colleen c

It's been a while since the last time I did any review of a product here. Just recently Xeccon send me this super tiny little front and rear light combo for review. Well let me just say this, do not let the small size fool you. The light they send me is called the Geinea. It can be found here at mtbrevolution. Over the past several month, I have done several reviews for Xeccon Spiker series lights and I can attest to the quality and design of their lights. This new Geinea is a remarkable design just from how small the overall size of the package. I will be updating this review since there is so much to cover because the Geinea I have is both a front light and a rear tail light.

Xeccon designed the light with a remote switch that can be mounted away from the light head. By doing this, the actual size of the light head can be reduced. What surprises me was that the diameter of the light head is listed at 27mm wide. Another surprise is the fact that they are able to push a listed rating of 650 lumens from a U2 XML in such a small package. That 650 lumens appears about right from what I can tell looking at the beam. It is brighter than my old Magicshine 808 P7. While the front light seem impressive, the tail light was even more impressive in my opinion. The housing is the same size as the front light or so it appears to be, it produces 110 lumens of red light. 110 lumens of red light is a little harder to judge since most tail light out in the market are rated by their watts rather than lumens. So I actually test and took some wall beamshot showing the difference in light intensity using a Cygolite Hotshot and a Magicshine MJ818 tail light. I personally own both the hotshot and MS tailight and thought both of these light were pretty bright, but the Geinea is way brighter.

I will be posting more about the light along with the package detail, run test time beam test, power draw and much more. In the meanwhile, here is a photo of how small this light is with it next to a Magicshine 808 P7 and also next to a US quarter. Look how small it is:





Here is a side by side view of the front and rear light.





The Rear tail light next to the Hotshot and Magicshine





Ok, so I am going to jump forward ahead of myself here. Normally I do not post beamshot but this wall beamshot picture show how intense the rear light perform.



Here is a photo of the front light wall shot comparing to the older Magicshine 808 P7



More to come.

digibud

how does it mount? I can't tell how it adjusts up and down. It looks like it straps to the seat post but I can't see how you adjust the angle of the light and the website is no big help there.

colleen c

The mount is similar to the standard oring type mount, but instead of an oring, they have a velcro strap attached to the mount. You velcro it to the seat post. There is also a rubber strap on the velcro so that it is sandwhich between the velcro and the seat post to keep it from slipping. It does not have any means of tilt adjust from what I can see. You will need to shim the bottom half of the mount to angle it upward if you desire to keep it level. It does not requre much shimming. I can roll about an inch of electrical tape with the sticky side out and slip that to the bottom of the mount between that and the seatpost to level it.

The rear light does have a diffuser lens that spread the light out, however even with that, it is still bright enough that looking directly at it can get a little annoying. I can stare directly into the magicshine light or the Hotshot and put up with it but not with the Geinea. That being mentioned, it maybe wise to have it pointed slightly down. I will post some detail picture of the whole unit tonight and sometime this weekend I will try to get a rear video shot of what the beam looks like for a sample. Here is a better detail picture of the mount.

Looigi

How warm does it get in use? LED lights have to dissipate a fair amount of power and keep the LED from overheating so usually have fins or other means for cooling.

no1mad 

$189 is tad too pricey for me, but I look forward to the rest of your review.

I'm wondering if hose clamps couldn't be used instead of the velcro straps for people who don't have more than one bike, but don't want to bother stripping lights off while parked. Would be kinda cool to be able to mount the front light to the head tube.

colleen c

The front light does draw 1.32 amps in order to get past the 600 lumens mark out of the LED. At that power consumption, there will be fair amount of heat for the small package. There is slot in the housing for heat transfer. I seen this on their S12 light and the Bikeray Speed II.

I had the chance to do a temp test. I ran a 12v mini fan blowing at around 5 mph or so. I have a mini digital wind meter to confirm my air speed. I took an IR temp gun pointed right at the front light and did a 10 minute runtest. The temp got up to 110 F in the first run and then 108 in the second trial. It was stable at those temp with no more case temperature rising. I did another test with the fan farther away and the case temperature went up to 120F.

I did not do a temp test without any air blowing on it, but I can imagine it will rise fairly quickly. I do not know how hot it will get if one were to use it on a hot sunny day on High mode during the daytime and had to wait a very long time at a busy intersection with no air flow. Leaving it on strobe should be no issue.

colleen c

Let me check on that, I think you can use a hose clamp. In order to use the helmet mount kit, I think there is a screw I have to remove in order to take off the velcro strap and mount the helmet mount onto the light head. I don't see why one cannot screw it back into a slot on a hose clamp as a mount. I have not played with the helmet mount but I will give an update on this mounting option.

no motor?

That looks nice. Having a remote switch for a helmet light would be great, especially if the light is small and bright like that.

colleen c

The beauty of that remote switch is that I can control the rear tail light right from my handle bar! There is two switch on the remote. One control the front light while the other control the tail light.

Burton

Those look interesting and if I'm one of thevfew - the price doesn't bother me. What I would like to see is a bit of adjustability in the light mounts. It doesn't look like either can be aimed which does limit mounting possibilities. Could be very effective helmet lights! (might take a few mods)

colleen c

Mtbrevolution sell the light head only at a lower cost than the whole kit. I also heard that they will be sell the rear light package also at a lower cost than the whole lighthead/tail combo.

The kit accessories did included a helmet mount. I played around with it last night. It consist of two parts. There is a clip you mount to the lighthead by simply sliding out the velcro strap and undoing the screw. Then screw the clip mount onto the light head. Attach the velcro helmet mount to the helmet. The clip slide into a slot on the helmet mount. That makes it very easy to remove the light from your helmet without having to totally remove the helmet mount. If you don like the original OEM helmet mount, you do have an option of placing a velcro strap around two of your helmet vent slot and then sliding the clip onto that strap on your helmet. This make a clean mount and still allow for tilt adjustment and ease of removing. I should have posted a complete image of the unit with all the stuff that came with it. I will do that in the next post.

The screw and slot on the handle bar mount can also allow for something like a hole clamp to permanatly mount to the tube as no1mad suggested. Find a hose clamp narrow nenough to slide into the slot. Open up a hole on the hose clamp and screw it in.

Here is what it looks like:

digibud

Yep...I'd have one on order if the rear light could be aimed so it was level. I'm sure I could jerry rig something but I have three lights in back now and don't really -need- and don't want to fight with figuring out how to best do what the light should already do. Quite amazing to me that somebody would even bother coming out with a rear light that is designed to strap to a seat post if it can't be aimed.

chaadster

What the hell kind of name is Xeccon Geinea, and how does one pronounce it?! Gaack.

colleen c

I have absolutely no idea where that name derrived from nor do I know how to pronounce it. I do know it took me a while to get used to typing the name right into my post. However after a while it did sort of grow into me. Perhaps rep from Xeccon (Leonard from MTBR) can shed some light on the naming of this product.

Xeccon

Hi Colleen & all,

I'm no English teacher but I have been pronouncing it as Zee-con, like Xerox is Zee-rox - yes I know there's an extra c in there so by right, it should be Zek-con. The name Geinea comes from "ingeniously small". I actually quite like the way it flows, Zek-con-Gei-nee-a. Perhaps I am thinking of Xenia Onatopp.

PedroDank

Hello all!

I am new into this forum, but came here to help out Colleen with the pics so I can save her some work.
Leonard, above, sent me the kit as well to test it out and post my feedback on the mtbr forum.

Time for some pics.
Every item included in the kit box:

Geinea I front light:


Geinea I rear light:
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Rear light, Remote button and front light:


Size comparison:




Manual (click to zoom in):





Photos albums (the post is already big as it is...):
Wall beamshots compared with 808 XML-T6 clone (remember the Geinea's LED is U2 version and has a nice OP reflector - actually, the 808 clone has an orange peel reflector as well, but it practically works as a smooth one making it too spotty). You can also notice the difference in colour tint - the Geinea is more of a blue colour: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4j6q19y905fhj1a/9El2-aAaeE

Outside pics. Not a very good place to take pictures, but I couldn't find a darker place to do it at that time... You should read the filename as it works out as a description of the photo: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/99qg8ifmdwv9zkz/715u_RfUG_
They were all taken with mtbr's recommended exposure settings: ISO 200, Daylight, 4.0, 1/1.6, manual focus. (Actually, I need some help. When they say 1.6, is it 1/1.6 or 1/0.625=1.6?)
EDIT: Oh, they look so dark...! I think dropbox has compressed them... Will try to get some more tonight.


Small video (focused on the rear light working at 3Hz):


So, what do I think of this light? Lets start with the rear: small & bright. The light's XP-E2 is really bright and would be great to attach to strategic places on your commuter bike as it is small and has attaches via a velcro strap that is easily removed (so it doesn't get stolen). The working modes are all strobes, but it seems Xeccon has thankfully changed this. Leonard said it would be: steady 100%, steady 40%, fast strobe (7Hz) and slow strobe (3Hz) which is much better than the all-strobe mode I have. The bad? Poor side visibility and mounting mechanism (we can't tweak the angle as it is, unless we use the clip for the headstrap). Other than that, it is perfect for me. I feel safe riding in the road as it illuminates the ground pretty well which is nice for those tight turns where drivers can't see me ahead before entering them. For this matter, I like having it pointed to the ground - it won't blind driver but they will still see me thanks to the light on the ground or just the strong light coming out of it.
However, there is always space for new things like having some sort of led indicating the current working mode of the light, to avoid looking back while riding every time I need to see how it is working. The button is big enough for this...

The front light: also nice for commuting as the hotspot is not bright nor tight. I had to point it to the ground too (not more than 5 meters ahead, I guess) because it can blind drivers too. Although it is said to be a good commuting light, I really don't think so. I think commuting lights shouldn't have that much spill and the beam patter shouldn't be symmetrical. We don't need all that light going upwards...it just wasted light that should be used to illuminate the road ahead and the surroundings. I've never used a specific commuting light, but I know I need that. This Geinea is ok for me as I will probably be using it paired with the 808 with the angle lens (still have to test this setup), but I don't think it would work in urban areas as it is because it is really bright. And this is why I think the front light needs tweaking as well: medium mode - we have high and low mode, but the low is too low...I need something in between. I think this makes sense for a commuting light too as we need a light that lasts longer and, most of the time, we don't really notice the difference from high to medium in certain environments. Another welcome addition would also be a clamping mechanism that allow us to change the angle to point it exactly where we want; sure the velcro strap on the bar allow us to do that, but I've noticed that after an hour it moves a bit... If the new mounting mechanism was designed to place this tiny light on the center of the bars, that would also be nice.

So...I guess that's it! I still need to ride different environments but this are my thoughts on urban areas and darker roads.

Oh and as for the name of it, I've read it Genea the first time I saw it written and the name stuck in my head eheh As it is small, does it resemblance the guinea pigs? I read guinea the same way as geinea, but, again, English is not even my second language...

Burton

So welcome aboard!

I double checked the settings used in the MTBR shootout and looks like they changed them from the year before.
No idea why. They used to be ISO 100 and an exposure of 4 seconds and the new ones are so close to being equivalent there ain't much difference, but you might want to match them just as a reference.

Thanks for helping Colleen do the reviews! She posts some good stuff!

colleen c

Thank you Leonard for the help with the correct pronounciation of the word "Geinea". Now I can tell my friends what my front and rear lights are with having to twist my tonunge

Thank you PedroDank for those pictures and especially for the picture of the instruction. I like the picture where the Geinea is next to the MS808 and the size difference is like David and Goliath. I took some night beamshot and found the Geinea being brighter than my older MS808 with the P7 led. I find the smaller does indeed have more of a flood pattern. I took my out for a short ride and what is nice about it is that while I do point it down to avoid having too much upward spill, the flood from the small reflector does not give too much of a hot spot and making the beam being acceptable while having it pointed down. Lastly, welcome abord PedroDank!

colleen c

Thanks for the complement Burton!

I think originally this was MTBR goal for total exposure time. If I am correct (big IF) and as I recall from one of their post, there was some limitation of what the older camera they used in the past that can be set or something like that so that's why they settle for that F4, 100 ISO and 4 sec.

Overall, I thing the new setting will yeild a less total exposure of the pictures. They double the ISO setting to 200 which means that the equavalent exposure time for a setting of ISO 100 would be 3.2 second (1.6 sec *2). Given that guestimation, 3.2 second is 80% of what the older setting (4 sec). Is that enough to give better representation of "real worl view"? I dunno but at least it is heading in the right direction

colleen c

Got some outdoor beamshot done for the front light. The daytime scene shot picture has an arrow showing where I tried to aim the light. Those tree are over 100ft away. Still amazes me how much light can be produce from such a small light. I used the old MTBR setting: F4, ISO 100, 4sec, Daylight, Manual focus. The MS808 P7 with the larger reflector has more hotspot and slightly more throw but the flood pattern of the Geinea is better for close lumination. The extra lumens from the Geinea help provide some throw.

Edit: After reviewing the pictures, it seem like the aim point of the MS808 P7 is more toward the right. Sorry, but those trees all looks the same when it's dark. These photos may not truely show the difference in the throw between the two light, but at least the close quarter beam pattern is useable.

PedroDank

Thanks colleen and Burton.
Colleen, those photos look good. I can see the your P7 is weaker than mine, but it really shows how much powerful the Geinea actually is.
Will get better night shots next time, for sure!

colleen c

I was going to compare the Geinea with my MS808 T6 XML, however the beam is different being one is flood and the other is a tighter spot. My older MS 808 P7 hit around the 450 to 500 lumens marks while the MS 808 XML is more like 650 which is comparable with the intensity output of the Geinea.

I did a sphere test showing the difference between the Geinea and the 808 P7. The scale is set on X10 and the correction factor is 21.4. The lumens yeild after conversion is 631 lumens for the Geinea and 444 lumens for the 808. The reason for the lowere lumen number for the 808 is because the housing heated up before I got the intial startup reading which is generally higher sometime by 50 or more lumens.

PedroDank

Sphere testing and everything...way to go, Colleen!
It has been 4 days since the storm came in, so I wasn't able to take any more good shots or videos. I will have to return the camera I borrowed, but I will try to get some more next week as I will be away for the weekend and my friend will also need the camera.

On my to do list:

• Filming me going down the road as far as possible during daylight with the rear Geinea.
• Filming the rear Geinea from different angles at night.
• Better outdoor pics of both lights.

colleen c

The one that does stand out with this unit is the remote switch being somewhat large. The four wires coming out of the hub does make it a little challenge as to where to route the wire. All that being said, I find the best place for the remote was the stem because it allowed me to mount the tail light at the back with having to use the extension. I placed the pack in the half way point where the bub is located. The nice thing with the smaller head andtail light is that the unit look nice when mounted to a road bike.

01 CAt Man Do

I agree that the rear mount should be made to tilt. I have the rear version of the Geinea. To make the lamp point straight out I just made a rubber shim with some old tube rubber and then placed it under the lower lip of the lamp. This was actual quite easy to do and works very well with the standard Velcro mount system. Seeing that the Velcro strap is removable if one were so inclined it wouldn't be too hard to mount the lamp to an old adjustable mount like the one for the PBSF. Some thermal epoxy should do the trick but to tell the truth the shim idea is more simple and works fine.

The hardest part to mounting the system is not the lamp but figuring out what to do with the wires. Once you get that worked out your set to go. Hopefully future editions of the Geinea will have a better mode selection and a better mount for the rear. The one thing that makes owning this lamp worth while is the fact that it is so dang bright! ( *Please note: I too was supplied the Geinea by Xeccon for review. As such I did not pay for the light. )