Watts is a measure of how much energy a light uses and tells us little about light output. Lumens is a measure of light output.

A halogen car light is about 700 lumens low beam and 1200 high beam but some go up to the thousands. Keep in mind that cars have two.

The main reason to go higher brightness is because brighter lights typically have longer runtime on a lower setting.

My opinion is that 900 to 1000 lumens is very bright for a bike. My bike light is an Exposure Strada 1200 lumens which is about as bright as any car light but again, the only reason I went that high is because it will run 6 hours at 600 lumens. I also have a 900 lumen Light & Motion Urban which has a beautiful beam pattern and seems brighter than the 1200 lumen light, but it does not have as much runtime.

It is easy to make a bright light but the problem is runtime. How much runtime do you want?

If all you want is "super bright" then there are 5000 lumen lights on Amazon and Alibaba for dirt cheap. Or you can get a Lupine for $1000 and have the best and brightest bike light made.


-Tim-