Thanks for tuning in this The Sweet
Cyclists, today we're gonna be reviewing
the Planet Bike Spok USB light set.
Here we have the new and updated Spok
USB lights from Planet Bike. These have
been updated to have USB rechargeability
and higher lumen output. We
want to thank Planet Bike for
providing these lights to be reviewed. As
with all the Planet Bike's packaging,
they do a really great job and making
sure the lights themselves are really
prominently displayed and there's no
environmental waste. So as you can see
there's no additional packaging or
plastic to be seen. You have a very
simple cardboard box with their really
visually engaging design. On the back
you'll find all the specifications here
and everything is FL1 tested so the lumen
outputs are something you can actually
trust. Now while I remove it from the
packaging let's review some of the
specifications. The retail price on this
is $40, you can also buy each light
individually at $22 so you do save a
little money by buying it as I set. Each
of the lights have a 270 mAh
lithium polymer battery with micro USB
rechargeablity. The front light is
rated up to 20 lumens while the rear
light is rated up to 5 lumens. Both
of the lights have steady mode, courtesy
mode as well as their signature Superflash.
These are designed 'to be seen'
lights not a 'to be seen' light.
They are lower power but really designed to
be engaging and improve your safety.
Runtimes they're also really generous, the
lowest end is 4 hours or 5 hours
depending on the light using steady mode,
and at or exceeding 24 hours using
Superflash mode. In terms of
packaging you get the basic cardboard.
You get the user manual, the
micro USB charger cable and the
two lights. Both lights have a basic
rubber mount
that match each other except for the
outer housing colors and the different
power outputs of the lights.
Now let's take a look at the weight of
the Spok lights, the head light comes
in at 24 grams while the tail light
comes in at the same 24 grams. Now
let's take a closer look at the fit and
finish of the Spok lights from Planet
Bike. Let's start with the headlight so
both of them share a very unique form
factor with the LED mounted in front.
They both are all plastic with a rubber
button on top. If we look on top you can
see the button is very large and easy to
use to cycle through the modes. You
simply click, a long press doesn't do
anything here so there's no memory mode
as you can't turn it off in any
mode except cycling back to off. They all
have three modes as well, so we have the
steady mode which is just constant. We
have Superflash which is pretty erratic,
and then we have Courtesy mode which is
probably one of my favorites. It
simply ramps it up and down
so it's a great way to
draw attention without annoying people.
As we saw these are really
lightweight, the housing for the
headlight is an opaque plastic. It is white
on top, black on the bottom. On the rear
you have the micro USB port for easy
charging. Mounting again is super simple,
you just position it as you wish and
then just drop it through the post.
You just push it all the way through
and then there you go
now. One criticism I have about this is
the mounting strap, it's rather short. They don't
provide a longer mount so I'm not quite
sure how you'd mount this to say a
helmet, at least my helmet I don't have
enough space to wrap it all the way
around. However you can easily mount it
to your fork, your seat stay, your
handlebar and even your backpack.
The taillight is
pretty similar in design, now if we put
them side-by-side you can see almost the
same except with the tail light you get
a transparent upper body and this means
it has a little more side visibility
when it's illuminated. Otherwise same
controls, same three modes, the
USB port on back and exact same mounting.
The tail light is
5 lumens while the head light is 20.
Now let's install the front
light, with the flexible mounting you
can see I have fairly good amount of
stretch I can easily put this on my fork.
I'll do that right now, you really
have to kind of pull this tight.
You can see it's actually
rotatable - so depend on how you put it
on you can put it vertically you can put
it backwards or put it forward. I think it's
a nice way to add a little visibility
especially in the super flash mode you
get pretty good battery life and just
enough illumination to get extra
visibility. They're not very bright
though so you can't really ride with
these alone, it's definitely a secondary
light. One thing to note, if you don't
have any very good side visibility
especially with the front light because
of the housing being non transparent,
although the button slightly illuminates.
Now let's look at the rear light, I
like to actually mount this here on the
seat tube. You have a
fair amount of stretch with these so you
can actually get around larger tubing,
and what I like about the rear light is
that the whole body is transparent so
you can see the whole thing becomes
illuminated for better visibility and
again a rotatable mount. It is really
easy to adjust and the Superflash mode
is pretty nice.
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So now let's take a look at the light
output from the Spok lights. Here I'll
show you the lumen output for the front
and rear as well as the claimed runtime
for the front and rear. There are three run
modes, you have steady, Courtesy and
Superflash. Here you can see steady, it does a
good job at illuminating but it has a
low runtime. Courtesy has a really nice
ramping effect with up to 8 hours of
runtime and Superflash is highly
erratic and gives you almost 26 hours of
runtime. Now let's go over the pros
and cons for these Spok lights. I really
like the fact that they add a lot of
night time visibility particular with
the Courtesy and Superflash output
modes. They really draw attention and
also very compact and have a lightweight
form factor which makes them easy to
mount anywhere you need them. What I
don't like about these is the mounting
straps are a little bit short so I can't
actually put that on my helmet and I
also wish they included a body clip
which would mean you could mount them to your
belt or clothing. Also the interface is a
little strange, you can't do a long press.
Everything's a single press so to power it
on and off you always have to cycle
through the three modes. Also I've been
finding that the USB covers a rather
finicky so you have to really make sure
they're seated before you use them on a
wet ride. Overall I'd give these an 8 out
of 10 I think they're really compact and
a cool way to add a little more
visibility. Thanks for watching this
review, if you like the content don't
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can find more content from us at our
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@thesweetcyclists. This is The Sweet
Cyclists reminding you to enjoy the ride!
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