Light that projects a cyclist ahead of you in traffic

Bwgan

I saw this on here a few weeks/months ago, but can't find it. Was telling some guys about it tonight on a ride but they didn't believe me.

It's a light that beams an image of a bike several meters onto the road in front of you so that motorists can see that there is a bike there.

Any help would be great

djb070_4

Here you go -

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/emb ... bike-light

Bwgan

Beautiful!!!!

Thank you x x x

p1tse

Clever piece of kit

But there was me thinking it projects a full life size hologram type lol

cougie

In practice is it that visible ? It's a clever idea.

ilm_zero7

maybe, just maybe , it has some benefit in slow moving traffic, but I wont be rushing to buy it, or putting my faith in it

bompington

cougie wrote:

In practice is it that visible ? It's a clever idea.

I shelled out for one of the "bike lane" laser rear lights, a bit of a disappointment - really quite dim lines, then it stopped working after a couple of uses.
This would have to be a couple of orders of magnitude brighter, not to mention more reliable, to be useful.

diy

great idea, but I have reservations:

- better imo to project some of the light back on to the rider to trigger some of the high viz properties of clothing.
- I hope the manufacturer looked in to the regulations for bike lights before investing their time and money as it does not appear to conform to BS6102/3.

In addition I think some research might be due:

- does it attract drivers attention any better than a standard white flasher that does conform to BS?
- what are the side effects of drawing attention to the symbol on the road rather than the road/rider?

I actually think it may make the cyclist and driver focus too much attention on the symbol rather than the road.

I can see it has merit as an early warning system - but only if the driver is looking and no more than a standard bright light, which could easily project much more light on to the road.

ride_whenever

Just get lights that project large circles of light onto the road surface, you seem to get a lot more space that way

cookeeemonster

it looked cool when I first saw it but in my opinion, it's a useless gimmick that does nothing for cycle safety. I don't think it was but it's almost as if it's been designed by a non cyclist.

Pretty much the only scenario it may work is if you are too close to the front of a hgv stopped at the lights and the light is projected where the driver may see it...but if that's your safety plan than you'll most likely have been crushed way before you get to buy one of these...

I think it has a normal light as well so that is a plus point...depending on how good it is and how expensive it is

joe.90

what a load of crap

diy

I believe it is about £60. Which is probably about where it should be in the market. About 8x more expensive than something with 4 times the output.

Technical Weaknesses IMO from the tech data are:
80lm light - ok for urban areas, but not much good for darker roads.
1.5Ah battery - that is about half the power that you could get out of a smaller unit. A unit this size could have a 3A cell easy and be capable of pushing 300+lm for the same runtime.

I'm not up on laser power consumption, but she seems to be claiming to use LEDs with 90lm/w efficiency, so it sounds like she's running the LED at around 1w allowing for lenses and heat. Without knowing the wattage or voltage of her 1.5Ah cell my guess is the Laser is about 1/2w. So about a 9w cell.

I have lights costing under a tenner than could easily project a spot further than 15m in front and still light up the road and give me the same run time.

Bobbinogs

I can't help thinking it's a projection of meat and two veg, which is probably the average motorists opinion of us lot.

Bwgan

Not going to buy one, just telling the guys I was riding with. As mentioned, I could imagine the drivers thinking "wtf is that on the road" and then possibly drift over whilst trying to figure it out

Careca

I'm slightly disappointed as I was expecting some kind of hologram of a cyclist riding out in front.

In my defence, I have a really bad cold and headache, and those flu remedies must be taking their toll.

Careca

Also, as a driver I find that if you actually pay attention to the road, then cyclists are easy to spot so long as they have standard lights and show similar attention to other road users. However, I admit that I know that is is a bit much to ask for from the average road user!

ricky1980

this is a vanity project as opposed to any real use. the idea of projecting light onto the cyclist to illuminate reflective stripes is a good idea for on coming traffic...but for the one just in front of you trying to turn left or right while you are on their nearside and offside respectively...i think a loud horn fitted on the bike is a good idea with some kind of Di like button!