PaulRivers

The IQ Premium is 80 lux, not 50 lux.

I personally own a multitude of other battery powered lights - Dinotte 200l, 2 Dinotte 400l's (with lens kit), Dinotte 600l, Light and Motion Seca 900, Light and Motion Sec 1400, and a dynamo powered Lumtoc Cyo.

I can tell you from experience that you cannot meaningfully compare a good shaped beam light to a non-shaped beam light (including the semi-shaped beams of the Light and Motion lights). Even within non-shaped beam lights, the beam pattern is extremely important. The Dinotte 600l was crap. Just absolutely terrible for road riding. I could have lived with it if it was free, but frankly, my much cheaper 200l was a better light on the road. The 600l would throw out a bunch of light and brightly light up right in front of the bike - but that would leave you not being able to see well outside of where it lit up. And it's throw in what it lit up was terrible. The Light and Motion 900 had much much better throw, but wasn't wide enough. My Light and Motion 1400 was actually to wide - it was ok, but could have used more throw down the middle. My 2 Dinotte 400l's were what I actually used on my road bike because they got the closest to being decent.

I used to say - and this is still true - that my 2nd best light for commuting was my Lumotec Cyo. Despite it's much lower total light output, it's lack of a hotspot and it's even shaped beam, in real world effect, let me see better down the road than any of my other lighting systems. Less light - but with no hotspot and an even beam - was definitely better than much brighter lights that didn't have as good of a beam pattern. It's main drawback was that it was a dynamo light (so needed a dynamo front wheel, something I had no problem putting on my computer but was hesitant to put on my fast-handling road bike), and that it didn't light up the side very well.

My first best combination was the only one that beat the Cyo, and that was using both my Light and Motion 900 (on high) and my Light and Motion 1400 (on medium) at the same time. 1,650 lumens - in the specific beam pattern those lights made - was the only thing that provided better light. It just finally put out enough light to straight up light everything up. But it had it's own drawbacks - using 2 lights, it's prohibitive cost, carrying 2 batteries, and most importantly - it was absolutely blinding to anyone coming towards me. Pedestrians and other bikes it was awful for (and I ride on a MUP a lot), even cars seemed to have a problem (whereas usually it's not an issue as cars are on the other side of the street).

I could go on and on, but you'd have to try it out yourself to really understand - a lights beam pattern has a much larger effect on your ability to see than the lumen output does once you get to a respectable # of lumens (like...200 lumens or something).

The Ixon IQ even solves the Cyo's main drawback (lack of light to the sides for turning, stuff off to the side of the trail, etc).

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Thanks for posting about the Taz - that's dissapointing (but not unexpected, marketing departments tend to lie unfortunately) as this is what Light and Motion claimed about the Taz -
The Taz features high-output amber side-lights and a powerful beam pattern comparable to the required specs of motorized vehicles.

I was dubious, and it sounds like they (Light and Motion) are full of it. I could post a pic of the Ixon IQ beam pattern - it has an actual cutoff, that's actually just like a modern car headlight. It's a fully and totally shaped beam, unlike how the Taz sounds (and looked like in beam shots) with a kinda-shaped beam. The Ixon IQ only puts out tiny amount of light above the horizon, enough to light up reflective road signs. I'll try to remember to take a beam shot pattern against my wall tonight.

I personally wouldn't recommend the Ixon Core models when the Ixon IQ is available - Peter White's beam shots show a narrower beam, and as I said in another post I personally found that 50 lux wasn't enough light for this kind of beam pattern. It's to bad they don't have usb charging and a lith-ion battery option for this model (though I would also hate to see the AA option go away). Since they do offer another model (30 lux, so really not enough light imo) that uses AA's and has usb charging, I wonder if we'll see a usb charging option in some future model.

Thank you for not getting into a dynamo vs battery light debate in this thread - the Ixon IQ is a battery light, the dynamo version is the Cyo Premium with the same bulb and reflector pattern, but dynamo powered instead.

There are pluses and minuses to battery vs dynamo - I personally don't think there's a "winner" any more than there's a "winner" between road vs mountain bike. It just depends on your setup and uses. I find the convenience of not having battery stuff to spend time on or have fail on my commuter bike very very useful. But there are arguments for battery lights to - cheaper upfront cost, cheaper if you're switching the light between different bikes, etc etc.

I mean if someone wants to create another different thread listing out practical advantages of dynamo vs battery lights (that lists the practical differences, not just one-sided hyperbole from one side or the other), and link to it here that's cool. But as I said - this thread is actually about a battery light (that also happens to have a dynamo equivalent), so the debate is just not really relevant here. :-)

P.S. Sorry for the wall of text, lol.