Thanks for tuning in
today we're going to be reviewing the
Shanren Raz Pro smart
bicycle tail light.
[Music]
One of the biggest advancements in bike
tail lights aren't just
brighter leds but it's smarter tail
lights with integrated sensors.
Now with the Shanren Raz Pro this is a
very smart tail light that was
successfully launched off of a
Kickstarter campaign.
This has all the modern day features as
well as bluetooth connectivity
with an associated app. Now packaging
wise really simple,
you can see white and black graphics and you
have a little window here where you can
see the tail light
which has this nice round design.
You have a little overview of all the
features here and as I mentioned there's
a lot of sensors here with the
really unique feature set. Otherwise
pretty simple
I'll go ahead and take it out of the box
and while I do that we'll go over the
specs.
Retail price for this is $39.90 directly
from Shanren's website.
It's also a little bit cheaper on Amazon
at $36.99 right now.
It features 12 full color
leds which is a really cool feature so
you can actually change a color here
with a simple interaction so something
you don't really see with a lot of
taillights.
It has 60 lumen maximum output
with run times that vary from 24 to 46
hours depending on which mode you pick.
It also has an ambient light sensor so
it can adjust to the environment
as well as a brake sensor as well as a
bump sensor so quite a few
options here and one of the coolest
features here
is the team sync feature.Sso if you have
multiple of these Raz Pros together
they can actually sync together if
they're the same color and same mode.
So the flash modes will actually get in
sync and that'll make your group look
larger
and more uniform so really nice feature
that improves safety.
Now inside the box you get
the actual tail light which is pretty
sleek.
You get the instruction manual, you get a
proprietary charging cable with these
little magnetic
ports on here. It's an interesting design
you don't typically see
but it actually just latches in place
you do have to make sure you don't lose
the cable though.
Inside the box they include the RX1
which is a seat post and helmet bracket.
Now this is very similar to a computer
mount
so let me pull this out.
It basically has these four tabs, a tab
on each side
and you take the o-rings loop it through
and around either your stem
handlebar or seat post wherever you
want to mount it.
They also offer RX2 which is a saddle
mount
it's a little plastic bracket that fits
between your saddle rails. Now let's
take a look at the weight
of the Raz Pro so just the taillight
comes in at 20 grams so pretty light
and then if we take the mount and this
is the seatpost mount with the
padding and the two o-rings that go with
it.
That comes in at 10 grams so pretty
light package overall.
[Music]
Now let's go over the fit and finish
of the Raz Pro.
This is probably one of the smartest
tail lights we've actually reviewed here
and considering how many bike lights
review that's saying a lot.
Visually it's a very modern design
so it's a circular design with the 12
leds
in a little concentric ring.
Now this is not a COB design so you can
see they're individual leds that
illuminate together.
It's fairly thick though if you look at
the side profile so you have
integrated battery and the mount on here
as well.
What's cool about this is because of
this interesting charge design.
Because there's no usb port or a little
plastic a rubber gasket
it's actually IP68 rated which is really
high.
This can actually be submerged
underwater for up to 30 minutes
which is a really nice feature on the
downside is the proprietary charging
cable.
You want to make sure you don't lose
this and if you want to charge this at
work you're gonna have to bring it with
you
as you likely don't have another one of
these lying around.
Now mounting wise pretty simple it's
kind of a
Garmin style so
rotate the lock you do want to make sure
when you mount this on your bike
that the power button is pointed upward
as it's calibrated for that.
The mount itself is really cool even
though it's a little bit more tedious to
put on with these
hooks and the o-rings they've actually
accommodated both aero seat post
and round seat posts with this little
curved design. This is very reminiscent
of the
Magicshine tail lights which just have a
little indentation here
so it's creates more versatile. They
don't include any clip like a body clip
but
you can certainly use this to mount it
on your helmet
or even mount on your clothing or hooks.
So pretty adaptable
they also include the helmet pad here
so you could swap out the thicker pad
and put this more flush one and that
works better on a helmet so
a lot of versatility here and with the
team sync feature it can actually
match the flash both on your helmet and
seat post if you want to use two at a
time.
Now the user interface is pretty simple,
you have a one button interface
so you pretty much press it to turn it
on and
click it to cycle through the modes and
I'll show the app later you can actually
reorder which modes you have which is a
really cool feature again.
So up to eight modes here you can change
the color
by simply doing a quick twist and you
can see it'll cycle through a preset
set of colors you can also use the app
to pick from an RGB spectrumi. Another
very unique feature, I'm not sure why
you'd want to change a color i don't
recommend running a blue tail light
you want to stick with red white or
orange
as a side marker but definitely a nice
feature you can also double click on the
button to switch the color
so that's nice you don't actually need
the app to switch your color directly
and the nice thing is you can actually
go all white on the front
and then use this as a front warning
indicator.
[Music]
Now let's look at the output of the Raz
Pro. There are eight available modes and
as you saw with the app you can
configure which ones you actually want
to use.
There are quite a few flash variations
as well as the comet and breath which
have a nice pulsing effect.
Now let's take a look at the Raz Pro
on the road. As you can see here in the
daytime it's not particularly bright
especially in full sunlight it's too dim
to actually be seen with the 12
distributed leds however we're really
impressed with how
well the brake sensor worked. As you can
see here
it doesn't trigger until you actually
brake unlike a lot of other brake
sensors we've used
which have a lot of false positives. The
other feature is also this
bump sensor you saw it goes white. It's
a little bit unusual, I don't think a lot
of people will understand why it changes color
but it does catch your eye.
Here you can see as I come to a stop the
brake sensor actually triggers and holds
until you start moving again. It's a nice
feature a lot of manufacturers implement
this in different ways
sometimes they end up flashing and
sometimes they go to a constant high
steady mode as the Raz Pro does.
As i mentioned it's quite impressive
how well it's calibrated
the bump sensor is also not that
sensitive you can see here when you hit
the bumps it does trigger but sometimes
it triggers a little bit later.
Again I don't think this is a
particularly useful feature but it is a
nice to have and since you already have
the brake sensors just a
slight modification of that. Here's an
example of the auto sync so if you have
two Raz Pros
in the same color and output mode you
can see they quickly sync together so as
I
cycle through it syncs and it's really
nice effect that helps
for better visibility at night also it's
worth pointing out the color change
is very simple to do especially with the
app and with auto flash in different
colors it's a great way to differentiate
yourself on the road.
I don't recommend using different color
tail lights i would stick with red but
as you can see here
you could attach a second Raz Pro to
your body or use it as a side marker and
it's just a really cool feature you
don't typically see with tail lights.
[Music]
Now let's take a look at the Shanren
app, this is free both on the android and
iphone
and it's a really nice way to extend a
lot of functionality of the Raz Pro.
This app also supports their GPS
computers
to connect to the Raz Pro. I have the raz
pro on and I have bluetooth enabled.
I'm going to go search for the device
here you can see the different computers
they offer
as well as the sensors, we'll click Raz
Pro to start scanning.
You can see it found it pretty quickly
now we're going to connect to it
this is a cool thing because as
Bluetooth connectivity you can control
all the features.
One of the best features here is the
full RGB color selection
and this is pretty cool you can see I'll
actually update pretty quickly.
Now i'm not quite sure why you'd want to
run these in other colors, I'd highly
recommend sticking with red,
white, or orange for a side light but you
can use the other colors as a secondary
light if you want to wear this
on your backpack or as like a side
marker.
It's pretty cool and it updates quickly.
You can also change
the lighting mode, it's another nice
feature you can reorganize the different
modes so if you
have a mode you prefer you just drag and
drop and add it to the list
and if you have a mode you don't really
care about you can take it out so
it makes a lot simpler you can organize
it exactly as you like it with the modes
you prefer. It is
something we've rarely seen in a mode
you can also control
all the sensors so you can turn off the
light sensor
you can turn off the brake sensor you
can turn off the bump alert so you can
really
set it up the way you like it. They have
different modes as either
front light helmet which automatically
has some defaults that make sense.
So by default it comes with the light
sensing off.
The light sensor mode actually turns
off the light
in brighter settings and then turns it
back on when it detects it's darker
which is an interesting feature. It's a
good way to preserve battery but not a
great way to
stay daytime visible.
Additionally to that you can change the
team up setting so
this is the auto autosyncing, you can make
it automatic or put a password so
you're not linking to random strangers
light. If you have a team
or a couple buddies you can set up a
password.
There's also multiple light output modes
there's low
and medium and high so it normally comes
in as normal but you can adjust that.
You can also change the sleep for all
the way from 10 minutes
down to 30 seconds so that's a nice way
to preserve some battery. The
default seems to be about four minutes
so as you can see the app is pretty
simple to use and you can full reset
back to default settings you can also
see the battery status here which is
probably one of the best features
so before you start riding you can go
check it and make sure you have enough
charge.
[Music]
So now let's do a little comparison
between the Raz Pro and other tail
lights on the market.
Now there's a lot of options on the
market everything for more simple tail
lights like the Rojo 100.
It has USB Type-C charging and
is a simple tail light with
no sensors but it's pretty bright. Simple
one-button interface and multiple led
design and
really easy to use. You don't have any
of the smart features no sensors but
really
simple and honest. There's also more
elaborate tail lights like the Light &
Motion Vya Switch. You can see it has a
single led design
a really cool mounting design where the
usb dongle is built into
the light
and then very bright with a very focused
single led.
That's one criticism of the Raz Pro
with the 12 led design
they're not bright enough to really be
daylight
bright. So it's definitely better for
night time while something like the
Vya
has the daytime visibility with the more
focused optics.
The Raz Pro also looks quite a bit
like the older Magicshine Seemee 60.
You can see these both have brake
sensors
where Magicshine went square and the Raz Pro is
a circle.
Pretty similar dimensions, this also
has a brake sensor but no ambient light
sensor.
One thing I like about the Seemee is
you can see it has a COB
LED design with this grid of leds rather
than
the single individual leds.
This looks a little bit more modern
when illuminated
whereas the Raz Pro you can see it has
more distinct light it would have been
nice to have a COB led that would light
up the whole thing.
It does have very good side
visibility though you can see with the
beveled edge
so up to 270 degrees which is really
nice.
Something you can see on other tail
lights as well it really helps so when
you're riding
even at high angles traffic will see you.
Now smart tail lights are becoming a lot
more popular these days.
This is the Magicshine Seemee 200,
not only does this have a secondary
bottom led but also has the ambient
light sensor which provides a smart mode
as well this little bottom led which
is really cool.
It also has the brake sensor built in so
all the features you'd want. As you go up
in the price range you'll see the
Bontrager Flare RT. This has bluetooth
connectivity which will work with Garmin
and Bontrager computer something that
the
Raz Pro doesn't have although with the
Raz Pro you do get the app which allows
quite a bit of customization. You can't
just connect this to your head unit
though that would be a nice feature
but you can see the Raz Pro is quite a
bit cheaper than the $60
Bontrager. It's a little bit bigger but
it has more features and more
customization than the RT has.
One comparison that is always fun to do is a
Lupine Rotlicht, at $110
they're quite expensive but if you
remember the review for this that we did
this has a lot of customization. You
can see the little cheat sheet here,
you simply hold this and then you count
the number of
the flashes of the led and this lets you
adjust the adjustability of the
brake sensor from a low medium high all
the way to off
as well as switch between low medium
high settings similar to the Raz Pro
all without an app. That's one
nice thing with this, you don't have
to worry about the app becoming
a non-supported with future ios updates
but with the Raz Pro you get a lot more
easy to use interface and you don't have
to count
flashing lights which is kind of crazy.
[Music]
Now let's go over the pros and cons for
the Raz Pro. What we like about the
taillight it's that it's highly
configurable,
using the app you can change the color
you can change which modes and the order
they appear
as well as the timeout so it's really
nice to have so much customization.
It also has unique and eye-catching
output modes with multiple flashes and
pulse modes you can find the one that
matches your riding style.
It also has a very well calibrated brake
sensor it seems to only trigger when
you're actually decelerating and doesn't
have that many false positives which
would drive down the runtime of the
taillight.
Some of the cons for the taillight is
the fact that it's not really daytime
bright.
Even though it's 60 lumens because it's
12 separate leds it's just not focused
enough
to get through bright sunlight so
definitely something better to use at
night.
We also don't like the proprietary
magnetic charging cable
instead of using a generic usbc or micro
usb
you have to always keep this cable with
you and if you were to lose it you'd
have to contact Shanren to get a
replacement.
Finally we're all a little wary of
smart applications like this
that require an apple a separate cell
phone app to use all the features
if Shanren were to drop support for the
app
you would lose some access to be able to
turn on and turn off some of the sensors
and other
customization. It would have been nice to
have some backups that can be accessed
through the power button. Taking
everything into account would give the
Shanren Raz Pro a 9.1 out of 10.
It's a very high tech and configurable
taillight. Thanks for watching this
review
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