[Honest Review] ASTROLUX BL02 bike light/flashlight/power bank

My review of the ASTROLUX BL02 bike light/flashlight/power bank, it features a high and low beam like a car - a steal at $22.99!

In the video, the light came on in high mode and you tapped through mid, low, obnoxious blinky modes. Does the light always turn on high, or do you have to go through the obnoxious blinky modes to get back to high.

Hey Flashaholic, just saw the video, thank you for your work
My favorite part ” I don’t have a bike because I’m a fat bastard but the bracket gripped the kids bike handles tightly ”
You’re a legend, bless you
Renato

What a positively hideous UI, though. That itself would prevent me from getting one.

And a G3? Ugh, even behind a TIR, what a nasty tint-shifty beam. I thought a TIR would tame the nasty urine-yellow corona a lot more, but I guess not. (The only usable lights I got with G3s are slathered with diffusion film.)

Damn, I had such high hopes…

Always with the positive waves.

Just got mine today. The light always turns on at high mode.

The UI isn’t actually too bad, although it could be better. Both the high and low beams have a good antiglare horizontal cut off, better than my fenix BC30 and Gemini Duo with glowworm wide optics, hence running both leds at the same time at all times makes sense.

For both leds it’s essentially: double click -> high, single click cycles med~~low, double click from any mode~~>back to high (and avoid off). This is the UI that I would imagine most cyclists would use.

If you’re just doodling around the city and only want to use the low beam (for what ever reason, high plus low beam still gives as good a cutoff) then you have to go cycle through all modes, including SOS which is completely irrelevant. Then again if you’re just doodling, why would you need to change modes??? Another trick to avoid blinky modes and off is to change from low beam to high beam and back to low again (essentially 2 clicks). This is all pretty irrelevant though, it’s nice to have the option to use a single led, but for reasons given above most cyclists would be using the former UI.

The overall build quality is solid, however the rubber cap at the back could have been designed better, mine seems to sit in fairly loose and there are no protrusions that enter the ports directly, it’s just a flat piece of rubber. Whether or not this is enough to keep out moisture during rain, I have doubts.

Modding this light would be difficult, it’s solid and glued with no obvious way to take it apart. In that regard it is bomb proof.

Choice of XPG-3’s isn’t bad either. They’re fairly efficient at lower amperages, according to Djozz’s review they outperform XPL’s at around 600 lumens per led.

After a bit more use, I’ll have to renege what I said earlier about the “UI not too being bad”. Problem with double clicking to get back to high while cycling (and avoiding off) isn’t always easy to pull off. If you don’t double click fast enough then the light will turn off and you’re riding in the dark. The other issue is the light momentarily switches off after double clicking which is a bit unnerving. This is something that definitely needs to be improved on. A long press for “on/off” and short press to cycle low/med/high would be far better.

Mmmmm, I stand behind my “positively hideous UI” statement. :laughing:

I got one for Jr. He’s pretty happy with it once we got the angle right. I don’t have high standards for bike light, it’s not like it’s a torch! :smiley:

The most uninformative “review” I’ve ever seen!

It’s a bike light! I am not interested in walking around. How does it perform on a bike?