Someone posted it last month but now it’s even cheaper.
It is supposed to be a new version with USB-C charging, 4000K XPL-HD and improved UI. All those make it a lot more appealing. It also has an efficient buck driver that sustains a stable 500 lumens for over 3.5 hours with a 21700 cell, and a asymmetric reflector that mimics car low beam.
I mean, I don’t even have a bike but I grabbed one anyway just in case LOL.
The new UI is single click on/off, hold to change mode, double tap for turbo and triple for strobe. Pretty simple, standard UI that works.
From my experience, B01 is good for dog walking but not cycling.
Reason:
Lack of throw in lower settings. It will be more difficult to identify obstacle (e.g a pothole or twigs) in advance.
Yes, you can run it at higher brightness, but runtime will be greatly reduced.
Flood beam is too wide - personally I find it distracting and I did receive unnecessary glares from other park goers.
There’s also the “OFFBONDAGE” brand bicycle light for $8. I don’t know about that one and you’ll have to research it yourself…
So far these black Friday Super Deals for lights haven’t been as good or plentiful as their summer sale a few months back.
The Sofirn IF22A is a good price at $19. The Sofirn HS10 just started showing up in the Super Deals for $12, which is decent, but it was under $10 during the summer sale.
I got one, I like it. Especially for the price. It has a mediocre attempt at a “car beam” (called halvljus in swedish, I cannot remember english word atm) but it’s fine for cycling, it won’t send strong glares at least. If they had tried a bit more with a high CRI emitter and somehow removing the faint imperfections from the uhh attempted projection image it would’ve been a clear winner in the bicycle light race
I missed some one-day deals before. Just keep checking and they will come back up (down?) again. Aliexpress likes to play this psychological game to keep you engaged.
P.S. now they have the Sofirn HS10 for $12 if anyone is interested. I like the size of it, but along with the inefficient, unregulated driver, the battery life is too short to be useful.
IDK what they upgraded to, but the light I received in the last couple of weeks has so much tint shift it looks like a yellow fog light on a car. For its purpose, it seems fine and much more user friendly than most bike lights.
I’m not worried too much about the emitter since I plan to put in a LH351D 5000K in it anyway. How about the UI? Click for on/off rather than hold for off now? USB-C?
Click for off, hold for ramp, 3 clicks for strobe. It won’t turn off will a good pounding even with 18650 flattops. USB-C. Honestly it’s pretty great for it’s purpose for 16$.
I don’t think driver swap is possible. It could be, but it’s gonna be really hard. Since their drivers seem to be snapped / glued in the head and you have all sorts of holes to line up, like switch, USB-Port, diameter, shape, etc.
For most brands other than Convoy, emitter swap could the most you can do without advanced DIY abilities.
It is a buck driver with good regulation and efficiency. I don’t think it’s a good idea to replace it with a linear / FET driver just for Andruil UI. You lose regulation and efficiency for playability? Not worth it IMO. It’s a tool not a toy, otherwise you have bought the wrong thing.
You don’t ever want that the light goes off while riding, which is likely with click = off, especially with non-perfect roads where a long press can get interrupted, see also 2.
on non perfect roads, hold to change is a nightmare. I had the same type of problem with Sigma bikecomputers where for a total reset of the bike trip you had to keep it pressed 3 seconds for reset of the current displayed value, then another 3seconds for a reset of everything. I had to try multiple times while riding. While standing still hold is it is easy, so at the end of a ride, so using that for off is the logical thing to do.
