Thanks for tuning in this is The Sweet
Cyclist and today we're going to be
reviewing the Lupine SL AF 4 bicycle
headlight. Here we have the Lupine SL
AF 4 in its original packaging. This is a
light we're really excited to get our
hands on. You might be more familiar with
Lupine due to their mountain bike lights,
they're pretty well known for their
amazing build quality and high output.
The SL is one of their first and only
road bike lights. It was originally
conceived as an ebike light and was later
adapted for an external
battery pack. They're a german-based
company so you have the StVZO
certification for this road bike light
as well really nice packaging here.
It has a magnetic clasp here to secure the
lid on. Let's go ahead and open this up
and go over the specs while we do that.
The retail price for this is $535
and you heard that correctly. The AF 7
which has a higher battery capacity is an
additional $60 so that comes out to $595.
You might be
wondering why is it so expensive, the
reason for that is the amazing build
quality and this dual aspherical lens
system. They describe this as the world's
first and it results in a really clean
beam cut off that you don't typically
see with headlights, it's also really
beautifully built as you can see so
all-metal. You have a glass lens here, you
have 18 led design which
are all Osram LEDs with an integrated DRL
on the edges. Battery wise you get the
3.5aH SmartCore battery and
these are really nice as well. You get
a nice velcro strap and you can check the
battery capacity by simply clicking on
it with audio and visual cues as well.
The AF 7 as I mentioned has double
this capacity at 6.9mAh. Inside
the box you get a number of parts,
you get the remote with this set and
again build quality is really amazing
here. You don't really see any
plastic, everything's either metal or
really nice rubber texture to it. This is
the Bluetooth remote which has an
integrated battery, you get the handlebar
mount for that remote.
You get an additional strap here
for the battery pack, and a wall
charger. As you can see the packaging
is really well done, you have all this
nice foam cut out. The wall charger
is for the US market and you get stickers which
is always nice to have. As well as a
couple tools here the tools here are for
adjusting the tightness of the position
here. Now let's take a look at the weight
of the Lupine SL AF 4. The battery pack
here which is smaller than the AF 7 comes
in at a 140g, the
remote with the Pepe v5 mount
comes in at 14g.
Finally the headlight with the supplied
quick release mount and that comes in at
118 grams. Now let's take a closer look
at the fit and finish of the Lupine SL
light.
Considering the high price point you
would certainly expect excellent build
quality and Lupine definitely does not
disappoint there. You have an all aluminum
housing body here with these fins built
in directly. You have two ambient light
sensors directly on the back as well as
this SL cut out and this will actually
illuminate when you first plug in the
battery. So if I go ahead plug it in you
can see that illuminates, this also turns
on when you have the high beam on which
is a nice feature. Out front you have the
a spherical lens and this is really one
of the big reasons I would really
consider buying this light.It
results in a really crisp being cut off
so that 1300 lumens is not wasted on the
trees above you instead it's on the road
with a nice trapezoidal style beam. So a
really nice feature and something you
typically don't see in headlights. Obviously
it's a lot bulkier than you would have
with a compact commuter style light but
it's certainly worth it.
You can also kind of see the lens
design here if I rotate it on camera. You
can see the LEDs on the inside and as I
rotate that they get a little bit warped
as they've really tuned the inside of
this lens to fine-tuned beam
pattern. you also get these DRL which is
a great feature. So if I turn that on
here you can see they're not flashing
but they're more than bright enough to
really draw attention especially when
you're riding in the daytime. The
ambient light sensor is also really nice
touch as it automatically will turn on
and off the DRLS. The handlebar mount out of the box
is this one arm cam design, and it's offset
as well which means you can mount it to
the left of your stem and wrap the wiring
underneath your stem for a really clean
installation. It's also tool free as you
can simply pop this off. They do offer
GoPro adapters that would connect here
if you want to use your own out in front
amount. So overall really impressed with
this and the IP68 rating as well as
impact rating means this should out
survive your bike. Also Lupine
offers quite a bit of configuration
options with this, I've never seen so
many options from a headlight. If you
hold the button underneath for
ten flashes you have ten different
configuration options. You can adjust
the delay between day and night modes
from the factory three seconds to a 16
second delay and I'd actually recommend
that as I found it flickers back and
forth especially as you go through trees
and you're right at that cusp of day and
night. You can adjust the light setting
so instead of using the factory 1300
lumens for the high beam and the 850 for
the low beam, you can actually use that
for both the low and high beam. You can
also use a lower setting for the high
beam and a lower setting for the low
beam. You can disable the ambient light
sensor if you don't like it and make it
a manual operation. That'll make it
so that you have to hold the bottom button down for
two seconds to activate the DRL.
Now let's take a closer look at the
remote, it is another nice feature
they've added. Using the handlebar mount
you can simply place this wherever you
need to be for a convenient access.
To operate the light you simply press it
on once with the big button,
this is of current factory
settings. You would then press the small
button to activate the dimmer normal
mode and the big button to go in the high beam
mode. Here I don't have enough ambient
light to trigger the night mode but when
the high beam is on this bun will back
illuminate. It's the cool feature and
also this will go red once the battery's
low.
Let's take a closer look at the battery
pack, Lupine describes us as their SmartCore
battery and this is the smaller
capacity version that comes with the AF
4. As you can see it's really compact and
it has some nice features as well. It has
this nice rubber mount here to offset it
off your frame and prevent it from
marring. I really like the especially
compared to other battery packs which
tend to scratch it up. You have a really
strong velcro strap here to hold it to
your top tube or wherever you like
wherever else you'd like to mount it. As
I mentioned the connectors are really
nice here which means this should be
durable enough and last. This is a
hard case as well so it can definitely
handle a beating.
The other thing that's really cool about
this is the battery indicator status.
If I do one click you can here you get
five audible beeps that correspond to
the five LEDs so this is fully charged.
As the battery charge goes lower the
different LEDs will illuminate and the
audio cues will also update which is a
really nice feature, I've never seen an
audio cue with an external battery pack.
It also has two additional modes which
are quite cool. If I do two clicks
you have what they call taillight
mode and this keeps all five LEDs
illuminated so you can actually use this
as a makeshift taillight
for additional illumination. If you
press it again that will disable that mode. A
more interesting mode is also a moving
mode, so if I do one - two - three clicks now I get
the Knight Rider style kind of scanning
mode. This is great, again you can use
this as a taillight for additional
illumination and the moving LEDs will
attract additional visibility in the
dark.
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So now let's compare the Lupine SL
versus some other lights on the market.
Although I don't have any other $500
lights I have two Magicshine lights I
think provide a pretty good comparison.
So first let's compare the SL versus the
Magicshine 906. This has a theoretical
output of 5,000 lumens with the five
Cree LEDs. However it's more
realistically around 3000 lumens. Now I
think the big difference here is the
build quality, even though you get more
lumens on this you get a plastic housing
with the aluminum fins and you get the
less advanced optic system instead of
this nice beam cut off. This is more of
a mountain bike style which will throw
light everywhere so you'll light up the
trees and the road instead of just the
road. Even though Lupine advertises
the lumen per dollar you can clearly get
cheaper lights that have a lot more
lumens, however the lumens are just less
focused and the build quality is lower.
So as you can see this nice aluminum
housing, you get the beautiful lens that
integrated DRLs which are missing from
the Magicshine 906. The other thing I
want to point out is that what I found
over time is with some of these battery
packs from Magicshine tend to start
to disintegrate at the integration
points of the battery. So you can see
here the insulation has started to peel
and eventually this will cause a short so if
you hold that a certain angle
the light shuts off. That's one reason I
feel like the Lupine connections are a
little more robust and stronger to more
day-to-day use. As I mentioned you
can definitely get high lumens for low
dollars, this is a $150 Magicshine Allty
2000 with 2000 lumens with their dual
LED design. It also has DRLs
but it's missing the ambient light
sensor so that's one drawback. You can
see here with the DRL only, you also get a
nice LED screen and build quality. This
is quite nice so you have the aluminum
upper portion it's quite a bit larger.
I actually like external battery
packs as once a battery pack on this
dies you have to buy a different
cartridge instead of just plugging in
different external battery pack.
Again I think it's the optics that
really set this apart,
there's no beam cut off here so it
really throws light everywhere even
though it's a commuter style you have
wasted lumens on the ground. So I think
the 2000 lumens and the 1300 lumens
here almost feels
brighter because more of those light
output of that light is more focused. Now let's
take a look at the light output from the
Lupine SL, what's so impressive out this
light is that horizontal beam cut off.
You can see here in the low beam
mode that that beam cut off is right
below eye level and very crisp.
You also have a trapezoidal style beam
pattern illuminated on the ground with a
really wide being further away from the
bike. In the high beam mode that beam
cutoff is raised higher so you get
further distance however you shouldn't
use this if there's oncoming traffic.
What's really striking is if you compare
the SL versus a standard light without a
beam cutoff and as you can see a lot of
that light is wasted you get a more
circular beam pattern with a lot of
light above the eye level and below
instead of being more focused so you
lose lumens.
Now with the Lupine SL you get four
different modes, you have a DRL mode which is
bright enough for daytime use and has 17
hours of runtime. You have a low beam dim
mode with 450 lumens and five hour runtime. You
have a standard low beam mode with 850
lumens and finally you have the high
beam mode which puts out the full 1300
lumens. On the road the SL has a really
nice wide beam ahead of the bike as you
can see it's almost 2 or 3 lanes wide
even in the standard low beam mode and
the high beam mode is really impressive
it really lights up the whole road.
[Music]
Now let's go over the pros and cons for
the SL, I really appreciate the premium
build quality here all the components
and connection points are really robust
and with that ip68 rating it can handle
wet weather riding and abuse on or off
road. Also what really sets the light
apart is that crisp being cut off.
They've really done a nice job with the
optics of this light so you can prevent
blinding oncoming traffic yet still have
up to 1300 lumens. I am also always
impressed with how many configuration
options Lupine provides with their light
by simply holding the button up to ten
times. You can get a variety of
configurations from disabling the
ambient light sensor to change in the
configuration outputs per mode. Some of
the cons for the light is obviously that
premium price at over $500
dollars and nearly $600 for the AF 7
version this light is not intended for
everybody, but it's definitely built to
last. The other thing is there's limited
side-to-side visibility near the light
so as you saw with the riding footage as
you're turning you tend to turn into a
dark patch whereas a normal light would
have a lot of horizontal flooding. Also
this is a fairly large form factor for
only 1,300 lumens you can get commuter
style lights that have internal
batteries and they're a lot more easy to
put on take off your bike. Taking
everything into account I would give the
light an 8.5 out of 10. It's
definitely an expensive light but it's
really amazing build quality and optics
make this more of a buy it for life type
of bike light than a cheap bike light for a
more entry-level rider. The optics
are really impressive so I'll definitely
blow you away with the amount of output
and the beam cut off. Thanks for watching
the review, if you like the content
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us at our website at thesweetcyclists.com
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at @thesweetcyclists. This is The Sweet
Cyclist reminding you to enjoy the ride!
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