Thanks for tuning in
today we're going to be reviewing the
Kryptonite Incite
X6 bicycle headlight.
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Although Kryptonite is best known for
their wide selection of bike locks
they've recently introduced the Incite
series of bike lights.
What sets the Incite lights apart from
others on the market
is the fact they focused on beam optics
rather than just raw output and as a result
of that these actually carry a lux
rating
something that's more common in europe
than the united states.
We're going to be looking at the
mid-level products this is the
x6 headlight this is actually the set
which includes the
XBR tail light. We're going to review
that in a separate video
so for this video we're going to focus
on the headlight itself.
Packaging wise it's really nice you have
black and yellow,
a bright graphics the headlight and
taillight are probably displayed here.
You can actually see the lens on the
headlight which is one of the best
features.
You have the nice infographic on why you
want a beam optics over just raw power
traditionally you have a cone
shaped the beam which blinds oncoming
traffic whether it's pedestrians or
other cyclists.
So with this focused design it really
keeps the ground lit up
rather than everything around you. I'll
go ahead and take it out of the box and
we'll go over the specs.
This set retails for $99.95
you can also buy them individually. The
headlight is i$74.95
while the taillight is $39.95
and as I mentioned we're going to focus
on the headlight in this review.
It has a dual aspheric lens which is a
spherical lens here and on the inside
it's specially formed to really focus
the light down
that means you can't put the light
upside down and has to be right side up.
It has a 60 lux rating which is twice
the power of the lower model X3
and that's measured at 10 meters away.
It's usb
chargeable and it also has a runtime
lcd display that's also backlit so you
actually know how much battery you have
in real time. The X6 they've
also included an ambient light sensor
for
special smart mode that'll automatically
adjust to the environment.
Now inside the box with the set
you get the headlight you get the
removable
mount you also get the
XBR tail light with a little rubber
strap to attach it to your seat post. A
USB cable for charging and then two user
manuals one for the xbr tail taillight
and one for the
X6 headlight. Let's take a second to
look at the weight of the headlight
so the headlight by itself comes in at
142 grams
and then if I add the handlebar mount
that brings it up to 160.
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Now let's go over the fit and finish of
the X6 headlight.
What really sets the headlight apart
from others on the market
is the dual spherical lens and this
almost looks like a cat's eye.
It's very interesting so you can see
on the inside that's the
leds on here and as I rotate the display
you can see
that it actually curves it down and
distorts it and that's why you call it
dual spherical lens.
The outside is spherical and the inside
has a special form to focus the light.
Now this is really similar to the X3
headlight but has double the output
and is larger because of that. Color wise
they went with a three color scheme. You
have
black on top gray on the sides with
minimal Kryptonite branding on
each side and then this nice yellow
accent ring that sets it apart.
The profile goes from this round front
lens
to a square rear with the usb charging
port here
and unfortunately it's not a Type-C just
standard micro usb charging.
he sides have these nice little cutouts
and you can see when I turn the light on
they actually work really well to
illuminate the side and it actually
illuminates their handlebars as well
so it's a nice thing to run at night.
Here you can see the other feature, the
illuminated
screen that's a really nice way to see
the runtime. So it's hours and minutes
and depending on which mode you're on
it will actually adjust. It's a single
button interface
so long press to turn it on and off it
has mode memory.
There are seven total modes here and
this is probably one of the more
confusing aspects of this
is that it has four lcd four led
displays here
that correspond to seven different modes.
This is where it gets a little bit
tricky
so depending on which mode you're in
they either flash or illuminate so you
can see this is low mode
medium high and then you have the
various flashing modes.
What's also nice about this is in in
addition to the different flash modes
you have this
auto mode so you can see here the top
and bottom display.
There is an ambient light
sensor
inside the light that automatically just
a light so it'll go from low medium to
high
automatically. Now we found this to be
not quite as useful
as other lights with ambient light
sensors
it typically just goes full high as you
see here even on this
brighter day unless you're in the
full sun it's almost always on high so
not as useful as it could be. The other
really cool thing about this is
obviously the
beam pattern, so you can see with the
spheric lens
you get very distinct pattern instead of
the traditional cone pattern
and that really focuses the light on the
ground
so definitely nice to see. Mounting wise
unfortunately they didn't go with a Garmin
or GoPro.
Instead they want their own proprietary click
design.
Now there are no accessories currently
available so you do have to use their
current mounts but I believe they
have a helmet mount and a rack option.
Now the mount design is really simple so
you can see it has two slots here
and similar to a bike pedal it has these
little
grooves so to mount it you simply
put it in here on rear first and then
click in place.
To take the light off you push this
button and release it
now it's really easy to get to the button
when it's not on the bike when it's on
the bike i'll show you
that it's a little more difficult.
Then to actually put it on the bike it's
pretty simple
so it's a ratchet design so no tools
needed.
You can see i can feed the cable
through
and put this on the handlebar and if i
want to tighten i just pull back
and then lock it in place with the lever.
They also include a nice feature
to allow you to rotate this so you can
see
i can actually rotate this side to side
and then tighten down the bolt
to keep it in place so definitely easy
to use.
Unfortunately you can can't use out
front mounts because of the
incompatibility.
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Now let's take a look at the Incite X6
beam pattern.
As you can see it's a fairly narrow beam
pattern with almost a u-shape and a
sharp beam cut off.
There's also a little brighter portion
right at the cutoff which helps with the
almost a dual beam design.
Now if we cycle through the different
modes there's seven of them you have low
medium and high and even in high you get
up to three hours of runtime which is
pretty nice.
With the little led display you'll
never get caught off guard when you run
out of battery either.
There are three different flash modes
the daytime pulse which is really nice
to have as it's gradual
a night time pulse as well as a
economic flash for the highest run time.
Note the auto mode
always seems to defer to the high steady
mode.
Now when you're riding the beam is
fairly narrow it's about a
car lane width but with the u-shaped
design of the beam you have light all
the way from the front of your bike
all the way to that sharper brighter
portion near the cut-off.
Overall it has a nice pattern to it and
instead of blinding other people you can
see most of the light is focused on the
ground.
We found ourselves mostly riding with
the high mode especially on darker
trails
but if you're commuting and there's
other ambient light you can definitely
get away with medium or even low.
That's compared to the X63which is the
30 lux model version of this
with that one we found you always had to
use high the nice thing with the X6 is
with the 60 lux
output you can definitely get away with
lower setting and the higher run time
that comes with it.
We also really like the nighttime flash
as it gradually goes from a low setting
to a high setting
which is less annoying when you're
riding and helps draw attention to you.
It's also worth noting that the led
lights and the backlit screen aren't too
distracting when you're riding
and provide good indicator of what
mode you're in as well as the remaining
runtime.
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So now let's do a little comparison
between the Kryptonite inside 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
with no mode indicator and 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
and a little more premium look that
corresponds to the higher price.
It has larger side window and again 80 lux
versus the 60 for the X6 and is quite a bit
brighter.
With the X8 you can definitely run it in
a medium mode pretty happily
at nighttime while the X3 and X6
I found myself usually in high mode
all the time
especially on dark trails.
For commuting they are better options
while
a more serious dark trail or dark road
I prefer the X8. Now mount wise the X8
X3 and X6 all have the same style
mount
The X3 and X6 share the
smaller one while the
X8 has this more wide version that
corresponds to the larger size.
Comparing to that
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
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
but it does feel more premium too it has
the metal housing
that matches the more expensive price.
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 on a larger and easier 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
they're 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 Incite X6.
What we liked about it are the
advanced beam optics,
it's great to see a beam cut off
especially for a commuter bike light.
It means you're not going to be blinding
people on the road as well as other
cyclists on bike trails.
The backlit runtime display
is also easy to read
and make sure you never run out of
battery without having some notice.
Also we like the side slots on the
housing as they illuminate the
handlebars
and give you a little extra light when
you're riding at night.
Some of the cons are the proprietary
mount for the headlamp.
It'd be nice to see a GoPro or Garmin
adapter that will allow you use an out
front mount instead of the
supplied handlebar mount. It also has a
confusing mode indicator design with the
four
leds indicating one of these seven modes
so
unless you read the manual it's easy to
forget what is what.
Also we found the auto mode was too
sensitive,
the ambient light sensor always put us
in high mode except in full sunlight so
unlike other lights we've reviewed we
found auto mode not to be very useful.
Taking everything into account we'd give
the Incite x6 an 8.8 out of 10.
This really has focused optics and a small
package. It's great to see
these types of lenses at the lower price
point.
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This is The Sweet Cyclist reminding you to
enjoy the ride!
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