Thanks for tuning in, this is The Sweet Cyclists
and today we're gonna be reviewing the
Magicshine Seemee 100 smart
bike rear taillight. Here we have
Magicshine's latest Seemee 100 tail light
which is part of the updated Seemee
taillights and offers a lot of technical
features with a really attractive price.
What I've here is a sneak preview
so I don't actually have the packaging,
I'll show a little photo here on the
right and as you can see Magicshine
uses their really iconic black and orange
color scheme as well as eco-friendly
materials so minimal use of plastic with
the tail light really prominently
displayed. Now if we pretend like we did
the unboxing we'll jump through the specs
now. This is the Seemee 100 and it has a
$35 retail price and it also has a dual LED
COB design. You have this inner COB
LED and then the outer ring with little
individual emitters along the strip.
Really unique plastic form factor with
great side visibility, up to 260 degrees.
Its micro USB rechargeable and it also
has two smart features. A brake
sensor which automatically switches the
current output mode to a 100
lumen boosted mode. It also has an
ambient light sensor that automatically
adjusts the output mode in the smart
setting from a day to a night mode so
really a unique way to ride where you
don't have to adjust the settings based
on the conditions. In the
box you're gonna get the micro USB
charging cable, two zip ties for a little
extra security although you don't really
need them. You have the saddle rail mount
which works on rounded rails and
lets you mount it right off the rails.
You get a normal seatpost mount with a
rubber strap. What's cool about this is a
the dual cutout design so this will work
both on rounded seatpost a aero seatposts.
You also get a warranty card and
instruction manual which is not shown
here. Now let's take a look at the weight
of the Seemee 100 tail light. The tail
light by itself comes in at a light 36
grams, the saddle rail mount which is a
pretty light piece of plastic
comes in at only four grams, while
the sea post mount with the rubber strap
comes in at 12 grams. Now let's take a
look at the fit and finish of the Seemee 100
tail light what I really like about this
tail light is the LED design. You can see
it's a COB LED design with an outer and
inner ring and a pretty large face. It
really tracks attention and
similar to the Seemee 180 except the
front face a little bit different and
you have the lower output. On front
you have the COB LED design and if you
look closer you can see the individual
emitters along this. They describe this
as a transparent optical fiber so it
gives you a nice warm glow you can see if
I turn it on here, it gives you a really
nice appearance. Now if we go to the
power button here, this is one of my
favorite features. It is a really large and
rubber textured. They've actually integrated a
status indicator, this is something I've
complained about a lot on different tail
lights where you only get a low battery
indicator. With the new Seemee tail lights you get a
three level battery indicator so if you click it
while it is turned off it'll flash either
green, red or flashing red to indicate
the level. So really nice to see finally
on tail lights and it gives you a lot
more awareness of your battery status. On
the sides, you just have the Magicshine
logo. One thing I was concerned
about with these was side visibility,
it looks like the lens is actually
flushed so you wouldn't have side
visibility however when you turn the
light on you can see that front face is
actually transparent. So that ensures you
have 260 degree visibility and it's
a really nice design feature. On the back you
have the mount here
it's kind of a scaled-down Garmin
quarter-turn mount style. It is nice and secure
and really easy to put on, no tools. On
the bottom you have a micro USB charging
port, unfortunates it isn't a USB Type-C.
However the rubber gasket here feels
really good and it's really flush
so once you push it in feels quite
secure. With the IPX6 rating for the
light I'll definitely be able to handle
wet weather riding with no problem.
Now out of the box you actually get a few
mounting options which is quite cool. You
get the seatpost mount and this actually
works on an aero seatpost. With that inner
cut out it works with aero seatpost while the outer
cut out works with round seatposts. It's a really clever way to do
both designs in one mount. The
rubber here also feels quite thick so I
don't have any concerns about this
scratching up a seatpost over
time. You also get the saddle rail mount
which is a cool feature. Its a thin plastic piece and
sits on round saddle rails. Now let's
take a look at the mounting options with
the Seemee lights, what I have here is the
seatpost mount as well as the saddle rail
mount. To install the saddle rail mount
you simply place it between the saddle
rails and I believe these have to be
round rail so other rails might not work.
Then you apply some pressure and you
hear that nice click and it's in place.
It feels really secure and it can be
slid back and forth slightly, this will
interfere with saddle bags or other
accessories you might have on here such
as a fender.
Now if we take the Seemee 200 as an
example, we do a simple quarter turn for
the seatpost mount and you can see it is really
secure. Simple rubber straps to remove it
install it and for the saddle rail
mount same quarter turn. It gives you a
higher placement especially if you
don't have saddle back I think it looks
a little better as it tucks in
underneath your saddle.
[Music]
So now let's take a look at the full
lineup of Seemee taillights and compare
that to other taillights on the market.
What I have here is the Seemee 200, it has
the dual LED design. One on the bottom
one on the front and costs $45. Next we have the
Seemee 180 at $40 has a large
COB LED design up front. You have
the Seemee 100 with a slightly lower
output and a very similar form factor at
thirty-five dollars. Finally the
seventeen dollar
Seemee 30 which is a much thinner and
lighter than the others. What's really
cool about this is that all the Seemees
now have ambient light sensors and that
gives you that smart light output mode
to automatically adjust the conditions
or power that secondary LED on or off.
You get the brake sensor in everything
but the Seemee 30. Form factor wise you
can see it rectangular design with the
100, 180 and the 30. This is quite a
departure from the previous Seemee, I
have the Seemee 60 here and you can see this
is a very different. It has a polished outer
ring to it and a COB LED design.
Compared to the other ones it
looks like quite a bit of a outlier. The
Seemee 60 does have the brake sensor but
no ambient light sensor. Now starting
with a Seemee 200, this reminds me a lot
of the Bontrager Flare RT and you can see when
you put them side-by-side they're quite
similar. The Magicshine Seemee 200 is a
little bit taller
and that is likely due to the fact that it has
the secondary sensor.
The Bontrager only has an ambient light
sensor and no brake sensor so a little
bit smaller.
The Bontrager does have bluetooth
connectivity which lets you connect to a
computer to monitor the battery
and also turn it on or off automatically
which is a nice feature, however it is
more expensive at $60 so I think the
Seemee 200 is a really nice high-tech
feature at a pretty good price at 40
bucks.
Also that dual LED design is quite
unique and something I haven't really
seen before with these kind of tail
lights. Now if you look at the Seemee 180
and the 100they're both quite similar
except lower output and then the
differences in prices. They both have the
same light output modes and obviously
different runtimes. Both have
a brake sensor and
ambient light sensor as well. They all
have this nice transparent body as well
so you can see even though it almost
looks dark you can kind of tell here at
the front is transparent.
These remind
me a lot of the Toepeek Redlite Aero USB.
You can see a rectangular body, it's
more compact as well.
The Toepeak has a more flared
design, I do like that fact that the
Topeak has a transparent body so when you
turn this on you can see it really
lights up the whole thing compared to
the Magicshine. You do get pretty
good visibility with the side visibility
with the Magicshine's transparent body
that is a little bit thinner and the
fact that you can run this on both aero
and non aero seatpost is a real nice
feature. The Seemee 30 has a little bit of
a outlier from the product line at 17
dollars, it's thinner does not have the
brake sensor but it does have the
ambient light sensor and the same light
mode options. Now let's take a look at
the Seemee 100 on the road, as you can see
here it's plenty bright during the day
despite having only 100 lumen output
maximum. Also you can see the brake
sensor being triggered even on bumps,
this is an issue we had across the
Seemee line. While it works well when
you're braking it also gets triggered on
potholes and bumps which can reduce
a run time. Now we'll go over the eight
different output modes, you have three
constant modes, four flash and then smart
mode. What I really like about this is
that dual LED elements with the various
flashes. You can see here the breathe mode
has a nice gradient type output with
comet being almost a reverse of that
interactive flash doesn't quite show up
well in the camera but it actually
flashes the inner and then the outer for
kind of an interesting effect. Smart day
is a really nice one that leverages the
ambient light sensor to actually go from
a day mode to a night mode where the night
mode goes to
lower setting instead of going
completely off. Here's a little
montage of all of them together, I really
like the breath and then the smart with
mode you can essentially leave it in
that mode and just forget about changing
the mode altogether so it's a really
nice feature. Now let's go over the pros
and cons for the Seemee 100, what I really
like about this tail light is the
battery status checker you have three
levels so you can actually tell how much
battery have left instead of just
guessing.
Also the ambient light sensor and motion
sensor are really nice feature that gives
you the smart mode and that brake
sensing feature. Also it has really
excellent side and daytime visibility.
Don't let the hundred lumen output fool
you it's plenty bright and the
transparent body really helps with
outside visibility. Some of the cons is
the fact that it uses an integrated
battery. This means once that battery is
depleted you'll have to replace the
whole taillight. Also one thing I don't
like about this taillight is it's quite
similar to see me 180 but it's only five
dollars cheaper and 80 lumens weaker so
in my mind I feel like the Seemee 180 is
a better purchase since these are so
closely priced together. Also as with the
other tail lights there's actually just
too many modes can be confusing to
determine whether in smart mode or flash
mode. Taking everything into
consideration I would give the Seemee 100
8.5 out of 10. This is a
taillight with a lot of smart features
and bright output. Thanks for watching
for review if you like the content don't
forget to like and subscribe. You can see
more content from us on our website at
thesweetcyclists.com as well as follow
us on Instagram at @TheSweetCyclists.
This is The Sweet Cyclists reminding you
to enjoy the ride!
[Music]