davidad

Dear business partner, dear customer,

On March 31, 2014, Philips will permanently discontinue its line of LED BikeLights. This includes the sale of the products belonging to the Philips LED SaferideŽ, Philips LED ActiverideŽ and Philips LED RearLight product lines. All products and accessories will be retired from the market.

After that date, the products will be no longer for sale, and orders will no longer be accepted. We will continue to provide aftersales and support services for the products that have been sold in the last years, according to the terms and conditions that you may expect from a Philips solution.

We strongly suggest that you liaise with your local sales partner, to discuss a last-buy option accommodating your business’ needs.

Should you have additional questions, we encourage you to learn more about the details through your direct customer contact.

We sincerely appreciate your support and regret any inconvenience this necessary action causes you.

unterhausen

thanks for posting this. I always thought this was a weird market for them to be in, but at least they took it very seriously and did a good job. They will be missed

DiegoFrogs

I guess they're going to focus on their core competency, manufacturing the emitter (Philips LumiLEDs).

Most of the reviews of the lights I saw were very positive, but not too numerous, though, so sales may have been disappointing to them.

01 CAt Man Do

When it comes to self-contained lighting there is a very big competitive market. Say what you will about the special optic providing for cut-off. When you market a lamp like this there still needs to a certain amount of output that will appeal to a wide range of people. 400 lumen just isn't going to cut it for a lot of people. Not to mention only two hours of run time and poor cold weather ( battery ) performance. I think if they had used Cree XM-L emitters, Li-ion batteries instead of NiMh with an option for an external battery set-up they could of sold a lot more of these. In short, they just didn't cover enough bases.

DiegoFrogs

Do you really think that putting another company's emitters into their product was ever really on the table?

znomit

FWIW the new B&M premium lights use Osram.

01 CAt Man Do

Duhhh....yeah, I suppose you make a good point. Maybe they should of retro-fitted the Saferide with the Phillips Lumileds Luxeon TX LEDs.

DiegoFrogs

I figured that German B&M was probably using Regensburg's finest, but they seem to try to stand on their own reputation, without invoking the semiconductor manufacturers, and I like that.

Looigi

Maybe they'll sell the business and designs.

2_i 

I bought their dynamo Saferide and felt it to be a product with teething problems. I did not buy a second one for any of other bikes under my care.

tcs

No, and that's too bad, since there seem to be a lot more folks in the industry that can solder an LED than can design optics.

01 CAt Man Do

I don't know about anyone else but when I buy a lamp I want to know what LED is being used. Not knowing would be like buying a car and not knowing what kind of engine was under the hood, who does that? Anyway, when these first came out I almost bought one because initial reviews were good. Then I found out that the lamp was using the Phillips Rebel LEDs which were not quite as bright as the better Cree. Later I saw some more examples of the beam pattern and decided that it really wasn't what I was looking for. What really changed my mind was a video of a guy who had one that was not very impressive to say the least.

I've seen beam photos of Saferide's retro-fitted with XM-L's. Totally awesome.

znomit

LEDs aside it was big, ran for only an hour, and initially shipped with a poor mount.

ItsJustMe

I liked the beam pattern on mine, but the aluminum case was a bad choice IMO. It kept the batteries nice and cold in the winter and I don't think it's any more durable than a good plastic case. Also the USB hole in the back wasn't really waterproof, in fact the little rubber plug just FELL out on its own after a few minutes. The screw that closed it on mine was almost impossible to get in without cross threading - it took me almost 10 minutes to get the screw in straight each time (I only had it a day so only closed it twice). The circuit design was weird too - once it decided the batteries were low, it never changed its mind. I took mine out in the cold, after 20 minutes it started flashing that the light was very low. I took it inside and let it warm up, it still said the battery was very low. I plugged it into the charger for 2 seconds and unplugged it again, and suddenly it decided the batteries were nearly fully charged.

I really wish it didn't have those flaws because it did put out a good beam pattern.

chaadster

Yes, I think the products were just out-of-sync with the market, not up to most users' standards of design or performance, and fantastically overpriced relative to all that.

Murray Missile 

Millions of car owners, men and women alike.

walrus1

Woah! They made bike lights?! I've never run across one when comparing lights, at my LBS, REI, Amazon and on Google. This might have been their problem.

rifraf

I love my Philips Saferide Lumiring LED dynamo tail-light.
Using it now for about three months with no complaints nor issues.
Makes a great working combo with my Edelux headlight and Son28 disk dynamo hub.

01 CAt Man Do

Sorry, I should have said, "When pertaining to the dedicated enthusiast..". When the enthusiast goes out to buy something they will usually know some facts about what they are buying. I'm not a big time car enthusiast but when I bought my last car I *knew what size engine the car had before I bought it. I also knew the expected MPG because that was important to me. There are always going to be some unknown facts about whatever you buy but you try know as much as you can before buying. Having a computer with internet search features helps a great deal.

rifraf

G'day Davidad,
gotta link?

davidad

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...=1#post4373625 # 135

01 CAt Man Do

I think what he means, "Is there a link to the company website that makes this announcement public?" Just wondering in case this is a rumor gone viral. I did a quick search myself and I see no mention on the Phillips site I was looking at that states the Saferide is being discontinued ( even though it still might be true )

davidad

I tried to e-mail Phillips and couldn't get through. So I didn't verify the story.

rifraf

Thank you for your prompt response with the link you did have.

As Catman-does suggest, I was initially hoping for a Philips source link as my net search produced no results.

Still, I'm sure I've time to grab another Lumiring tail-light as a spare before stock evaporates.

no1mad 

FWIW, I just checked Peter White's site and it appears he no is offering the Philips SafeRide (I forget whether he had battery or dyno, but I do recall him listing them).