Thanks for tuning in today we're going to be reviewing the Kryptonite Incite x8
bicycle headlight. Although Kryptonite is best known for their bike locks they've recently
introduced the Incite bike light series. What sets this apart from other lights on
the market is that Kryptonite has focused on bike optics instead of just raw output
hence these lights carry a lux rating which is something you see more commonly in european lights.
Now today we're going to be looking at the highest end light headlight in the series
the X8 this has the highest output and the most advanced features. Packingwise it's really nice as with
the other Incite products you have the black and yellow color scheme with the light prominently
displayed and you can actually interact with it as well as see the beam which is a really
cool feature with a little cutout. You have all the information about the display as well as a little
infographic which displays why you want a focused light versus a standard cone beam headlight as it
focuses the beam on the ground and doesn't blind oncoming traffic pedestrians or other cyclists.
I'm gonna 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 $144.95 you can also buy this along with the XBR taillight which is a
accelerometer based brake light for $164.95. This has the focused beam design and you can see a
very unique beam designed to really focus on the ground. It also has 80 lux which is quite bright
that's measured at 10 meters away on the ground. It's USB rechargeable and has a very
large lcd display which displays run time current mode as well as the current time.
In terms of battery life it has 3 to 24 hour runtime depending on which mode you
select. In terms of what comes in the box you get the headlight itself, you get the manual
you get the handlebar mount which is their new design and they get the usb charging cable. Now
let's take a second to look at the weight of the headlight. If we put the headlight by
itself comes in at 140 grams and if we add the handlebar strap that comes in at a total of 174.
Now let's look at the fit and finish of the Incite X8 headlight. What's really
unique about this headlight is the beam design so you can see you have the leds
mounted way on top and then you have the interesting reflector that really extends down
and forces the light downward. Now when you're riding you can see it gives you this u shape
that illuminates everything from the front of your bike to several feet in front of you so
it's a nice design this is only available in the US so it's not StVZO certified for
german or european use. You can see the most of the housing and actually dominated by the lens
almost the entire front half is the lens itself. It has a premium all-black finish, it's plastic
and has a nice weight to it as well. There is minimal Kryptonite branding and white lettering on
each side. You have a micro usb port on the back unfortunately it's not USB Type-C but definitely
easy to use and the cables included. It has a nice rubber grommet to keep it weather safe as well.
Perhaps the best feature of this is the large lcd display, this is a top-line model
and because of that you get a much larger display and if you click it once you can see
both the battery status and the current time. If you hold down either the plus or
minus button I'll actually show you the runtime in hours and minutes, a little icon displayed
showing which mode you're in. It has multiple steady modes and as you can see when I adjust it
it'll change the corresponding display. It also has flashing modes that have different displays.
You get the current time which is a cool feature and the battery. You also have these nice slits
here which I really like so these illuminate the handlebars when you're riding and also improve
your side visibility so definitely a nice feature. In terms of the mount it's not Garmin or GoPro
compatible. They went with their own proprietary design and with any beam optic design like this
you can't actually mount this upside down so you have to mount it up top side up which takes quite
a bit of space on the handlebar. The mount itself is fairly easy to use it is a cable tie cable tie
style design. You can see you have this cable with ridges it goes through the slot and then you
can hear the ratcheting so it adjusts the different handlebar sizes with little rubber grips here to
really hold it in place. Once you are happy with the position you push the lever up and
then if it was mounted on the bike it actually holds really well. There's also a little screw
here that lets you actually go side to side about 10 degrees each
way so a nice little subtle feature and you can tighten it down once you're happy with it.
The way it mounts is really simple so the it's like a clipless pedal, there's two ridges here
and you simply slide it into the slot on the bottom of the headlight snap it down and hear
the click. To remove the headlight you just push this little bun up and it pops out it's
a little bit harder to do when it's on the bike as there's less space but it's pretty easy to pop off
especially if you're commuting you can simply take it off or take off with the entire mount.
Now let's take a look at the beam shape of the Incite X8 as you can see it's quite unique it's
almost an upside down u with a nice beam cut off. There are a few artifacts as you can see
on the ground but they don't really affect the light output a majority of it is focused
straight ahead of the bike. Now Kryptonite offers six different modes: three different steady ones
and three flashes and as you can see the jumps are quite large so low is really dim while medium
and high are good enough for dark trails. You can see the nice rectangular area right in front
of the bike the three flashes are also nice. I like the night pulse it's a good way to track attention
while not being too distracting and economic flash gives you the most run time with 24 hours.
Now on the road you can see here this is the low mode it's pretty dim and the camera exaggerates
things a bit too. As you go to medium it's much better this is actually good enough to ride at
night and gives you an extra two hours of runtime but if you're on really dark trails the high mode
is the best of all at 80 lux and the beam pattern means you have a nice a car length width right in
front of you with a pretty good throw. As with other more focused lights you can see the sides
are fairly dark so you only see what's in front of your bike. As you can see when I take a turn
you do turn into dark regions but that's kind of an issue with a lot of beam cut off style lights.
Now let's do a little comparison between the Kryptonite Incite lights and other lights on the
market. What I have here is 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-spheric 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 and then between the X6 and the X8, the X8 has the larger screen
different optics that are US onlyi. 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. Its quite a bit brighter
with the X8 you can definitely run it in a medium mode pretty happily at nighttime while the X3 and
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 dark trail dark road I prefer the
X8. Now mount wise the X8, X3 and X6 all have the same style mount. The X3 and X8
share the smaller one while the X8 has this more 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. It 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
Fenix 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.
It does feel more premium though as 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. More information and larger easy to read display
while the Allty 2000 just has a small mode indicator and battery status. I also 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 design
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.
Now let's go over the pros and cons for the Incite X8. What we like about it is the anti-glare
beam the leds are actually hidden behind the shield on top and you have that nice long
reflector. It results in a really nice beam that doesn't blind any oncoming traffic or cyclists.
We like the large backlit LCD display screen it's very large it shows the time, mode, runtime
and the battery symbol so all the information you need and it's visible day and night.
We also like the integrated slits on the side which improve the side visibility as well as
illuminate the handlebars and part of your body for extra safety. Some of the cons are the fact
that they use a proprietary mount there are no GoPro or Garmin adapters currently available.
That also leads to the second con which is the large size takes up a lot of space on
the handlebar so you can't actually put this on the out front mount since it's not compatible.
That's one con the X3 and the X6 are a little bit smaller than this.
Finally there are brighter lights available for this price
but they don't have the anti-glare beam so it's a bit of give and take. If you do more mountain biking
this is probably not the light for you but if you ride in the city or on trails this is
a great light to be kind to other oncoming traffic while still having a bright light.
Taking everything into account would give the Incite X8 a 9.1 out of 10. This really has
unique optics with a large lcd display and it's hard to find something with anti-glare
beam at this price point. Thanks for watching this review don't forget to like and subscribe.
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