Magicshine SEEMEE300 bike gentle assessment: Unbelievable battery life, full of options, and one neat trick that makes it the most effective rear bike gentle in the marketplace

Rear bike lights, extra so than entrance, have seen little change over time. LED bulbs have changed filament ones, however when the chips are down most rear bike lights merely shine a pink gentle straight backwards in an effort to ensure distracted motorists discover you. 

Good options are actually fairly incessantly seen, with the likes of the Publicity Enhance-R providing brake lighting and ‘Peloton’ mode whereby it dims when it detects a rider behind you in order to not dazzle them. The Knog Cobber vary opts to curve a panel of small LEDs across the gentle physique, vastly growing aspect visibility, and right here, within the case of the great Magicshine SEEMEE300, we get a LED bulb pointing not solely rearwards however downwards too.

I’ve been using out with the SEEMEE300 for the previous few weeks of darkish excursions and have been extraordinarily impressed. It’s bursting with options, has a monumental battery life, nice mounts, and whereas the mode choice is a bit of complicated, the modes as they exist are fairly nicely thought out. On prime of all that, it’s very fairly priced, which is why it’s been given the nod as the most effective rear bike gentle total in my information to the most effective bike lights. 

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Design and aesthetics

The Magicshine SEEMEE300 is kind of a chunky gentle, and one actually not going to be seeing a lot use on the beginning line of any hill climbs. It’s boxy, and each tall and deep. The rear face options two an identical diameter LED lamps, however one is a wider angle and the opposite extra of a highlight. These are each surrounded by a clear halo which frames the lamp, and offers a bit of extra aspect visibility. Up to now, so regular, apart from being a bit of on the big aspect. 

Nevertheless, in the event you gaze upwards on the gentle from under (I don’t counsel doing this whereas using) you will notice a protruding clear hemisphere dropping downwards, encasing a single pink LED bulb. This ‘Optitracing’ gentle tasks a large cone of pink gentle onto the street round you, massively growing your illuminated footprint, and as such your aspect visibility too. 

The massive type homes a whopping battery for a rear gentle. At 1,600mAh it’s twice as capacitous as that of the Knog Mid Cobber, and with that enormous dimension, it boasts a monumental 200hrs in its Eco mode. Even for essentially the most forgetful of customers, that ought to see you thru a stable few weeks of commuting between expenses, and quite a lot of evening rides in complete darkness till daybreak.

By way of mounting choices, within the field you get a seatpost mount with a sturdy rubber strap and a saddle rail mount. The seatpost mount has a bit of notch in it to permit its use on bladed aero seatposts, although it’s not preferrred for D-shaped models. The saddle rail clamp merely clips onto your saddle rails and may be very neat. It appears sturdy, however certainly one of my ever-helpful Instagram followers identified that it truly is advisable to safe it in place with the included zip ties. Clipping the lights out and in of the mounts is a breeze, and utilises a miniaturised model of the Garmin ¼ flip mount. 

As you’d count on for a rear gentle that’s going to be showered with spray continually except you’re utilizing fenders, it’s IPX-6 rated, which suggests it’s positive for ‘high-pressure water stream from any angle’. Any greater ranking would enable its immersion, which I feel we are able to agree is overkill for a motorbike gentle. The USB-C cowl is on the bottom of the sunshine, away from any direct spray, and in addition lined by a extremely stable rubber bung. 

Efficiency

For essentially the most half, and within the context that I now have an enormous field of all the most effective bike lights in the marketplace, that is the one I match on my bikes after I’m not actively testing one thing else. It’s good. It’s fantastically vivid, greater than sufficient for being seen at evening, and many vivid sufficient for daytime working too in greater modes. 

You might fairly simply simply set it to the ‘Good’ mode and have it alter the brightness accordingly. It’ll be brighter throughout the day, but it surely does with out the downward-facing Optitracing bulb within the sunshine. At evening it will get dimmer generally in order to not dazzle, however provides that downward bulb.

Truly, my foremost criticism is within the mode choice, and it’s the one factor I needed to seek the advice of the handbook for. The modes are all some mixture of flashing foremost bulbs, stable Optitracing, or stable foremost bulbs and flashing Optitracing, but it surely isn’t overly clear which is which whenever you’re heading out on a experience, and took me just a few cycles by way of every of the 5 modes. That is barely compounded by the actual fact the good mode isn’t the identical brightness on a regular basis, and that the sunshine’s inner reminiscence means it comes on to the final used setting on startup, relatively than the primary in a normal collection of choices. 

This final level is undoubtedly going to make life simpler for many who like to make use of the identical setting on a regular basis, and generally ought to save loads of faff, making it merely a switch-on-and-go unit. 

Just like the Publicity Enhance-R, it may possibly act as a brake gentle, flaring up when the interior movement sensor detects you might be decelerating. The sensor appears a bit of extra delicate than the Publicity unit as you’ll be able to set it off in your hand, which does make life even tougher in the event you’re setting the sunshine mode with it off-bike. Regardless of the added confusion I tended to go away it on, as I’d relatively have automobiles know I’m braking than not. 

You’ll, in a bunch setting, must set it to the bottom brightness. It doesn’t have the power to self-dim just like the Publicity Enhance-R upon detecting one other bike gentle behind, and on greater brightness settings at evening it’s really dazzling. The brake gentle can be helpful for different riders to know in the event you’re slowing down, however the gentle will grow to be dazzling so you would additionally go for tried and trusted callouts. 

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The mounts, notably the saddle rail one when you have house in your rails, are ace. It’s lots neater than the cradle and elastic system that the Publicity lights use, and lots neater than a seatpost mount. The seatpost mount is nice, works nicely on spherical posts, however I discovered it wanting on aero posts if they’re D-shaped, usually wanting down to seek out the sunshine off at a jaunty angle.

Earlier than I get onto the downward bulb I ought to say that sure, this gentle is a bit of heavier than the competitors, however in absolute gram phrases it is minimal, and for that you just get unbelievable battery life. Battery life nervousness is an actual factor, however right here it merely doesn’t exist, as I do know that no matter occurs, I’ll have sufficient juice to get house on low mode. As soon as the battery will get under 10% it’ll mechanically swap to Eco mode and disable the brake gentle, so that you don’t even want to consider doing it manually.

Now, the get together piece: that downward bulb. It sounds on paper like a gimmick however in actuality it’s nice, and it’s why, together with the Knog Mid Cobber, it’s what I desire to make use of particularly throughout the metropolis limits. Whether or not it’s flashing or stable you not solely get this cone of sunshine illuminating the road round your rear wheel, however your decrease legs are additionally partially lit up too. It is a very efficient factor certainly, it’s novel, and I price it very extremely.

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Worth

What’s sort of mad is how low-cost this gentle is. It’s so full of options, from the battery life, the good dimming performance, the brake lighting, by way of to the downward gentle, that you just’d count on to be paying prime greenback for it. In actuality, it’s solely £50/$60, and really incessantly discounted. That is half the price of the Publicity Enhance-R, and whereas that could be a actually very wonderful rear gentle, it isn’t twice pretty much as good. The worth right here is sensational. 

Verdict

There’s little or no to fault right here. The Magicshine SEEMEE300 packs a tonne of options right into a well-made, very efficient bundle. It does some issues different lights in the marketplace don’t when it comes to battery life and extra visibility. It comes with nice mounts. It’s vivid, it’s comparatively good, and to date it has withstood some fairly horrible using situations. The one factor I can fault is the marginally complicated mode choice setup, and whereas the seatpost mount doesn’t work so nicely on a D-shape the saddle mount greater than makes up for it. 

All of this for half the worth of comparable performers, so it’s a reasonably open-and-shut case to say this actually is the most effective rear bike gentle in the marketplace in the mean time.