Niterider Lumina 500 front light

Niterider have introduced the Lumina series to replace its older MiNewt offering, which we liked a lot last year. The Lumina 500 I'm reviewing here sits in the middle, between the 650 and the 300. You'll have worked out that those numbers stand for the light's lumen output.

The Lumina is a self-contained light; the battery is in the light unit, and recharges through a micro USB cable, which is included. It weighs 174 grams, including the bracket.

The light has 5 modes: high, medium, low, flashing and walk. Switching between them with the single button is less than intuitive: push once to switch the light on, in low. Pushing again will up the brightness to medium and then to high, and then cycles back through. Hold the button down for 2 seconds to switch the light off. Hold the button down for 3 seconds for flashing (from off or any of the other modes). Push the button once for walk mode, then you cycle up through the other modes again. Not a biggy, I soon got used to it.

High chucks out 500 lumens, as stated above; medium emits 250 lumens, low 150 lumens and walk mode 40 lumens to get you home. I found Niterider's claimed battery life figures to be about right at 1:30 hrs on high, 3 hrs on medium and 5:30 hrs on low. Walk should give you up to 18 hrs, useful mostly to get you seen in the dark. Flashing mode flashes faster than most, and certainly gets you noticed in traffic.

The blue-lit button turns red when the battery capacity drops down to about 15-20%. I found there to be plenty of battery life remaining to get you home on medium or low. Charge time is around 5-6 hours; the indicator LED will turn from red to blue when the battery's thirst is slaked.

The beam pattern is useful for seeing, but not that great for being seen from the side - there isn't any side visibility. The brightness is mostly focused in the middle of the beam. This is great for riding on road, though for off-road riding I found the spread isn't quite wide enough to look ahead effectively. It's a shame there isn't a helmet mount available for the 500 - you only get one with the 650.

I found medium mode was plenty for most of my commute on dark lanes, switching to high only for long descents. While on paper 1.5 hrs of battery life is limited, I think the 3 hours on medium is the figure to look at, making this one more than a light just for commuting.

The bracket is well designed and clamps solidly on any diameter handlebar, and the light clips on securely too. The light can rotate through 360 degrees on the handlebars, which is useful to direct the beam out of the way of oncoming riders/vehicles/pedestrians.

Niterider warrants the light for the lifetime of the light for mechanical components, 2 years on electrical components and 180 days on rechargeable batteries.

Verdict

Excellent focused beam, great battery life and a neat unit make this a great light for the money