I put the prototype SON Ladelux on my bike yesterday and took it out for a spin last night. I only rode about 7 miles so it was not a test of the USB charging but just a test of the headlight itself. The low beam is the same as with the Edelux II I have been using for several years. There's a 30MPH speed limit sign about a ¼ mile from my house. With my Edelux II it's invisible at night, and it was also invisible with the Ladelux in low beam. But when I switched to high beam after a car passed me the speed limit sign was brightly illuminated, as you would expect from a high beam. Also, all of the signs for intersecting roads, which are normally invisible, were well illuminated by the high beam setting. I had no occasion to flash a high beam at an oncoming car as with the Ladelux in low beam people were dimming their high beams. People around here are very polite.

Switching between high and low beam is done by pressing briefly on the top of the high/low switch box which mounts to the handlebar. The switch doesn't actually move, at least not on the outside. It just senses the pressure of your finger to change modes. There is a small light on the switch that changes color to let you know the mode you're in. It's a sort of yellowy green in low beam, and blue in high beam. To turn the headlight on or off completely, you press the button for a bit over a second. Where I live there is no overhead street lighting, so for me it was obvious from the beam whether I was in high or low beam. But in a city with all of the ambient light you might not be able to tell just by the projected beam if you're in high or low beam, so the indicator LED would be quite useful. Not that I have any wish to move back to Boston!

My headlight beam page is long overdue for an update, so in the next week or so I'll round up all of the newer headlights and make more images. I'll post here once the updated page is ready.

I forgot to mention that I was wearing full fingered leather gloves. So the on/off switch does not rely on skin contact to be activated.