Any recommendations for light helmet mounted lights?

I've used cygolight Expilion 500 and 850 (140g), which are great. But lights are so small and efficient now. There are some nice light options, but the small ones don't seem to have helmet options. I dont' really want one with a separate battery pack.

350 lumen lights are about 50-70 grams. Sounds perfect for a helmet, but are there any light weight helmet lights (70 grams max)?

this one would be perfect if it had a helmet mount. 350 lumens, 70 grams.
https://cygolite.com/product/dart-pro-350-usb/

If you like that Cygolite well enough, try some heavy duty Velcro or 3M hook and loop tape. These come with very secure tape adhesive and plastic hook and loop closures (not fabric). I use this for my Ion Speed Pro video camera helmet mount. I back it up with nylon zip ties but so far the adhesive alone has secured the camera mount shoe to the helmet. And the video camera is much heavier than that Cygolite. Aiming the camera isn't critical because of the ultra-wide angle, near-fisheye lens.

The tricky bit is mounting it where you want the beam. Most bike headlights are very directional and need to be aimed fairly carefully (which too many cyclists neglect on the local MUP - they blast their lasers straight ahead into everyone's eyes).

That's why the Light & Motion Vis 360+ is so well designed, with an adjustable headlight. But it's expensive.

If you just want an affordable to-be-seen helmet light and will rely on a bike mounted headlight as your primary, I'd recommend the variations of the Vivo-Bike Illuminati. I've used one for more than a year. Highly recommended as a to-be-seen light.

It's not currently available on Amazon from Vivo-Bike, but I see apparently identical lights from other vendors. They all look like this:



This vendor has 'em for about $12.

This vendor for $20, with free same day delivery for Prime subscribers.

These specs provided by Vivo-Bike all appear to be consistent with my experience:
Runtime: High=3 hrs, Med=5 hrs, Flash=12 hrs (might be slightly shorter now after a year of frequent use)
Charge time: approx 3 hrs, depending on charger
Weight: 50g
Length 66, Width 29, Height 22mm

Pros:

• It's very lightweight. You won't notice the weight.
• The strap is stretchy and secure enough for a road type helmet with vents, without crushing or damaging the foam padding or shell. Never popped off, even when I've crashed.
• The light is very directional, and intensifies wherever you look. It gets drivers' attention in traffic. When I see cars quickly approaching the street from parking lot driveways or about to roll through stop signs I look directly at them. The perception of a flashlight being aimed at them gets their attention and they stop.
• Very good side visibility due to the lens design. Much better side visibility than my Serfas and Light & Motion lights.
• Easy to operate on the helmet without looking at it. One big button cycles through high, low, flash and off. In daylight I check the reflection in my handlebar or mirror. Usually I want it on flash in daytime and traffic.
• The 300 lumen maximum output seems accurate. It's as bright as or a little brighter than my Serfas SL-255 on high and flash.
• It's weatherproof. No problems in several rainy rides.

Cons:
It's really a to-be-seen light. The beam pattern is mediocre, so it's usable only as a supplemental to-see light. It illuminates where I look, which is useful on the trails and unlighted rural areas. But the beam pool is splotchy and uneven due to the design of the reflective mirror that concentrates the beam to be directional. It sort of mimics the Busch & Muller lights reflective mirror design, but not very well. So don't rely on it as your primary to-see headlight.

Cateye:
VOLT400 DUPLEX (HL-EL462RC-H)
DUPLEX (SL-LD400)
bikeforums.net/commuting/1125628-iso-helmet-mounted-tail-light.html

Positioning also makes a difference. If the weight is centered;
you can hardly notice the extra weight:
Large pizza; tiny bike - challenge accepted by 1nterceptor, on Flickr

Bicycle times, #45 had 2 helmets that integrated the lights into the helmet itself.. be seen more than see by

torchapparel.com & lumoshelmet.co according to my print copy.

I'm real happy with my "Light and Motion" urban 800. It runs 1.5 hrs on 800 lumens, something like 3 hrs on lower light. It can get a bit warm running at 800 lumens if you're riding on a warm night and I think I'd not want anything more powerful for that reason.

Well... I'm just saying... the weight that you feel pulling your head down from the helmet light up there isn't from the light. It's from the battery! I have a 2 x 18650 battery pack and I have a 4 x 18650 battery pack. Neither goes on my head. The 800L lighthead goes on my helmet and the battery goes in my pocket, and I call it a very nice arrangement. All the power I could want, and I don't have to recharge the battery pack after every trip. With a single cell flashlight or even two cell flashlight you have to keep a close eye on the runtime or run the light on a lower power setting. It is simply unreasonable to expect to find a two ounce all in one light with the runtime, or the power of a 4 x 18650. At any price.

Personally, I use lumoshelmet.co and in addition I often have a Niterider https://www.niterider.com/product/lumina-1100-boost/ attached as well.

you found an old post of mine!

I bought the light in post #1. It easily attaches to my helmet with no modifications, and is super light and unobtrusive - just what I wanted.

It is so low profile I use it as a DRL when commuting in the summer.

I have 4 lights (night rider and cygolite). 250, 350, 500 and 800 lumens.

this 350 light is about as bright as the 250 (also night rider). Its not super bright, but is plenty bright for a lot of purposes.

In deep winter, I like riding with 3 lights (350, 500 and 800). two on the bars and one on the helmet. Its very nice.

For long night rides, I use this little 350 as a spare get me home light, as most of my lights tend to be on there last leg after 3 hours...

there are lights with a separate battery on a cord, so on your helmet is just the light but the battery can be big..

Cavers.. spelunkers, like those.. their life does depend on the.

Yeah, I'm a caver. I just carry spares.

With biking - I carry spares for long rides too...

Battery on a cord worked fine with Halogens back in the day but these days compact units do it all. I don't need no stinkin cords on my helmet! ;-)

Still trying to find a good enough carbide bike headlamp.

too much soot...

Was about to start a new thread, but saw this not-quite-zombie was revived today.

Wife bought this 2-pack from Big 5 yesterday, sale price $8, so $4 ea. For that price, I sent her out to nab another 2-pack, she got the last one just before closing.

They seem pretty light, and pretty bright. Haven't attached to my helmet yet to test out, but at $4 a pop, not much risk. Even regular price of $15/2-pack seems quite a good value. These seem definitely bright enough for be-seen lights, they do red and white, blink and steady. They claim 20h runtime, if that's max runtime at blink, then maybe not so good, but with rechargeable AAAs, recharging them maybe 1-2 nights/week, could work.

I've used lights like that years ago. Good for "to be seen" lights, but kinda weak for actual illumination. Still, I find they make good commuter lights - I like having DRLs on my bike as most drivers now expect vehicles to be lit day or night.

Got one of these strapped on my helmet:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bushnell-...eries/55505076

Incredibly dumb design, IMO; there's no battery indicator, and if there's not enough power for high, it just shuts off rather than going to low. Made worse by the fact that it's press once for high and again for low, so you can't even get to low when the batteries are "weak." If you double click it fast enough, you can usually get through to low eventually, and I've had it work fine on low for >30 minutes when high wouldn't work, so it's clearly not that near dead at that point either.

That said, with fresh batteries, I'm comfortable up to about 12mph with just it, so it is a handy backup for my big 4x18650 headlight as a "see" light on the commute. Also very handy for watching what's not right in front of me when weaving between potholes, or for "sweeping" cars to make it more likely that I have a driver's attention.
Red is good for setting up camp or doing closeup tasks where a white light can be glaring, and blue is good for spotting fluorescent trail markers and such.