Thanks for tuning in today we're going to be reviewing the Smart
Bike Lights Cliq rear tail light.
With advancements in technology bike tail lights can do more than simply provide illumination.
Modern tail lights like this Smart Bike Lights Cliq can actually detect braking, sync output
modes wirelessly with other taillights that are nearby and even notify you if your bike is stolen.
The Cliq was originally launched from a successful Kickstarter campaign where it
was known as the Rayo. It's still one of the most advanced taillights on the market today.
In terms of packaging is very simple you can see it has a graphic of the light on here. Cliq printed
here in this glossy overlay which is a nice touch. Basic specs written on the side and as well as the
other side and then the light contained in this box there's also different optional gear packs
for mounting this which we have here as well. So go ahead take out the box we'll go over the
specs. The retail price is currently 44.99 so it's quite a discount from the original price.
It is a three led design with the engineering optics so each led has a specific purpose.
You have a six axis motion sensor so that'll detect if you're braking
and you also have a 90 lumen maximum output. This tail light also has bluetooth connectivity
which will let you automatically sync with any nearby taillights for the group sync feature.
It's fully customizable by an app which also you can connect to using bluetooth
using the free app it's available both on android and ios systems. In terms of what you get in the
box you get quite a few things here we have the taillight with the protective cover off.
We have the holder so this will pop into place behind it you have the rubber strap
so this will work for any round seat post and you can see stretchable and quite durable as
well. It's not super thin like some other lights we've seen. It comes with a little pad too which you
can put right behind here to protect your seat post from scratches. Then you also have two other
options you can use the clip mount which will go onto the holder so that'll pop into place there
allow you to attach this to a saddle bag or your backpack. Then you also have this other gear pack
which will actually connect to any strap so you can see you slide the strap in there. So if you
have a headlamp or any other type mount you can use that and again this will just connect to the
actual holder itself so it's a modular design and a micro usb charging cable as well. You also
have a little instruction booklet which doesn't really give you much information it just tells
you what's in here and some basic instructions. So the instruction is definitely lacking so we'll
go over the operation uh later in the video. Now in terms of the gear packs these are 9.99
so this one is a replacement so if you wanted a spare or replace one of these you can see it comes
with the what they call the molle which is a strap attachment the holder again. Then the clip it
doesn't come with the cushion or the rubber strap so it's great if you want to mount on another bike
and then they also have an aero seat post mount and you can see this has a cushion the holder.
Again a flat cushion and then the u-shape as well as a longer strap so go ahead take this one out
and again only 9.99 so pretty affordable. They also have a saddle rail option that we don't have here
today but could easily be used. The strap is much longer than the
other one so it should accommodate aero seat post and then you can see you have two cushion
options. One much thicker this one has a u-shape so if you have a sharp trailing edge it will slide right
in and hold it in place or if it's more flat you can use the larger flat one. Let's go over
the weight of the Cliq tail light so just the taillight without any holders attached.
That comes in at 48 grams so still relatively light despite all the features.
If you want to use the round seat post mount you'll need these two pieces with a little cushion
that's only 10 grams quite light and then if you want to do the aero version longer you have the
longer strap thicker cushion expect that to be slightly more and that's only 20 grams.
You can see a very simple design you have a large clear transparent lens with a plastic body.
It is fairly bulky but you can see it actually narrows in so i'll hide behind your seat post
and then the tops are curved inward as well. You have three led design and these are what
are called total internal reflection or TIR and you can see that here the led emitter unlike
the center one which the emitter is just exposed the left and right one actually have this little
reflector directly on top and that really focuses the light. So the top one is designed for closer so
it's a more narrow beam the middle one is designed for a wide beam so that'll illuminate the body
and help with your side visibility. Then the bottom led is designed for long distances so very focused.
You have a simple one-button interface and this is on the bottom. You can tell the top and bottom direction
by checking the usb cover otherwise it's actually symmetric top at the bottom.
So you can see each led has specific operation and this one's very tight while that one's a
little wider once illuminated you can also see how nicely the light illuminated so
it helps with side visibility. It's something a lot of taillights forget to do they'll move the body
all the way to the edge and prevent it from being seen on the edge but you can see here even from
very high angles you still see the light. A very simple four mode option so you just cycle through
to access each mode. Hold it to turn it on and off so the actual device interface very simple. There's
a little charging led on the inside that'll illuminate when it's charging and one has a
low battery indicator that'll also illuminate. The mount design you can see is actually adjustable
and that's one of the more confusing parts there's no instructions on how this goes so you have to
kind of figure it out. So i attach the cushion to the little cutout and that helps you from not
scratching your frame or your seatpost so then you'll notice that these have little tabs. These
will match the little rectangle tabs here you have three different positions so you can put it
parallel upward or downward most seat posts are actually tilted upward
up backwards. So you want to actually likely use the top mount so that gives you some adjustability
so with that you can compensate for that angle by tilting this a little bit upward.
Now once it's on there you can use this in conjunction with the rubber strap very simple
design. I know most people don't appreciate the little rubber strap but it actually works well and
you can see the hook so makes you want to put the right side in and you can see how stiff this is.
So the plastic feels well made you want to put it in first drop it in place and then you can see it
actually stays off and it won't fall off wrap it all the way around and then you're ready to ride.
Now the other options take a lot more force so it's very difficult to take on and off.
What you want to do is put this back in i'll just leave it in the parallel position.
Now if you wanted to use the clip you actually want to attach that right here so you simply snap
it into place and again this has grooves and then you get a nice clip. This is great for a saddle bag
or put on your clothing for rear visibility. Now taking this off requires actually pushing this
down and then lifting up it is very hard you can see it almost feels like you're going to break it.
So I actually have to use a flat piece of metal to take this off here i have a little door latch
which i can put under and then pry this up and then you hear the click. So you see now it comes
off it's just very stiff. So this should be a lot more flexible, same thing with the other attachment.
This has the same little hooks you can see those that'll attach here and then to take it off again.
You just have to pry up and then that'll come off but again very stiff so hopefully
you don't do this too many times. Otherwise you have the usb the micro usb charging port
here it's a little bit disappointing that you don't get the usb type-c but otherwise really
simple. The original kickstarter offered multiple colors but it's only available in black currently.
Now take a look at the output of the Cliq on the road. There are four preset modes you have
a constant and a couple flash variations. They don't tell you the lumen output or the runtime
for these modes as they're so customizable through the app and we'll see that later.
Overall though even with only 90 lumens it's a very bright light as you can see here
the three leds combined provide a nice short distance and long distance visibility.
Now let's take a look at the Haute grid app that comes with the Cliq.
This is a free app available on Android and IOS and allows for full customization of the taillight.
So you just enable bluetooth then find your device as i found it here and you'll see the
blue light activates, this indicates the bluetooth connectivity is active. Now what's really cool
about this is you can change each mode so you can actually change each led independently so both the
intensity the flash pattern. You can even turn them off so you can only do one at a time if you want
and each led here has different beam optics so if you want really far distance you can set only one
on. If you want more of a bright light during wet weather or foggy weather you can turn them all on
and you can actually name them. You can see there's even a brake sensor you can turn that on or off.
Group sync enabled on or off per mode which is really cool.
Then with the brake light you can do more than simply turn on off you can change
the sensitivity that's something we've seen with other tail lights like the Raz Pro.
You can also change the duration you can change the brightness so it's very cool you can get it
exactly how you want it and you can make it flash or just go to the high brightness
so unique feature to this tail light and really lets you customize it to exactly what you want.
Then there's some global functions you can do eco mode which will go to the low setting once the
battery is low and that helps you monitor the battery status auto sleep which automatically
turns it off after a certain amount of time. Then the theft alert which is also a cool feature
a little bit of a gimmick so if you enable that it will actually detect motion so if i go move it
you'll see the alarm will go off on your phone and you'll get a little alert that hey check your bike.
So it's a little bit of gimmick you have to be within Bluetooth range it doesn't emit an
audible alert on the taillight it's just on your phone and you have to have the app open.
So otherwise really nice feature is you can check the battery status too with this app
so if you go on here it'll actually show you the exact battery status so you don't have
to guess and there's no actual battery status on the taillight itself so it's a nice way to check.
You can have multiple devices if you have other products in this from the company as well.
The most direct comparison is the Shanren Raz Pro it has a lot of similar features. It was launched
from kickstarter, it has the group sync so if you have multiple Raz Pros they will flash together
same as the Cliq. You have the brake sensor the Shanren, also has the app connectivity so
you can actually customize the modes and you can reorder the modes. With the Cliq you can
just have four modes that you can customize with the Raz Pro you can go all the way down to one
or nine and reorder them exactly as you please. Different form factor a lot thinner and smaller
so you can see it's a little more compact. It's something you can put
on your clothing or other places at lighter weight. The party trick on the Raz Pro
is the color change. It's not only just a red color you can actually cycle through
the full rgb spectrum which is something you don't really see often and really not that useful
unless you want to use the light around your clothing on the front indicator side indicator.
The nice thing about the Cliq over the Raz Pro is that you can customize
what the brake sensor does. That's something the Raz Pro doesn't do it just goes to the
highest constant mode while the Cliq you can actually make that flash or whatever you choose.
There's a lot of form factors on the market when it comes to a tail light this is the Light & Motion
Vya Switch similar to the Vya Pro but you can see elongated body single led design highly focused
so similar to that bottom led on the Cliq. Much smaller and what's cool about the Vya Pro
and the Vya Switch that we have here it is a built-in usb dongle so you don't actually
need a cable to charge us you just plug it in directly and it goes directly into the
mount so it's protected from the elements and then you can actually just use the light as is.
So there are other form factors as well the Night Rider Bullet 200. It is brighter at 200 lumens but you
can see quite long and then it has this bulging form factor so you have better visibility from
the side. So you can see when i'm right behind it I can still see the Bullet because it sticks out
but again the they both have good side visibility. The bullet's obviously better just because of the
bulging design it's less elegant on the bike while something like the Cliq can actually
hide behind it. If you just want power without all the smart features something like the Planet Bike
Rojo 100 is really nice. USB type c charging multi-led design and it's
very bright with multiple flash modes. Very simple body so transparent body
with the plastic clip and then multiple mounting options. Now the one downside to these smart tail
lights is that they rely on the app you really can't do much with a Cliq without the app.
You can only cycle through the modes you can't customize you can't change anything.
Something like the Lupine Rotlicht which we previously reviewed takes all the nice features
of the customization and bakes it into a single button interface. So you actually have to hold it
and then there's actually a cheat sheet here so you have to hold it for one two three all the
way up to nine or plus different times and i'll blink so you can customize it manually.
A lot less intuitive obviously you need an instruction manual or this cheat sheet
to understand what you're doing while the app makes it simple. The downside of the app
is that you don't know how long they're going to support it so if they come out with a new
version they may stop updating the app and they'll no longer be able to access all the features.
The other popular light we've done a lot of reviews on is the Magicshine so this is the
Seemee 200. It has the ambient light sensor which something that Cliq doesn't have and something
i really like so you can put it in smart mode and i'll switch between a day and a night mode without
having to press any buttons so that's a really nice feature. Otherwise it has a brake sensor
just like the Cliq, no app on the Sagicshine but otherwise pretty similar small body. This
one has a downward facing led on exceeding 200 but the 180 and other models just have the front face
so that's one unique aspect. Same rubber mount style but the nice thing about the Cliq is
compared to all these you get a lot of smart features and the most customization we've seen.
Now let's go over the pros and cons for the Cliq tail light what we like about it is
that it's daytime visible. The three leds are very bright and you can also customize each of
them independently which is a feature we haven't seen before using the app.
The three leds offer unique beam patterns so you can have all constant or variations of
flash between them. Some of the cons for the tail light the fact that they're poor instructions.
It's not really clear how to put the mouse together so it takes a little trial and error.
It also lacks a battery status indicator on the device you do have to use the app
and most of the features are on the app the onboard button adjusting cycle modes
or powered on or off. Finally connecting the mount parts requires a lot of force
it's tight enough that requires using a little flat screwdriver or a tool to actually take
them apart. Taking everything into account would give the Cliq an 8.9 out of 10. It's a very smart
and customizable tail light. Thanks for watching this review don't forget to like and subscribe.
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