Thanks for tuning in this The Sweet
Cyclists and today we're gonna be
reviewing the Orb bicycle bottle
light. Here we have the Orb outside of
the packaging, I'm pretty excited
to review this as it is an
innovative product. You don't see a lot
of bicycle bottle lights, this is an interesting
concept. I want to thank the Orb for
sending this out. The idea with the Orb
is you have the whole bottle luminate it
so you get 360-degree visibility when
you're riding at night and you'll be a
little safer in terms of side impact and
visibility. If we look at the specs of
this you'll see it's a $40
retail price, it has four LEDs built into
the cap for up to 72 lumens of output.
Battery life is up to 16 hours with the
full flash mode and you have a
micro USB recharging and 700 milliliters
of battery capacity. It's a 24 ounce bottle so
a little bit on larger side. Now if we
look at the overall packaging, it is really
minimal which is nice to see with
more companies doing more plastic
everything. We just have to remove the
cap and this houses all the electronics.
The bottle is BPA free
and has a cool geometric design which
I really like. This little sleeve on here
has logo some of the specs of the light
itself and on the inside you
have the cleaning instruction.
We're going to discuss cleaning little bit later
but I almost missed this because
there's no actual user manual or
anything. If we remove that, inside the
bottle you'll find the
micro USB charging cable.
First impressions, I think it's really
nice and grippy, it doesn't feel like
I'll fly to have your hand or anything.
I was concerned initially as I
thought this be a little top-heavy
when empty. It is a little top-heavy but
it's not too bad. You get the semi-gloss
plastic on top, these faceted
orange features near the cap and
a bite valve.
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Now let's look at the fit and finish,
as I mentioned earlier, overall
I'm pretty impressed with the quality of
it. This geometric faceting on
the bottle portion is really nice and
the 24 ounce capacity is something I
really like for longer rides. The cap is
fairly tall and here I'll
compare it one of the gold
standards for cycling bottles. It's a
Camelback you can see this is the Big
Chill which is a little bit bigger at 25
ounces. If we compare
it to a similar same capacity, you can
see these are both 24 ounces and what
you basically get with the Orb is
just a taller cap. So you
get the 24 ounce capacity with the
25 ounce bottle size. It's a little bit larger,
this might be an issue on smaller frames.
If we look at kind of a comparison
between the two I think the biggest
noticeable thing is the valve, this is
what is known as a self-sealing
valve. A lot of companies have this now
and the nice thing about this is you
just suck on it and then
when you let go the pressure will seal
itself so you don't have to deal with
pulling this up or down. With the Orb
it's a bite valve style and what this
means is you actually have to use your
teeth to pull it up or your hands. If you're
riding your arms you gonna use your
teeth and then one nice thing about this
is although it's a little less
user-friendly it's easier to clean. If
you've had Camelbaks or other bottles
before you'll find they get pretty nasty
pretty quickly. Let's go ahead and take
off the valve and I can show you.
Grasp it firmly and
then lift it off so you can throw this
in your dishwasher or soak it to have it
cleaned. That's a nice feature now in
terms of cleaning the cap itself because
it has a battery in there. You're not
recommended to actually put it in the
dishwasher. You can put the bottom portion
in the dishwasher, it is
dishwasher safe but the top should not
be submerged. You have to use a little
special care and just kind of rub it
down. Both the ports, the USB port and the
button itself are protected from water but they
don't recommend you to actually submerge it.
So if we look at the usability
of this, it is basically a one-button design.
You have the port on one side and then a
single button on the face. A long hold
will turn it on and you can see here
without the any water in it. You can
see the gradient for the lighting a
little brighter and top and then less on
the bottom. When it's filled you actually
get a more even glow which is
cool looking.
A single click to go through the modes and
they were really generous six modes which is
quite a bit. With four different flashing
states and two constants modes. Battery
life up to 16 hours on the full flashing
mode which is pretty impressive. One
thing I don't like is that there is no battery
indicator. That's common with
these USB devices you don't really
know where your battery state is. I'd
recommend at least once a week to charge
it to just to be safe.
Overall I think the fit and finish
wise the semi gloss plastic
feels really professional.
The only really downside is the lack of
a battery indicator and the bite valve
itself. Now let's take a look at the
light output of the bottle, there are six
unique settings for the Orb. Two constant
modes and four flash and variations. Some
of the flashing modes alternate between
a low high output while the others turn
the light on and off. As you can see the
most attention grabbing is a full
power flash on and off mode. Now you're
probably wondering will it work without
water. Of course it will, here are the
comparisons between empty, half full and
full. As you can see the Orb has a more
uniform glow when the bottle is full but
the overall output is the same whether
or not there's water. Another question
you might ask is well my legs block the
bottle with the bottle in the front cage.
Your legs actually don't interfere with
the light and when you're in the rear
cage your legs do block the bottle
during the pedal stroke. However do the
phenomenon known as biological motion
the visual effect of the light is
stronger as it highlights your leg
movement. Now another question you might
have is does it really help visibility.
Here you can see a dimly lit street with
a headlight, taillight and the Orb. As you
can see you really do get 360 degrees
of visibility.
The orb in the high flashing mode is
actually visible from quite far away and
helps improve your safety.
You can see
here as I cross the intersection again
you can't really see the taillight but
you can actually see the bottle.
Now let's go over the pros and cons, I
think one of the pros are it's the fact
that's a very innovative bike light.
There's a lot of bike lights out there,
Wi-Fi enabled, smart, AI controlled but
the fact that you can combine a
water bottle and a light, I
think is a really cool idea. You also get
a variety of light modes which is really
nice with six unique different modes and
variations of flash. That gives you a
lot of flexibility. Finally it
provides 360-degree visibility unlike
your headlight or tail light which is
only visible at certain angles. The Orb
really is visible from all angles so it
really adds to nighttime safety.
Now let's go over the cons, I think
the first con is that the fact it lacks
a battery indicator you don't really
know how much charge you have left until
it turns off. With the high battery
runtime this is actually the less of an
issue as long as you charge it
once in a while. A second thing is the
bite style valve I don't really like.
This kind of bottle is a little less
intuitive to use and requires you to use
your teeth versus like a self-sealing
Camelback style. Lastly this is a not
a insulated bottle which is a really
nice feature to have, especially in warmer
climates. Now that we've gone over the
pros and cons let's give the Orb bottle
light a final rating. I would give this a
nine out of ten, while it's not the best
bicycle bottle on the market I think
it's the best bicycle light
innovation I've seen yet. It's a really
innovative way to stay safe at night and
definitely highly recommend it.
Thanks for watching this review, you can
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Cyclists reminding you to enjoy the ride!
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