With the dark nights upon us, one of the most important things we need is good lighting. There are many powerful front lighting systems on the market ranging from a few pounds up to many hundreds such as the Edison lights from Lupine. Unfortunately there haven't been any comparable rear lights until now.
USA Manfacturer Dinotte Lighting have this to say about their light:
If you thought there isn't a tail light that could ever be bright enough, think again and don't say we didn't warn you. The world's first bicycle tail light to project a beam on the road. A light this bright encourages motorists to slow down and move out of your path when passing you.
UK retailer On-One are the distributors for Dinotte products in the UK.
What's in the box
The packaging for the Dinotte was pretty poor, arriving in just a plastic bag. There also weren't any instructions supplied so we had to download the User Manual from the Dinotte website ourselves.
In the packaging you get:
The Light
External AA battery box (holding 4 x AA batteries)
External battery bag
Velcro fastener to attach the battery bag to the bike
O-ring
Specifications
140 Lumen 3 watt Super LED Weight: 220g with batteries installed 2 year warranty
The tail light uses standard AA batteries and you can either use normal alkalines or rechargeables.
There are four modes of operation, low, medium, high and flash.
Performance and operation
Once you get past the packaging, there is no doubt that this is one seriously bright light as soon as you connect up the battery pack. A few quick flashes highlight the fact this light is something special. The supplied O-ring is used to mount the light to your seat post and the external battery pack is fixed using a strip of velcro to the frame.
One the rear of the light there is just a single button which allows you to cycle through the various modes. There are three steady modes, low medium and high and a flashing mode which is more like a strobe. Both low and flashing are claimed to provide the best battery life at 12 hours. High is the hungriest at 3 hours.
Conclusion
It's not hard to be impressed with the Dinotte tail light. It's easily one of if not the brightest light on the market and will surely get you seen. You could argue perhaps it is too bright and may blind other motorists. But from our experience on the road with this light, other drivers gave us plenty of room and were patient in their overtaking manoeuvres.
On the downside the light is rather fond of batteries and using regular alkaline AA's will be an expensive option. Lithium AA's gave significantly better performance but at much greater cost so most customers will most probably invest in a decent set of rechargeable batteries and a charger.
Strengths
Unbelievable bright Small compact size Light weight
Weaknesses
Expensive Eats batteries Battery pack is not waterproof Lack of mounting options
We give the Dinotte Tail Light a resouding Pedelecs Thumbs Up !
Comments
Comment #1
(Posted by Nick) Rating
I am very pleased with my Dinottes:
1 li-ion tail light
2 li-ion 5W front lights, 1 on bars and 1 on helmet
Rear lights
3 brightness settings, plus flash.
Dimmest setting is way brighter than even the top Cat-Eyes, etc.
Bright enough to see by at 20mph on unlit roads.
Motorists generally leave much wider gap when overtaking.
I use it on flash mode on dull mornings, ditto above.
Front light
2 brightness settings and flash.
Using 1 light on its dimmest setting is bright enough at 20mph on unlit roads. Both lights on full power causes cars to wait at junctions, etc.
In traffic, I use 1 light on full, the other flashing as this seems to get me noticed by motorists in 'busy' environments of heavy traffic, lots of road signs, traffic lights, etc.
Good spread of white light which seems slightly blue compared to halogens.
Can still see where I am going when cars approach from in front or behind on full beam although they always dip now.
All lights
Easy to switch between modes
Charge in a couple of hours
Manufacturer's claims of run-time seem good - 6 hours for the main battery pack, 3 hours for the half-sized helmet one
Easily fitted to bike/helmet using the O rings
Overall
Pricey but wouldn't be without them
Comment #2
(Posted by peter) Rating
there is nothing on the market worldwide to touch this tail light at any price. the quality of manufacture, aesthetics, brightness, and price! Go for the lithium ion recharge battery.Who gives a stuff about packaging it's built so well you don't need it.
Comment #3
(Posted by Jim) Rating
More real person user experience info/photos at http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?page_id=52080
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