has flash setting that lasts a long time. I do mostly city riding so never that dark out.
400 would leave me blinking, halfway blinded, red dots swirling in my vision. That’s. A LOT.
If you want truly long lasting, I’d recommend the outbound light. It uses an 18650 you can replace, and you can put a 3500mah in if you want.
[https://www.outboundlighting.com/products/blade-rear-tail-bike-light](https://www.outboundlighting.com/products/blade-rear-tail-bike-light)
But I have the Seemee300 and it’s decent for the price. The down light is nice. It has decent modes. I just really wish more lights had swapable cells.
Although more and more I’m wanting to just get a little 12v battery and use that to power a wired light. I just wish more had downward and side visibility.
I don’t know what you have available there. I have a couple Nightrider Vmax 180 lights that are 150 lumens and PLENTY bright. [https://www.niterider.com/products/vmax-150-bike-taillight](https://www.niterider.com/products/vmax-150-bike-taillight)
They recharge with USB-C. Run time on steady bright is about 4.5 hours, much longer if you use one of the flashing modes. I just keep a spare in my bag in the even that it ever dies on me which has never happened.
150 lumens is PLENTY bright for a rear light. I can’t imagine 400 lumens.
I tend to run one mid tier light and one cheap light, and keep a spare cheap light in my bar bag. I like to run 2 because that way it doesn’t matter if one dies without me noticing during my ride. I’ve also run lights that take AAAs. Those are nice because I can just keep spare AAAs in my saddlebag and the barely take any space or add any weight.
The seemees with the halo are awesome
That thing took away Superman’s powers.