I was quite impressed with the previous-generation Vis 180 when I reviewed it about a year ago, and the new 2014 model is very similar. The overall design remains the same: very sturdy construction using mostly metal and some durable plastic. A single bright, wide-angle red LED at the top, and a small amber side-visibility LED at the bottom. The output has been increased from 50 to 70 lumens, and the pulsing flash pattern has been modified slightly. If you already have a Vis 180 there's no pressing reason to upgrade, but if this is your first time looking at this light, read on for a detailed review.

Optics and visibility

The Vis 180's optics exceed what its name implies: the light is visible from well over a 180° range. The high-intensity primary red light is behind a custom reflector that spreads the light evenly across the horizontal plane, without wasting too much light by shining it skyward. The output of the lower amber LED is split to each side, and is also very bright. This combination makes the light visible from almost any angle behind or next to the bike.

The Light & Motion Urban series has been one of my favorites for a while, so I was excited to see the Urban 2.0 update this summer. The new Urban series carries the same design and features as the older series, but with redesigned internals. The lights are now fully waterproof, and all lights in the series have the peened reflector that debuted with the Urban 700. The Urban 350 in particular is exciting because it's the first L&M headlight that I feel is in the price and output range that appeals to the most riders. The Urban 200 wasn't bright enough, and the Urban 400 was a bit too pricey. At $70, the 350 hits a good balance between power and price.

Optics and visibility

The optics of the Urban lights are unparelled in this price and output range. Many lights in the 300ish lumen category have a relatively narrow beam that adequately lights up the road directly in front of you, but with no spill to see anything to the sides, but the 350 has a custom engineered reflector that creates a wide, smooth beam. Compared to the Serfas USL-305 with similar specs, the Urban 350 feels like it puts out way more than 50 additional lumens, because the light is put to better use.

Serfas already makes some of my favorite lights, but there was a large gap between their bright and bulky mountain biking lights and their small Thunderbolt be-seen lights. The 2015 (U)SL line changes all that, offering compact, low-weight lights with a good balance of visibility to see with and be seen by. The USL-305 weighs nearly half as much as Serfas' TSL-750, and puts out over 3x as much light as the Serfas Thunderbolt.

Optics and visibility

In my experience, optics have never been a selling point for Serfas lights. I've often criticized their TSL series lights for having far too narrow of a beam and a complete lack of side visibility. The beam profile of the USL-305 is a marked change from the TSL series, with a beam that isn't quite wide enough to illuminate an entire street, but more than adequate to see what's coming up in your lane or on the bike path. I often wished the light had a wider beam when I was rounding sharp corners, but otherwise it struck a good balance between flood and throw.

The Vis 360+ is one of the few bike lights I've seen that is designed specifically and exclusively for helmet use. As the name implies, it's meant to provide the rider with 360° of visibility. A small headlight goes on the front, connected via a springy cord to the rear light which is integrated into the battery pack. Both the front and rear lights have amber side visibility: the front light has filtered cutouts to allow some of the main beam to come out the side, and the rear light has separate yellow LEDs on each side.

The headlight provides a wide beam, putting out 250 lumens on high. It's not much compared to many high-powered headlights these days, but is quite sufficient to provide visibility for safety, which is what this light sets out to do. It's bright enough to find your way if necessary, but I wouldn't use it as my only light. The wide angle of the headlight combined with the amber side visibility ports makes the light very noticeable from the front and sides. The rear light isn't quite as bright (L&M doesn't specify its output either), but is definitely still very visible, and has great off-axis visibility. This is important, because riders' heads can be in many different positions, and a more focused beam would be hard to see if the rider's head was turned. The side visibility LEDs on the rear are small and so dim that they're practically pointless, but fortunately the side lighting from the headlight is bright enough to make up for it.

Cateye's Rapid series has been around for a while, and I was a big fan of the Rapid 5 in particular when I wrote my first taillight review back in 2012. Technology's evolved a bit since then, and Cateye's new Rapid X light is a dramatic departure from its predecessors. Rather than having several larger LEDs spread out across the light, the Rapid X has a bunch of minuscule LEDs lined up to appear as one larger bar of light. The light has an integrated USB-rechargeable battery, and is very light at just 23 g.

While the features sound good, in actual use the light is extremely frustrating. The circular rubber straps provided to attach it to the seatpost are very small, and must be stretched to the limit to attach the light. This makes it very difficult to quickly install/remove the light. You're also stuck having the light at whatever angle your seatpost is at, which for me meant the light shined mostly towards the ground, not towards traffic. Due to the rubber band attachment setup, there's no way to change the angle.

The TSL-750 is the first Serfas headlight I've tested since the TSL-S500 I reviewed last year. It has the same conveniently removable battery and handy mount, and a similar overall design. The 750 however is significantly bulkier than its predecessors, and weighs in at a hefty 195g, nearly 50% heavier than the TSL-S500.

Optics

My primary complaint with all of the Serfas TSL lights I've tested is the extremely focused beam and lack of side visibility. Unfortunately, the TSL-750 comes with a similarly narrow spot lens installed by default, creating an extremely bright yet very small circle of light that I didn't find useful for riding on roads or trails. However, Serfas is trying something new with the TSL-750: a wide "flood" lens comes in the box, and can be swapped out by the user. Swapping out the lens is not difficult, but it can't be done on the fly, and isn't epitome of user-friendly either. I'll go into a bit more detail on the lens swap process itself below, after describing the differences in using the two optics.

When MagicShine announced the Eagle 600, bike blogs and twitter feeds were abuzz about its OLED display that shows how much runtime the light has remaining. Although some other lights feature color-coded battery indicators, none before has literally told you how much time is remaining.

Battery life is important, and knowing how much time you have to get home before you're left in the dark is a welcome feature. But a light is much more than its battery display. The Eagle 600 gets several key features right that other lights lack, but also falls short in some critical areas. I'll get to a detailed analysis of that famed OLED charging display, but first let's discuss the other unique features of this light.

I'm a big fan of the Serfas TL-60 – it's really bright, sturdy, has decent battery life, and is easy to use. It had a few problems though: primarily a very narrowly focused beam, and no warning when the battery drops. The new TL-80 is a significant upgrade, addressing some of those problems.

Beam & optics

First, let's talk about beam pattern. Many lights – including the TL-60, and many popular lights like the Cygolite Hotshot and the Planet Bike Super Flash – have very intense but narrow beams. They form a bright spot that's visible from a long distance when viewed straight-on, but quickly loses intensity from any other angle.

Knog's well known for stylish lights, but I've often criticized them for putting form before function. With the new Arc 5.5, Knog has finally achieved a light that is as practical as it is slick. Featuring the familiar silicone housing, rugged aluminum, and smooth corners of Knog's other lights, the Arc impressed me by putting out more lumens for more hours than the preceeding Blinder Road.

The optics on the Blinder Arc 5.5 are particularly noteworthy. Many manufacturers all use the same generic TIR optics with some small differences in beam angle. The Blinder Arc features a custom-designed lens that spreads the light into a wider, smoother beam that illuminates the whole roadway instead of just a single spot. You can see the difference in the beamshot overlay above.

The Planet Bike Super Flash may be the most popular bike light of all time. The first light to introduce a high-power single LED design with a strobing pattern, it's ubiquitous on streets and paths in any city where people commute by bike. In recent years it's been overshadowed by the new kids on the block, with fancy USB-recharging lithium batteries.

The original Cygolite Hotshot 2W was the first USB rechargeable taillight to hit the market, and won our approval as the "grand master" of the 2012 taillights review. It's undergone some minor improvements since then, but the design and features are essentially the same. This fall, Cygolite released the Hotshot SL, a nearly identical light at a lower price point.

The Hotshot SL is literally identical to the Hotshot 2W we know and love – it has the same LED, battery, buttons, and design. The only difference in the light is a smaller selection of flash patterns, and the package doesn't include a stay mount (but comes with the standard seat post mount). The mounts are still interchangeable, so you can always get a mount separately from Cygolite's small parts store or from online vendors.

There's no denying that Knog makes some of the classiest looking bike products out there. Silicone straps, anodized aluminum, built-in USB chargers, and eye-catching colors bring a sense of style that's lacking from some more strictly utilitarian lights. The Blinder Road is Knog's first foray into lights designed to see by, not just to be seen by. The company's name was once synonymous with its small coin-cell operated lights (and the many knockoffs that followed), but that's all changing now as Knog breaks into the high-intensity bike light market.

I was impressed with the Cygolite Metro 300 when I first reviewed it last year, and the Streak 280 packs all the same features (plus some new ones) into a smaller, lighter, cheaper package.

Don't let the Streak's small size fool you. It's only 3 inches long and weighs just 90 grams, and at 280 lumens it won't be lighting up the woods for off-trail riding, but it's a great light for commuting, road biking, and riding around town. It was bright enough to illuminate debris on city streets and to ride comfortably on unlit bike paths. The Streak lasted a full two and a half hours at maximum brightness on its built-in USB rechargeable battery. In flashing mode it could easily run all day.

I've tested a lot of lights, and most of them are pretty similar. There's a button that cycles through different brightnesses and flash patterns, and an LED behind some plastic that puts out a round splotch of light. Light and Motion's Taz 1000 is different. Three LEDs behind a carefully engineered reflector. The top two LEDs are like high beams, shining far into the distance. The bottom LED is behind a wide-angled frosted lens that casts a wide swath of light, illuminating anything near your bike.

As its name implies, the Taz 1000 puts out a maximum of 1000 lumens between the 3 LEDs. L&M also sells the Taz 1200, which is identical other than a maximum output of 1200 lumens. More important than the raw lumen number though is where the light goes, and that's where the Taz blinds the competition. The triple-LED setup with custom optics provides a beam much smoother and wider than many entry-level lights, while still reaching far ahead. Riding on a dark road at night, I could easily see a couple hundred feet down the road, and at the same time every pothole, stick, and rock was illuminated right up to my wheels. The bottom LED's spread is so effective that it illuminated the reflective strips on my front fender.