NiteRider Sentinel 150 rear light

Laser beams are cool. The NiteRider Sentinel 150 features four main light modes and three separate laser modes that make a bike path behind your rear wheel. The small buttons are awkward to operate in big gloves, though, and take a lot of pressing to turn the light off. The new mounting bracket is a lot better, though than the one it replaces.

When I first got this light out and found that it beamed down a laser bike path behind me, my first thought was 'cool'. My second thought was more along the lines of 'this might make me look a little silly...' But anything that helps drivers spot you is good, I guess, and it'll certainly help around town. For my country lane commuting the fact that the 'lane' can't be properly seen beyond about 10 metres makes it less useful – but its brightness makes up for it. 

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There's no doubt this light has the ability to make you visible, especially during the day – packing a serious punch with its 'retina searing' 150-lumen daytime blast. It's a slower flash than the night-time modes, and lasts a significant amount of time.

Operating the light is done by two small but prominent buttons on the top of the light. They are spaced very close together, though, which makes using them in gloves quite tricky. It's not the most simple light to use, either: the odd cycling of modes left me pressing buttons for a while before the light and laser turned off. There are much simpler options out there. I also gave up trying to adjust between the flash settings on the move.

Battery life is spot on for the constant beam, which runs the battery down in just over 4 hours. Running the lasers as well will bring that down below 3 hours, but that is still very impressive for such a bright light. Recharge time is 4 hours via a USB port. The port cover was snug and I've had no problems with water ingress from heavy rain.

The Sentinel 150 is quite light for its chunky size and hits the road.cc scales at 1g over the claimed 116g.

> Read more road.cc reviews of rear lights here

The one thing that let down previous versions of this light was the mounting bracket. The locking mechanism tightened by an Allen key, but it just never tightened to the point where it was stable on the seatpost – whatever the diameter. The bolt would slip once you get to a certain tension, which just wasn't sufficient to keep the light in place. Hitting a bump would knock your personal bike lane out of line. Thankfully, NiteRider have released this version with a rubber strap. A simple fix and problem solved!

It also meant I could remove the light quickly when I got to work; the 'quick release' catch is a little fiddly, but it's easier when you get the hang of it.

The NiteRider Sentinel 150 is a brilliant light in itself, with a vastly improved mounting system. It does also make an excellent support light, attached to a bag, and whatever I think of the laser bike lane feature, I'm sure it will be very useful in city centre riding where everything is close together, though it becomes less useful when riding on faster roads.

Verdict

Super-bright with added lasers but requires a lot of button pressing