P.S. Re: The video from above - the video notes say that's the 140, not the 300. That's half the light output of a car tail light, and less than half the output of a 300.

The Dinotte 300R on high steady mode is roughly as bright as an incandescent car brake light, and neither the brake light nor the 300R on high steady are inappropriately bothersome in traffic. That holds true by my eyesight and the photo approximates what I see. I don't run my brighter lights in flashing mode at night.

The Dinotte model numbers don't indicate the lumens, at least not universally. The 140 requires external batteries; the 300 is self contained and has more mounting options. I've read that the 300R claimed lumens is 150. I've read that the 140 is actually brighter, or perhaps it only appears so because the light is coming from a smaller point; the 300R is spread through a lens.

Check that, from Dinotte

Looks like lupine has a new tail light out. Very compact, self contained and (my German is not good) about 160 lumens. Looks to be in the same size range as the Hotshot and the others. If so, that's a lot of light capability in a small package.

Lupine Lighting Systems - Produkte ? Rotlicht ? Rotlicht

J.

This is interesting:

Brake light function: During a braking operation, the brightness of the lamp is increased.

Brightness Sensor: Automatic brightness control depending on the ambient light.

More Google Translate -- those ingenious functions do look interesting:
And more from enduro-mtb.com:
And a beam shot is available here -- unfortunately there's no car tail light or any other tail light comparison available there.

No matter what, the price point of $189 is the stopper for most rider's wallet, especially when there are so many other choices.

Even if you are a cautious rider willing to part with more money to achieve a perceived benefit, there might be less justification when trying to attract the attention of a distracted or impaired motorist.

Two hotshots and you're good to go.

Very true. Most riders will spend their next 189 cycling dollars on supplements, or replacing a saddle, part of a wheel, or other components. My suspicion is that most US riders will get more value from spending more on safety related features than on lighter weight or the latest supplement ingredients. And if we spent more on safety related features the industry would provide more options and quality ultimately at lower cost. But trending from the perception of buying speed or bling to the perception of buying safety is not on the horizon.

For the same money I'd suggest getting one or two Axiom Pulse 60s. As bright but much better pattern, very close to the same money. I wouldn't buy another Hotshot with this on the market.

Two of practically anything, and it beats the $189 price tag.

Two $5 PBSF clones and you've beat all the Axioms, Hotshots or any of the rest. More dollars yield diminishing returns. But some people value the quality and increased light to pay the extra dollars. Perhaps they believe that the higher priced lights slightly improve their comfort riding in traffic, or slightly reduce the odds they'll be hit.

The Dinotte 300R and equivalent lights are a lot more light and a lot more visible than two PBSF. I've had both.

J.

After trying cheap clones, I discovered the aggravation over time. I want something that takes "a lick'n and keeps on tick'n".

You know you've mentioned this light more than a couple times now and since I already own one of the Performance Axiom front flashers and have been quite pleased with it I'm gonna have to check out the Pulse 60 rear model myself. To me it looks like a Moon Shield clone rear lamp only with a slightly different look to the lens. The Moon Shield is very bright and if the Axiom Pulse 60 is anything like the Shield than it is one nice bright rear light. Ever since I broke the clip ( my fault ) on back of the Shield I've been dying to buy a new one. I still use the one I have but I had to jury-rig a mount to use on my MTB bike for those rides when I park a distance from the trail-head.

About the Hotshots, yes I understand as I have one of those too. I would buy a Hotshot again because even though the beam pattern is narrow you can't beat the UI of the Hotshot. The Hotshot can also work for group rides because on steady mode you dial down the output as much as you want ( being stepless ). Yep, I'd love to have a Moon Shield with the Hotshot UI.

I do however like the set-up with the DiNotte quad rear. If I could afford one I would buy it. Thing is I really don't need it as I have no doubts that I am quite visible from the rear riding at night with what I already own.

Uh, no. Even proper PBSF are pretty weak by today's standards. When I drive past them on the road they're not really all that noticeable. The clones are even worse. I've got a couple of PBSFs, they were great when I bought them 6 or 7 years ago, but we can do far better now.

It depends somewhat on your environment. I feel that I need really good taillights - I ride in pitch black on deserted rural roads at 5 in the morning with drivers who are half asleep, sucking on a coffee doing 65 MPH on 2 lane roads with no shoulder and blind corners and hills. I need to wake them the heck up really fast, not just be some vague red thing floating along over...BAM...what was that?

The other video seemed pretty convincing to me in showing that the dinote 140l was brighter than a tail light.

In your picture it fairly clearly hit the dynamic range limit of the camera so it's not displaying how bright the light is - you can tell because both lights are white, when the actual color is red. The camera's sensor gets maxed out at a certain point (with certain exposure settings, you'd need lower exposure settings to see the difference) and above that point all light no matter how much brighter looks the same - it comes across in the pic as being white.

Here's a pic that illustrates -


And another one:


Where it's white in the middle it's just saying "these could be dramatically different brightness, the camera just can't handle it". You need at least one of them being red to compare, if one is red and the other is white, the white is brighter.

That also doesn't get at that, as illustrated by your pic, the car tail light covers a much wider area - it's not a pinpoint of light. The same light over a wider area doesn't affect the eyes as much.

I'm not saying a 140l is a hazard on the road though, at least if it's aimed on the street and not directly back into someone's eyes. But it's absurd to pretend that bike tail lights have not already reached the point of being as bright or brighter than car tail lights, like some posters have tried to say.

P.S. I re-read your post and see that you're saying the photo is about what you feel you see, that's just difficult to debate over the internet, so I guess I don't have much to add. My 140l according to what my own eyes see is definitely brighter than a car tail light (not absurdly so, but brighter) so a light with a little more than double the light output seems like it has to be even brighter.

I don't for sure if the 300r is actually bothersome in traffic, as I do not own one and have not seen anyone with one. I have recently several front lights that are bothersome in traffic, even though the person is on the complete opposite side of the street from where I am in my car, so eventually bike lighting does hit that point.

I'm a little confused - I think you're saying the 300r *is* definitely brighter than the 140l by the end, right? I think...

Well that's really interesting - a tail light that automatically adjusts to be much brighter in the day, and less bright at night sounds pretty cool regarding concerns about the light becoming blinding (or the annoyance of having to use multiple rear lights to cover what one rear light should be able to do)...

At night? Where I am, it seems like the clones or lights with low batteries are not very visible, but the regular planet bike rear lights are very, very visible far down the road.

Your riding conditions sound...terrifying...lol, well maybe it's not terribly funny.

Anyone who runs retina searing taillights on dark MUPs is very inconsiderate of their fellow riders. Anything to get those lights turned down would help.

Agreed. I think that is part of the reason why the Dinotte 140R appears as a brighter light at its center; it's not as bright as the 300R but the 300R's light is immediately spread over a bigger lens than the 140's.

Remember that the Dinotte tail light model numbers do not necessarily correspond evenly to actual lumens. The 300R claimed lumens is, I read, 150. That would make sense since the new quad tail light's claimed lumens are 200. I don't think the 300R presents twice as bright as the 140R to the human eye. mechBgon described it as:

The 300R's lumens are below (if 150) or in the middle (if 300) of a single brake light of a car. As you and I say, light is more bothersome to the human eye the more concentrated it is. I find the 300R on high steady to be roughly as bothersome as a car's incandescent tail light (not the brightest bulb there is) even up close.

A crucial factor in the youtube link posted earlier which you've referred to is that the Dinotte in that video was flashing. Flashing lights appear brighter to the human eye than does the same light on steady. You can't easily compare the actual brightness of a flashing bike light and a steady car tail light or brake light. And the same LED flashing affects us differently than on steady. Flashing may be more valuable in the daytime when you're competing with the sun; at night I run my brighter lights on steady.

From REAR LIGHTING CONFIGURATIONS FOR WINTER MAINTENANCE VEHICLES

From this page:
NEW Quad RED Taillight with built in battery ? DiNotte Lighting USA Online Store

The Quad RED replaces the DiNotte 300R. It is 50 grams lighter, substantially smaller and has even better side visibility. It is approximately 30% brighter than the 300R.

What you're saying is possible, but not having seen one in person I'm not sure. Haven't been able to tell how big it is from the pics yet. If it has a bigger surface area, that could certainly work better.

You bring up a good point.

I don't know - Dinotte used to rate it's lights by the # corresponding to the lumen output. It didn't say in a quick search on their site, I'm not sure that it's true that the #'s which are obviously meant to sound like lumen counts are not actually lumen counts. My 140L seemed like it was probably 140 lumens, relative to my 200L.

I'm not sure what else to say - your post sounds fairly reasonable in it's reasoning (even if I disagree), so I don't really want to put it this way but I can't think of any other way to put it - I just don't believe it. Every time there's a lighting discussion, someone is trying to make wild claims that bike lights are nowhere near car lights and it's simply not true. I've seen my car tail lights on my garage wall, I've seen my Dinotte 200L (for sure supposed to be 200 lumens) on my garage wall. I've ridden behind cars on the road, and I've had people ride behind me with my 140L on the road as well. Despite being on steady, the 140L was simply worse than the car tail lights - lots of complaints, none with the car tail lights.

I don't know if the 300 is an eyesore or not, as I do not own one. Since I couldn't find a pic showing me it's relative size, I can't really make an educated guess about the point you bring up about a larger surface area. It could be true - certainly the 140L was a pinpoint of light. Maybe they did a much better job of fixing that in this version.

I can only say that I definitely think bike rear lighting exists right now that is the same or brighter than a car tail light. And that there's definitely a point where rear lighting becomes severely obnoxious. Whether the 300 on steady reaches that I don't know. It's definitely going to be *far* more distracting if it was on flashing. (Though that's not to say that most people would run it on flashing at night).

From REAR LIGHTING CONFIGURATIONS FOR WINTER MAINTENANCE VEHICLES[/QUOTE]

None of those apply to taking a video then taking a screenshot of it and posting it as a pic, though.

Someone else mentioned a bright rear light with a built in light sensor that adjusts the light output - that definitely sounded interesting.

I own a 300R and I own two cars. The 300R is about as noticeable as a single car tail light on a practical basis. Not blinking, it is less.


No. There is nothing to support this in terms of lumen production nor in terms of practical use if you put these things side by side on the road. Yes, lights can appear intense on certain axis but so do LED tail lights of cars for that matter. Our brightest bike lights are only reaching the low end (minimum) of lighting specs for car tail lights and they are only 20-50% the maximum.

We're not there and not even particularly close. Perhaps you are more sensitive to lighting than other people or something. The lights are not brighter than current lights on the roadway and there are lots and lots and lots of blinking lights with which motorists deal with each time they get in their car and drive at night. We don't have a problem here.

FWIW, a standard car incandescent flashing tail light is pretty obnoxious if you get close enough too.

J.

While Dinotte annoyingly isn't listing lumen output for their 300l rear light, here's the page for the 400l -
400L Taillight (LI - Endurance series (lithium-ion rechargeable))

Where it says "300 Lumen Taillight".

I posted a screenshot from the video someone posted of the previous (and dimmer than the 200) 140L where it's a brighter light source than the car tail lights -


I find it nearly impossible to believe that a single car tail light is putting out 300 lumens, seems like by your estimation it's putting out more than 300 lumens - something I find even more impossible to believe. I used to ride with 200 lumens - it was a lot brighter than my car tail lights. If it's somehow putting out that kind of power, it's definitely doing something to make it non-blinding that bike lights are not doing.

Car lights don't exist in a magical separate reality, they use lights just like bike lights do. And modern bike lights don't have a problem putting out similar or occassionally greater power than car lights.

I believe the 300R puts out 200 lumens. Lux, I don't know.

What car lights put out depends on the car and the bulb (or now, LED). Without spending the $70 to get a copy of the SAE spec what I've been able to find is that there are minimum lumen levels but nothing that indicates maximum for cars (vehicles in general). So if you want to go buy the spec to verify this, knock yourself out.

I did go out and verify this against the tail lights on our car with the 300R right alongside of it at night. The 300R is maybe, as a point source, would seem to be about 20% brighter than diffused tail light but the overall effect is about the same as the much larger flashing tail light. In other words, it's not different by much and it's largely immaterial. incidentally, both car and 300R were flashing.

The points that needs to be made are threefold:

1. In practice, and verified with my bright lights, the 300R is no more intrusive than a bright car tail lights when viewed from a reasonable distance such as a car would see when approaching a bicycle so equipped from behind. I believe the video posted supports that point accurately. There is even less of a discrepancy when I take my 300R and place it near the tail lights on my SUV that has LEDs providing the illumination.

2. If you look at a 300R in close proximity (i.e. arm length), it is painful to look at. Noteworthy is that the same thing happens from the same distance with those LED tail lights. I would note that if a vehicle driver gets this close of a look at your 300R it's likely because you are going up and over his windshield and is not a useful case.

3. The only place this is an issue is on this forum and with a small number of individuals. When it becomes a big issue and it is such that it is deemed a hazard to transportation, then I'm sure we'll find regulations and statutes put in place to deal with it. When that happens, then it's worth the debate. Now, it's presupposing a problem that might never happen. Until then, if it bothers you and you think we all need to change our behavior, write your legislator.

Until then, if you don't like them, don't use them. If you are worried that it would be annoying to you driving a car, then don't drive at night. There are not statutes that prohibit it. Few cyclists have them. Even if a LOT of cyclists had them, there are far fewer cyclists on the road at night than vehicles and most police are probably grateful they don't have to go out and pick up run over cyclists. "Annoying" doesn't mean anything and is highly subjective to the point of being useless. So it's a waste of time.

If you want annoying, try getting arrested for vehicular manslaughter or sued for wrongful death after you run over a cyclist you didn't see. Personally, as a vehicle driver, I'd find that "annoying" and would prefer that all cyclists have lights as bright as a 300R so they are plainly visible when riding at night.

J.