Thanks for tuning in this The Sweet
Cyclists, today we're going to be looking
at the Blaze 400/600 and 800 SLX bike
lights. Today we have very interesting
review of the Planet Bike Blaze SLX
series of headlights. Planet Bike has
been kind enough to provide us with all
three versions of the latest headlights.
We have the 400 lumen, the 600 lumen and
the 800 lumen version. As you can see
they all have the same form factor but
they have different battery capacities
to achieve the higher lumen ratings.
Planet Bike is also a great company you
may be more familiar with through their
Superflash taillights, they also have
the Superflash and Courtesy modes
integrated with these headlights as well
which is a really nice perk for daytime
riding. They're also a great company in
terms of support you can always get
spare parts by just calling them up or
going through their website with free
shipping. Now let's go ahead and open one
of the packaging's up and we'll take a
look at what comes in here, I also want
to note the packaging is really well
done it's environmentally conscious.
There's no plastic here and the overall
design is really nice it displays
well on the shelf and has everything you
need regarding the weight, the lumen
output the IP66 ratings all printed on
the back for quick accessibility. Let's
go ahead and take this out, in terms of
specifications there are three versions.
You have the 400 lumen which is a $43
light, we have the 600 lumen version and
that has a $55 retail price and
then we have the 800 SLX which is $65
and 800 lumens. All of these are micro
USB rechargeable and as I mentioned they
all have the same form factor as well.
They have the clean beam design and you
can see that here if we do a little
close up these are the big vertical
deflectors that spread out the beam. In
terms of battery capacities the 400 has
a 2200 mAh battery, the next one up
is 2600 mAh
and finally the 800 feature a 3350
mAh battery. They all have these
integrated sight cutouts as well which
is great for side visibility. They
all have multiple steady modes as well
as a Courtesy and Superflash. This is
very similar to Light & Motion Safepulse
which has an irregular pulsing to really
draw attention for daytime riding. In
terms of what's in the packaging, it is very
simple, you get a user manual give the
user manual, a micro USB
charging cable and you have headlights
themselves. As you can see they all
have the same form factor and finally
you have the mount. The mount has a
pretty interesting design, it's a cam design so
you can see no tools are required which
makes installing and uninstalling very
simple. So now that I have everything out
of the packaging let's go ahead and weigh
these lights. Planet Bike claims all
of these have the same weight which
is not surprising considering the same
form factor. The 400 version is 120 grams,
if we look at the 600 we have 120 grams
and finally the 800 which should have
the highest battery capacity is
surprise-surprise 120 grams. If we look
at the mount, that comes in at 26 grams
so overall pretty light weight for these
headlights. Now let's take a look at
the fit and finish of the Planet Bike Blaze
SLX headlights. They all have the same
form factor, so we'll review one and
discuss any differences. If we start out
on the front,
these all have Cree LEDs with the
clean beam design on the lens. What
this means that this has some vertical
deflectors which distribute the beam
horizontally as you can see here with it
on the mat. We have a
very horizontally distributed light
which would reduce the glare. This is not
a proper beam cutoff but does a good job
at reducing the glare a bit. You have
really nice shielding on the top of
these lights as well so when you're
looking down you shouldn't be blinded by
the light.
With some headlights I've noticed if you
don't have this kind of shielding, once you
get out of the saddle you'll actually
blind yourself with your own headlight
just unfortunate. They all have this
torpedo style profile to them
which tapers at the end and the front.
The front portion of the headlights is a
metal body which improves the heat
dissipation, they also have this
powder-coated style finish with the
metallic flake to them which looks
pretty good. On the sides you have the
model number imprinted on
there, and the Planet Bike logo on the
rear portion. The other side is
unadorned as well as the rear portion.
You have these little cutouts on the
sides which should also improve the heat
dissipation, on the bottom you have your
micro USB port which is a standard
offering with a nice large rubber cover
to prevent any dust or water getting in.
You have a standard slot style mount
here that works with their proprietary
mount. In terms of controls you have a
single button interface and it has a
very large rubber button which has great
tactile feel, really easy to operate it's
a single click to cycle through. Now the
different lights here have different
number of modes, the higher power ones
have more levels in terms of high, medium
and low. They all feature the Courtesy mode
as well of the pulsing mode which is
their Superflash. That's similar to
Light & Motion's Safepulse which has an
irregular pulsing to attract attention.
This is the regular
mode you can see the beam is really well
distributed horizontally, you have
different steady levels this is the
flashing mode and then we have this
courtesy mode which is a nice kind of
pulsing mode which is good at drawing
attention without distracting people. A
long hold will turn it off and you also
have mode memory so if you turn it
off at a specific mode when you turn it
back on they'll be in the same mode. In
terms of differences between these there
aren't
any, it's just the model number. They weigh
the same amount and they just have
different battery capacities to achieve
the different outputs. They do have a
different cream model for the LED in the
400 version which is the lower powered
version. The mount is something that's
also really interesting it's kind of a
standard rubber strap design but this
cam design makes it really easy to
install and uninstall. You can see
here now that I have the top cover off
you simply pull back and that releases
the strap mechanism it is a really trick
design. I've never seen something like
this before,
now this was at the furthest setting
which accommodates the smallest diameter
handlebar. If I want to adjust that I
have two different positions I can go at
the center location or at the front
location. Now you can see it provides you
a much wider range of a larger diameter
and reassembly is the opposite of
disassembly. We simply slide that rear
tab in push down and then re-screw this
back on. Now is a little bit inconvenient
as it isn't tool free but
typically you don't swap between
different handlebar diameters and I do
like that you don't have to store
different diameter straps. If you look at
my closet right now I have a lot of
boxes for different headlights and all
the straps and different mechanisms that
come with it which gets to be pretty
cumbersome to keep track of.
Alright now that it is secure you can
see I simply readjust this and now I
have a much wider diameter here. So if
you're watching this review you're
probably wondering which Planet Bike
Blaze SLX should I buy. In order to
answer that question I've laid out some
of their competitors starting from the
left to the right where this is 400, 600
and 800. If we start with a 400 you can
see it has a very bulky size as it
shares the same form
factor with the others. That's one big
downside with this, for only 400
lumens you don't need such a large
sized light. However Planet Bike has
done a great job in terms of pricing
across the range. This is a $43 headlight
for the 400s SLX, if we look at one of its
competitors the Topeak Headlux 450 USB as the
name implies 450 you have 450 lumens. However
it comes in at 50 dollars and although
it does have a lot smaller form factor.
Also if you go lower powered you can get
more commuter style lights, this is
$50 Light & Motion Vya Pro which has a lot of
smart features and again a lot more
compact and lightweight
compared to the Planet Bike. Across
the range, I think that's one drawback. A
more interesting comparison is if we
look at the Blaze 600 SLX which is $55.
Its nearest competitor I think would be
the Light & Motion Urban 700, this is
a really popular series of light however
they're a little bit more simple. They
have a very simple design with no
clean beam or deflectors and a basic
spot light. Again the Urban 700 I
have here retails for $70 and while the
Planet Bike 600 SLX is only $55
so you can definitely save some money.
This one feels a little more substantial
and I think I like the design better, it
looks a little more modern and again a
little more compact as well which is
nice. If we go up to the higher power 800,
overall I'd recommend definitely buying
the most lumens you can as you can
always run the 800 at a lower setting
for longer versus something lower
powered. If you ride in more dark
trails I definitely recommend having
something closer to 1000 lumens. I
think the nearest competitor for the 800
SLX is the Fenix BC21R v2
it is a really cool light $75.00. It has
removable lithium ion battery, which is
huge and a very cool battery indicator.
With all the Blazes, the only battery
indicator you have will be a little LED
behind the main button which will turn
on once it's low. With the Fenix I can
actually check the battery status
anytime and you get a little more
granularity. Again same theme overall, the
Planet Bike lights are bulkier in terms of
all the shapes and sizes. These have the
same sliding mount designs and same USB port designs,
while the Fenix is actually USB Type-C
which is great.
However again, $75 while
the Blaze is only $65 and if you
have a higher budget you can also get a
little more sleeker and compact lights.
This is a Magicshine Allty 1000, this is
an $85 light but it features a
integrated DRL and one of the best
feature is the Garmin mount so you can
put this in your out-in-front mount
instead of in having to use a
proprietary sliding mount. Again more
compact, smaller size and I think a
better more modern design. I also wanted
to point out that the cam style mount is
very similar to the Fenix but I think
what Planet Bike has done with the
adjustable positions to accommodate
different diameters is really slick.
If we look at the Fenix version here
it has the same kind of cam style that
slides in and out. So really
easy and quick, however you use different
thickness pads to
accommodate different diameters and this
means you have to store these somewhere
and then try not to lose them. So I think
it is a clever solution
from Planet Bike in terms of the
mount. Now let's look at the light output
of the Planet Bike Blaze SLX lights,
first let's take a look at the beam
shape. On the right I have a
cross-section of the beam and as you can
see it's very horizontally distributed
thanks to the clean beam design. On the
left you can see a side shot of the beam,
as you can see the shielding on the top
surface of the light helps prevent some
of the glare but otherwise it's a kind
of standard distributed beam. Now will
cycle through all the different modes,
I'll go through the 400 the 600 and 800.
They all have a high-low setting with
the 600 and 800 also having medium setting
as well. For each of these settings I'll
show the lumen output and
the claimed runtime. You can see courtesy
mode here looks a little flicker on camera,
however it's this is a constant mode and
then it ramps up and down. Super
flash on camera looks really strange as
well but it is very high frequency
pulsing they would not recommend on a
nighttime trail.
[Music]
Now that you've seen all the different
modes we can compare the high modes for
a Blaze 400, 600, and 800 SLX side-by-side. There
are not many obvious differences here but if
you look closely you'll see that the 400
has less distribution do the lower power,
while the 600 has a wider beam and then
finally an 800 is a wider beam with
further reach. We found the lower
medium settings to be pretty
sufficient for the 600 and 800 SLX while the
Blaze 400 SLX needed a high setting if you
want to ride on darker trails. Now lets
go over the pros and cons for the Blaze SLX
lights. I really like that they're very
affordable regardless of which level you
buy the 400, 600 or 800 they're cheaper
than the competition. The Courtesy and
Superflash modes really help improve
the daytime visibility and with the
side cutouts you get 275 degrees of
visibility which is really nice to have
at nighttime. What I don't like about
these lights is the fact that a little
bit bulky especially for the 400 SLX, the
form factor is larger than some of the
competition. You also have to cycle
through the Courtesy and Superflash
modes just to access the different
steady-state modes which is unfortunate.
A lot of lights now have a double click
which will access flash modes. Also like
a lot of USB lights, the low battery
status indicator is non-obvious. You
can't really check the battery status,
and you just have to wait for that low
status to show once you have less than
10%. Now let's give the lights a final
rating, I think across the board I would
give these an 8.4 out of
10. They're really bright and
budget-friendly set of lights. They lack
some of the modern features such as the
Garmin mount or DRLs, but they make up
for that and the fact that they're very
affordable and with that clean beam
design you get a really great beam
pattern for commuting with. Thanks for
watching this review, hopefully this
helps you determine which light
you want to buy. You can find 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]