Price: £129.99 / $159.99
Max Lumens: 2600
Weight: 196.3g (with out mount and distant)
Battery Life: 1.5-14.5hrs
How is it not March but? Testing the perfect bike lights available on the market means there’s actually no excuse for me to not head out, even when the solar continues to insist on setting at what seems like 3pm. Luckily, in current weeks I’ve been placing the Magicshine Ray2600B via its paces, mounted as much as varied completely different bikes and heading out to see the way it performs.
The excessive degree, for these of you unwilling to decide to scrolling additional, is that whereas I fairly preferred the illumination, and the distant management performance, the consumer interface was just a little complicated. Even now I nonetheless must Google the way to flip the flashing mode on, which isn’t superb if you’re already late for work, it’s 4ºC and drizzling.
Naturally, there’s extra to it than that. It’s an honest mild that works properly sufficient to cowl each street and gravel duties. Would or not it’s my first alternative? Probably not, however for the worth – typically the place Magicshine lights shine, for need of a greater phrase – it gives actually good worth.
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Design and aesthetics
Rare is it {that a} new bike mild gives one thing aside from ‘large tube with bulbs on the entrance’. The Outbound Lighting Detour combined it up with ‘large sideways rectangle with bulbs on the entrance’, and I’ve additionally been testing the Magicshine Evo1700SD which has gone for ‘medium dice with bulb on the entrance’. Here although, with the Magicshine Ray 2600B you get ‘large tube with bulbs on the entrance’.
On the highest of the oblong physique are the management switches, which illuminate to point out the battery degree. There’s an up and a down button, which you’ll consider merely as brightness controls, nevertheless it’s just a little extra advanced than that in use.
On the entrance there are two LED bulbs with a mixed lumen output of 2600, as you most likely already guessed from its identify. In distinction to lights just like the Knog Blinder Pro 600 or 900 the place two bulbs are spot beams and two are floodlights with a wider throw, each of the bulbs are successfully a large throw. The Ray2600B tends to make use of one among them, drawing on the opposite as an analogy to a automobile’s full-beam (or excessive beam for those who’re in North America) performance.
Mounting is taken care of by a Garmin quarter-turn mount, so if for any cause you needed to run this in a Garmin mount designed for a pc, you may. Likewise, you should use the included mild mounts to mount your Garmin bike pc.
Included within the field is a bar mount, which has three completely different strap choices to deal with each spherical and deeper aero handlebars. The laborious plastic of the bracket does imply that it’s very laborious to rotate the sunshine away from horizontal. A GoPro fashion bracket can be included for mounting the sunshine underneath a motorbike pc too, as is my desire.
Unlike most bike lights, the Magicshine Ray2600B is pre-dipped, that means it’s designed to be fitted to the bars completely horizontal (give or take just a little bit for private desire). In observe, that is nice and negates the difficulty on aero bars of not having the ability to rotate the sunshine across the bars a lot. However, mount it the wrong way up underneath a motorbike pc at a standard angle and the sunshine will likely be primarily contributing to native mild air pollution somewhat than illuminating the street forward as I discovered very swiftly. You can run it the wrong way up, however at a really jaunty angle, so it’s best to only have it the best method up.
Handily, for those who do sling it beneath your pc, a distant management is included that confusingly doesn’t fairly mirror the controls on the sunshine itself. I’ll get into the weeds of this shortly. The distant mounts through a Velcro strap, so you may put it wherever you please. I tended to go for the highest of the bars close to the stem, however I’ve seen it within the criminal of the bars earlier than. My chosen winter biking gloves are knitted, so did are likely to get snagged on the Velcro, however it is a very area of interest gripe and will simply be solved with some zip ties.
Finally, on the characteristic entrance, the sunshine can be utilized as an influence financial institution. Just pop a USB-C to USB-C cable in and away you go. It’s a neat characteristic that, whereas I by no means wanted to utilize it, might enable you out in a bind.
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Performance
Once I labored out that the sunshine must be mounted the best method up for me to have the ability to see the place I’m going, or a minimum of pointed drastically downwards if it was the wrong way up (a little bit of an aesthetic crime I have to say) I’ve little or no to complain about with regards the illumination. The Magicshine 2600B has maybe essentially the most mellow minimize off of any bike mild I’ve used of late, with no actual hotspots to talk of. It’s not essentially my desire – as primarily a roadie I discover mild unfold far and huge just a little wasted – however if you’re using off-road in addition to on it then I feel it makes loads of sense.
And now, to the management scheme. You’d suppose having an up and a down button would make life simple however that doesn’t appear to be the case. To change the sunshine on you maintain both of the buttons on the sunshine itself for a number of seconds. The down button lowers the brightness, the up raises it – up to now so easy, proper? If you wish to interact the excessive beam you double faucet both button, and as soon as the excessive beam is engaged you should use the up and down buttons as regular, giving three brightness choices at a better output. Double-tap once more to show it off.
This management scheme isn’t mirrored by the distant although. What appears to be like like up and down buttons it’s good to consider as ‘sq.’ and ‘circle’, because it’ll rely which method spherical you mount the distant. Circle cycles via the brightness modes constantly, whereas sq. engages excessive beam on the highest depth, and reverts again to the earlier setting with one other single press. If, nonetheless, you interact excessive beam after which press circle, excessive beam switches off and also you don’t get to cycle via the upper brightness choices. If you DOUBLE PRESS circle you interact the excessive beam and it then stays on, permitting you to cycle the upper output modes, and solely one other double press of circle turns it again to the conventional brightness.
From what I can inform you may’t flip the flash mode on with out the distant. In order to show the flash mode on it’s good to DOUBLE PRESS sq., and double press it once more to get the second flashing possibility. A single press of sq. will flip the flash off.
In all honesty, that is too difficult for a motorbike mild and makes the consumer expertise somewhat difficult. The distant is helpful, but when the battery dies it shouldn’t take away one of many foremost options (flash) till a coin cell battery might be sought. In use, I tended to only stick it on medium brightness on the only bulb, and press sq. after I was descending to allow excessive beam.
There is meant app performance, whereby one can change the modes and brightness settings, which might I think about make life just a little simpler to make use of. Sadly, on the time of testing the Magicshine app isn’t out there on the Play Store, and the hyperlinks on the Magicshine web site to obtain it don’t work so I’ve been unable to play with this half.
There can be sensible performance, mechanically brightening the sunshine when coming into a tunnel. But this isn’t one thing I’ve been in a position to confirm whether or not it really works or not. In actuality auto-brightening/dimming methods like these discovered on the Exposure Strada are delicate. In any case, a single press of the sq. button (or was it a double press with one eye shut?) would work simply as properly if the tunnel you’re frequenting proves to be insufficiently illuminated.
Finally, the battery life. Magicshine claims a 1.5-hour life in excessive mode, which tracks with my experiences. Using it on jaunts after work for a few hours, the place I used excessive beam lots, I did come residence with the battery indicator illuminated crimson, signifying the cost was someplace between 11-20%. With conservative use of the excessive beam, I see no cause to doubt the quoted cost occasions, although naturally, your mileage could differ relying totally on the ambient temperature.
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Value
The RRP for the Magicshine Ray2600B is £129.99 / $159.99, which is cheaper than related brightness choices from the likes of Cateye. Value is often a powerful go well with for Magicshine, and is without doubt one of the causes the SEEMEE300 rear mild is my choose for the perfect in that exact class.
Here it’s no completely different, and whereas it isn’t such blinding worth because the SEEMEE300, you do get lots in your cash when it comes to energy, options (difficult or in any other case) and mounts.
Verdict
The Magicshine Ray2600B is a high quality mild that’s solely actually let down by having an excessively difficult consumer interface. The mild high quality is nice, with a beam throw that’s huge sufficient and easy sufficient in transition to make it greater than appropriate for off-road use in addition to on the street. Mounting choices are top quality, however these wishing to mount it beneath a pc could not just like the angle it has to take a seat at.
The distant management is helpful, however sadly the present lack of app performance meant I couldn’t tune it to be as helpful as I think it may very well be.
Design and aesthetics | Well designed, with sturdy mounts and a tonne of options like energy financial institution functionality. The angle of the beam does imply mounting it the wrong way up is not so easy. | 8/10 |
Light high quality | If you want a really huge, low cutoff beam then this will likely be up your road, It’s good for off-road, however does imply there are some wasted lumens on the street. | 8/10 |
Control Scheme | Really fairly complicated – much less could be extra, and even simply making the distant match the primary mild controls would assist | 6/10 |
Battery life and charging | I’ve no cause to doubt the battery life figures. They’re respectable, if not earth shattering | 8/10 |
Value | For the worth you do get lots for the cash, as is usually the way in which with Magicshine. | 9/10 |
Overall | Row 5 – Cell 1 | 78% |