Thanks for tuning in
today we're going to be reviewing the
Kryptonite Incite X3
and XR bike light set.
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Although Kryptonite is best known for
their wide selection of bike locks
they've recently released the Incite
bike light series. Today we're going to
be looking at the most affordable
variations in the lineup which is the X3
headlight
and the XR tail light. What sets apart
the Incite lights from others on the
marketplace is that they focus on beam
optics
rather than just raw output and as a
result these carry lux ratings instead
of lumens
which measures the actual light
brightness on the ground rather than
just the output
of the led itself. Now packaging wise
really simple you have the
black and yellow color scheme so high
contrast and
both the headlight and tail light can be
interacted with you can actually hit the
power buttons
and see the lens on the
headlight which is one of the best
features so really nicely done.
The little graphic on the back
illustrates why you want to use a
beam cut off style light as it focuses
the light on the ground
rather than a giant cone shape which
would blind
other cars or cyclists on the road. Let's
go ahead and take it out of the box and
while i do that we'll go over these
specs.
Retail price on this is 74.95
they can be bought separately as well
the headlight by itself is 55 dollars
while the taillight is 28.
One of the best features of the
headlight is the dual spheric lens and
you can see
it's actually a sphere where on the
Incite it's sculpted specifically to
focus the light down.
You can almost see the led on the
Incite and how it gets
morphed by the lens. Output wise
you have
30 lux for the headlight and you have
0.06 lux for the rear.
You can't simply convert lux to lumen as
it takes in account the beam pattern and
depends on where you measure it.
These are micro usb rechargeable both of
them have mode memory so when you turn
them off and turn them on
it remembers where you were. The
headlight uses a four led design you
have the main led on the front
and then three battery status indicators
on top.
The tail light uses three leds you have
the main led on top
a guide led and then a low battery
status indicator.
Inside the box you get the headlight
with the mount already attached and
simply pops off. You have the tail light
you have the taillight rubber strap to
mount it to your seat post or saddle.
A single micro usb charging cable
and then two instruction manuals one for
the headlight and one for the taillight.
Now let's take a second to look at the
weight of the headlight and taillight
if I put just the headlight that comes
in at
80 grams. The
mount for the handlebar that comes in at
18 or 16 grams.
The tail light that comes in
at 22 and then if i add the little
rubber strap comes in
at 26 so pretty light overall.
Now let's take a look at the fit and
finish of the Incite
X3 headlight and XR tail light.
Now if we start with the headlight the
most striking thing about this is the
dual spheric lens
you can see it's a spherical lens on the
outside and then on the inside it has a
non-spherical design that's
meant to really focus the light downward.
You can almost see the leds on the
inside of here
and how it kind of deforms as you go up
and down. Color scheme wise both the
headlight and taillight have a similar
black and gray design
with Kryptonite simply written on the
sides. You can see the accent colors on
the headlight
and then a vertical strip on the tail
light
they're pretty compact too you can see
it fits in my hand.
It's all plastic though so it is pretty
light and it feels a little bit cheaper
than some of the
metal headlights you can get. In terms of
the housing profile you have a round
profile on the front that matches the
lens and a square at the
rear. You can see there's actually side
windows here
and if i were to turn on the light these
actually reflect light through the lens
and that provides a little more safety
on the road so even if you're not in
front of the light
you can actually see the side windows. They do
a great job of ensuring people will see
you.
On the back you have the micro usb port
and this is great for charging so you
can actually leave it on the bike since
it's really easy to access.
On the top you have a single button
interface it's a nice rubber grip
with three leds here. When you turn this
on the three leds actually correspond to
the battery status. So
as it goes down you'll go down to one
led that might even blink.
Underneath you have a very simple mount
design and you can see it's a little
slot that
reminds me a lot of clipless pedals. So
now if we take the mount
you can see it has two little lips on
here
you simply place it inside the
back end first and then drop it down and
you hear that nice click
so holds it in place pretty well. I wish
they would have gone with a Garmin or
GoPro adapter. It's not currently offered
but hopefully they will offer that
because you currently cannot run this
either upside down
or on an out front mount. So you do have
to use a proprietary mount
and releasing the light is simply
pressing the little button here
and then lifting off so really easy. The
mount itself is tool-less
so you can see it's a cable tie style
design.
You simply push this button down and you
can
pull the cable tie through to
accommodate different bike
handlebar diameters. A little rubber pad
in here too to prevent marring your
handlebars. To tighten it you simply pull
and you can hear the nice ratcheting
when you want to lock it in place
you simply pull the lever up and that's
about it.
They also offer a feature to rotate it
so you can see if you
loosen the screw it will let you actually
rotate this side to side and once you
have the right position you can tighten
it down.
It's about 10 degrees each side which
is a nice little extra
flexibility. If we go to the
tail light you can see a nice narrow
form factor fairly thin
and again pretty lightweight. Similar
color scheme so they go really well
together
you have a side window here as well and
you can see if I turn it on
you can actually get a little light
through there which helps for side
visibility.
A simple button interface again single
button to cycle through.
A long press long to turn on long press
to turn it off.
The lens design is also really nice you
can see here it has this almost circular
shape to it for the top led
and what this does is if i turn on the
light you can see it has a very
horizontal design despite when you look
at it looks vertical.
So it actually spreads the light out and
helps
with your visibility. Now this is a three
led design
so you have the top led and then you
have an led for the guide
area and you can see if i turn this on
it really helps illuminate
a larger portion of the body to ensure
you're visible.
There's also a low battery indicator
here once the battery goes low.
And you can also rotate this mount which
is pretty interesting so this is stand
a standard mount it has little hooks
here with the rubber strap
I simply run this through and around
your frame
so really easy to use. What's unique here
is that if you loosen that screw you can
actually rotate this
and then mount this sideways so you
could potentially put this on your
saddle bag
your rails or backpack so nice to have
that flexibility. It looks a little weird
to me sideways
with this shape to it since it looks
better vertically
but it's nice to have that flexibility.
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Now let's take a look at the light
output of the headlight and taillight
starting out with the X3 headlight. You
can see the beam shape is very unique
has a very narrow beam but with a sharp
cut off
and you can see it has a brighter spot
near the top.
Now if we take a look at the light on
the ground you can see this ends up with
a very
bright spot about 10 or 20 meters ahead
of the bike
with a dark spot around you. Now you can
see
it's quite dim even at the high steady
mode which we typically rode with
but the nice thing is you have quite a
few flash options. In particular I really
like the night flash
and the long run times that the flashes
offer.
Now the taillight has multiple flashes
as well
and you can see the low steady mode is
not bad either.
It also has similar style flashes you
have the daytime pulse which is nice and
not distracting
and the nighttime pulse again which is
great to ride at night
instead of flashing on and off it has a
nice gradual effect.
Then you have eco flash for up to 36
hours.
Now again the headlight on the road you
can see the beam shape is quite unique
it is narrow though it's about a car
length
wide. I wouldn't really recommend
this for dark
nighttime riding as you can see it's
quite dim and with the dark spots ahead
of your bike and to the sides
making sharp turns can be a little bit
daunting. However if you do a lot of
commuting you can see the light does
pretty well
and with the focus beam you're not going
to be blinding other people on the road.
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So now let's do a little comparison
between the Kryptonite Incite lights and
other lights on the market.
What i have here are the X3, X6 and X8.
What i really like about what Kryptonite
has done is you can see
both feature wise and size-wise they're
really well differentiated. The X3 is 30
lux has
a no mode indicator with the dual
spherical lens.
The X6 is a larger version of that,
double the power
and now you get the runtime display as
well as a mode indicator
so as the price goes up you get more
quantifiable
features. Then between the X6
and the X8, the X8 has the larger
screen and
different optics that are US only. It has a
little more premium look that
corresponds to the higher price,
larger side window and again 80 lux
versus the 60 for the X6 which is quite a bit
brighter.
With the X8 you can definitely run it in
a medium mode pretty happily
at night time while the X3 and X6
I found myself usually in high mode all
the time,
especially on dark trails. For commuting
these are better options
while
a more serious dark trails
I prefer the X8. Now mount wise the X8,
X6 and X3 all have the same style
mount.
The X6 and the X3 share the
smaller one while the
X8 has this wide version that
corresponds to the larger size.
Comparing the mount
to say the
Fenix style cam design you can see
this simply
drops in over and then tightens has a
similar sliding mechanism
with additional side to side play with
that little screw you can loosen.
I like the Kryptonite design a little
bit better over that
as it's more compact but it is harder
to release as you can see with the
phoenix you have this large lever
that sticks out it's a little bit give
or take.
What I really like are the Magicshine
lights,
these are the Allty 1000 that's the allty
2000.
These actually have a Garmin compatible
mount so you don't have to use a
proprietary mount
and you can see it puts out more power
than the
Incite light series but it has a
basic beam shape. So
you can see when you turn it on it's
just a cone so it definitely blinds
others on the road
but it does feel more premium too it has
the metal housing
and they are a little bit more expensive.
So what's great about the
Incite lights is that they bring better
beam optics and more affordable pricing.
Now if you compare the X8 versus the
Allty 2000 you can see they also have a
better screen on the Kryptonite. There is
more information, larger LCD display
while the Allty 2000 just has a small
mode indicator
and battery status. Also I like the side
lights on the Kryptonite
versus the simple beveled edges on
the Magicshine.
There are also other lights on the
market like the Fenix BC21R this has a
replaceable battery which is a great
feature
something you don't typically see. Same
proprietary mount design and
a little more compact form factor. You
can see these lenses really take up a
lot of space so if you just go over the
traditional lens
the really basic vertical deflector a
lot more
compact in size and metal as well/
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Now let's go over the pros and cons for
the X3 and XR light set.
We like the advanced optics it's great
that Kryptonite is invested in
beam optics instead of just raw output.
It's not very common to see this kind of
optics at this price point.
We also like the compact form factors
for both lights, the
X3 headlight doesn't take much space on
your handlebar
well the XR tail light is quite thin and
narrow.
We also like the battery status
indicator on the headlight this is a
feature a lot of
commuter style bike headlights drop off
and it's really annoying to run out of
battery mid ride. Some of the cons of the
fact that neither the X3 or XR are
particularly bright
which is why we wouldn't really
recommend this for nighttime or rural
riding.
This is better as a commuter light where
you have other lights or
city lights to fill in the gaps.
The other con is that the headlight uses
a proprietary mount
instead of a Garmin or GoPro compatible
style mount which means you have to use
the supplied mount instead of using an out
in front
or an existing mount. Also the tail
light does not have a battery status
indicator it only has the
low battery warning and even though it
has long runtime it would be great to see
at least a two level battery status
indicator. Taking everything into account
would give the
X3 and XR an 8.4 out of 10.
Kryptonite really offers optimized
optics an affordable price with this set.
You can definitely get brighter lights
at this price point
but it'd be hard to find something with
a beam cut off.
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enjoy the ride!
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