GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Owleye makes solar-powered bike-lights, but don’t worry if you forgot to leave one on the window-ledge all day – you can quickly juice the built-in li-ion batteries via USB.

The lamp in question is the catchily-named 1996-906. Like all Owleye’s other lights, it has solar-panel on the side which will provide enough charge for 90 minutes if left to soak in the photons for two-hours. LEave it in the sun for four hours and switch the 200-lumen LED to flashing-mode and you can enjoy six-hours of night-biking.

The trick here is that you don’t need to turn the house-lights on if its a cloudy day, or to charge the lamp overnight. With the 1996-906, you can just plug in to a handy USB-port or charger and juice it that way.

The idea is a good one – I hate buying batteries or even swapping-out rechargeables. The lights are also small, so you can keep them handy in a backpack or pocket. They’re not cheap, however. Online, this model is going for $80 a set. If you don’t need the USB option, Owleye makes cheaper, bulkier lamps starting at $20.

Owleye product page [Owleye via Urban Velo]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

I like Knog bicycle lights. They’re cheap, bright, tough and more-or-less waterproof, and their rubbery bodies make them as easy to mount on the bike as they are to toss in your bag. What I don’t like is buying batteries, whether they’re AAAs or button cells. That’s why I’m excited about the Boomer Rechargeable, a USB version of Knog’s 50-lumen Boomer.

The light was spotted by the good folks from Urban Velo on a trip to the recent Interbike show. The Boomer Rechargeable works like every other Knog lamp: a plastic core containing the electronics and LEDs is wrapped in a stretchy silicone cover. The difference is that when you slip the skin off this one, you see a USB plug which you can jack into a computer or charger. It could hardly be better for a commuter who rides to work on dark winter days.

The regular Boomer costs $35, so expect this to be a little more. The lamp isn’t yet live on the site, but (hopefully) will be soon.

Knog Boomer Rechargeable [Urban Velo]

Knog Boomer [Knog]

Photo: Urban Velo

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

A while back, the folks at Portland Design Works sent over a couple bike lights, a set containing the Spaceship and the Radbot. After opening them up and almost blinding myself, I set out to test them, with the intent of killing them. Read on to find out if they survived.

The kit consists the Radbot 500, a 0.5-watt red LED powered by a pair of AAA batteries, and the Spaceship, running on two AAs, which shines its white LED through a “German-engineered lens” and will “withstand rain showers and meteor showers,” (according to the blurb).

I started out the test in Barcelona, but it quickly became clear that the hot temperatures, lack of rain and smooth roads weren’t going to tax these lamps. Worse, Barcelona is so well lit at night that you really don’t need lights on your bike (although the law says otherwise). So I took the pair to a rather more difficult terrain: Berlin, Germany.

Berlin is almost bankrupt, which means long stretches of unlit road and teeth-rattling cobbled streets. It is also in the North of Europe, which gives it hot, dry days (up to 40-degrees, or 100 F) punctuated by cold nights and day-long thunderstorms. It is, in short, a very tough place for bikes and bike accessories.

The lamps do their most important job admirably. They’re ridiculously bright: the red Radbot alone can illuminate a whole room at night, and that’s when its still strapped on my rucksack, pointing in the wrong direction. The Spaceship’s tight beam, a mere curiosity in Barcelona, was essential when cycling through the pitch-black Mauerpark at night, picking out a glowing ellipse on the ground in front to illuminate a safe path between the potholes and broken beer-bottles.

The lights are removable. The Spaceship clamps onto the handlebars with a wraparound collar and a finger-operated screw to tighten it. It stays in place, even over the cobbles. The Radbot comes with a few different fixings. I clip it to the Brooks tool-bag hanging from my saddle, but you can screw an adapter to the light-mount on a rack, the seat-stay or the seat-post.

Despite hanging on tight, I managed to drop both lights plenty of times (usually while trying to drunkenly fix them onto the bike, post-beer-garden). They bounced, and neither of them has even a crack (yet. I’m still trying). Both lamps have also sat outside in Berlin rainstorms: They’re waterproof.

Problems? Very few. While the Radbot needs a long, 1.5-second press on the power switch to turn it on and off (to stop it lighting up in a bag), the Spaceship doesn’t, and actually switched itself on in my bike-bag on its air-trip here. Also, to change the batteries, you need to unscrew the lights to open them. A minor pain, as the screw-shut cases are what keeps the rain out. Otherwise, they come highly recommended (especially the Radbot’s cool pulsing flash-mode). The Spaceship even doubles as a handy weapon with which to blind rival bike-polo players (I have tested this).

Available now in a set for $45.

Spaceship/Radbot 500 [PDW. Thanks, Dan!]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews