Sigma Buster 800 & RL 80 Lightset

The Sigma Buster 800 & RL 80 Lightset is a well-considered pair of LED lights that are good for general commuting duties and easily bright enough to cope with bigger night rides.

If you want to see how they compare with lights sold separately, check out our guides to the best front bike lights and best rear bike lights.

This set consists of a torch-style single-LED front light with a maximum output of 800 lumens, and a small rear seatpost-mount light with two LEDs and 80 lumens of power.

The rear mounts via a simple silicone strap, and is designed for a round surface so it's okay on round seatposts or tubes, but more complex shapes will have it struggling.

The front light clips into a simple-to-fit band clamp that's nice and secure. A silicone bracket is also available, and a GoPro-style adapter is included if you want to hang it below your out-front mount. The '3D rubber' pad – 'convex' is the word Sigma was really looking for there – in the clamp means you can adjust the angle of the light so it sits horizontally on bars that aren't.

Both lights are rated to IPX4 for water resistance, which is probably fine but really is the absolute minimum you'd want, especially for a rear light that might be sitting on your seatpost directly in the spray from your rear wheel. Plenty of lights do better here: Ravemen's range is mostly IPX6, and Lezyne lights are toss-in-a-lake IPX7 rated.

Front light

There's a lot to like about the front light. There are five modes – three solid and two flashing – and a simple LED display on the top of the light to show you which one you're in. It would work better after dark if the other modes were dimly illuminated – or lit up a different colour – so it was even easier to see which one was selected, but it works pretty well when you learn which is where.

Battery life is a row of five white LEDs, and the last LED turns to red and then flashes as you're wringing the last of the juice out of the light.

The single button is small but has a nice positive feel.

As a user interface it's excellent, and you can also choose one of five operation modes that limits the light modes available. So, after dark, you can knock out the flashing modes, for example, if you don't want to cycle through them to get to high beam for the fast bits.

The beam itself is pretty basic: it's just round, but it's narrow enough that you can get plenty of light onto the road and you don't feel like you're being particularly antisocial in the higher modes, although some kind of flattened profile would make better use of the available light.

There are translucent logos on each side of the light to add a bit of side visibility after dark.

The 800-lumen full beam is enough for pretty much any road riding, even barrelling down pitch-black lanes in the middle of the night, and you get about two hours of light from the 3,500mAh battery. Drop down to the lowest 150-lumen setting and you get about nine hours of light, so enough for a full night's riding in the summer, and even that beam is enough to ride at a decent pace. On day flash it'll run for over a day.

Charging is via a well-sealed USB-C port on the bottom of the light.

I found the stated burn-times to be more or less correct. My one gripe is that the 'middle' 450-lumen mode isn't in the middle in terms of run-times. You get two, three and nine hours from the three modes; it would be better if the second mode was a bit less bright and ran for longer.

Rear light

The rear light is good, if unexceptional. There are two solid and three flashing modes, which will give a battery life of between two and 12 hours.

The day flash is bright and focused enough to be used as a daylight running light in most circumstances.

You get a traffic-light-style LED in the rear button which will tell you the state of charge in the battery both when you're using the light and also when you're charging it up from the USB-C port.

It's pretty well matched to the front light as a set and I don't really have much negative to say about it; it's a pity it doesn't work out of the box with aero seatposts, but that's easily mitigated if it's an issue for you.

Value & conclusion

At £75 for the set I'd say this was decent value and a good choice for a wide range of riding. You're getting well-designed and built lights at both ends, and although the main use case is as more of a commuter light there's no reason you couldn't rely on these for a longer excursion into the dark.

If you shopped around and did a bit of mix-and-match you might find a combination that's a bit better in terms of performance for similar money. The very good Ravemen LR1000 has a brighter, flatter beam and some neat features for longer rides, like the ability to run from an external battery, and it's only £60; £15 doesn't buy you much of a rear light but for £24.99 the Cateye Viz 100 is, again, brighter, and will run for 70 hours in eco flash mode.

Having said that, the Sigma lights are, for nearly all purposes, bright enough, and well-matched in terms of output and run-times. They're also easy to use and neatly made. They're pretty easy to recommend if you're sticking them on a bike with mudguards; I think an IPX4 rating is a bit low for a rear light in the firing line of your rear wheel spray, though.

Verdict

Well-designed and easy to use light set for commuting and beyond