Fluxient Elite S3 Bike Light Mini-review/comparison with Philips Saferide 80

timothyw

Following the recommendation of timmyotool on the bargains thread, and having missed out on the cheap lezyne stvzo I had spotted on CRC, I decided since the nights are drawing in I'd take a punt on a new front light for the winter.

I bought 3 Philips Saferide 80 lights back when Rose were doing them for £32 each in 2014 - I sold one on to a good friend, and kept the other two - the power button has gone dodgy on one of them so isn't used anymore, but these are a bit of a gold standard where it comes to shaped beam bike lights.

I ordered the Fluxient light direct from Torchy (http://www.torchy.co.uk/product/fluxien ... ike-light/) late on Thursday, he replied to say it would be posted Friday morning, and sure enough it was here by Saturday lunch time. Great stuff - I also saved 15% on the price by using the code ukvapers making it £34 delivered.

First impressions were good - it was a bit smaller than I'd imagined from the photos, the saferide is a bit of a beast so this was a pleasant surprise. Construction is reassuringly sturdy with a full metal body, micro usb charging port on the back is covered with a secure looking rubber flap.


Size comparison to the saferide, a garmin 500, a gift card and a Volador light from Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Volador-Rechar ... 01DP8QA8E/ - I've bought a couple of these lights as backups as they are tiny and light while still having a shaped beam and enough light to get home by.

Sticking the lights on the scale weights are:
140g Fluxient
322g Saferide
42g Volador (including mount strap! other weights exclude mounts)

Anyway, onto the beam shots - exposure for both shots was set identical, as was white balance - lights are on maximum brightness, both lights quote similar 2h30 runtimes in this mode, first the saferide:


Now the Fluxient


So, it's a little disappointing if I'm honest, although it is a big ask to match up to the saferide.

You can see, although the fluxient is certainly a bit brighter in the hot spot, this hot spot is considerably smaller than the 'carpet' of light that the saferide projects.

The cut-off on both lights is nice and sharp at the horizon, so that's good. Up close is where the fluxient seems weakest - there just isn't much light projected onto the first couple of metres ahead of your front wheel - although it would be fair to say that it looks a little brighter in person than the photo shows it.

You can see from the saferide shot that there's a fair bit of 'ambient' light thrown onto the hedge to my left, which isn't really visible on the fluxient shot - part of this is that the Saferide has a sort of 'scatter' pattern of small beams that go out round the main beam, but at a much dimmer level - but you might also be seeing illumination from the glowing halo around the front of the saferide - and this is one further criticism of the fluxient, that unfortunately it is a bit lacking in side visibility.

Here's a shot of the three lights side on, again, full brightness:


Going from nearest to farthest - the saferide has a nice bright ring around the lens which is easily visible from the side/behind, and by virtue of sheer size the light does really make you feel seen.

The volador has a deep cut out on the side section which throws a lot of light out - perhaps even more than the saferide - but obviously being small it's more likely to get lost in handlebar clutter (eg if your hand is resting on the bar next to it).

The Fluxient doesn't have any such mechanism to project light sideways (the light spots you can see on the side are just the light reflecting from the Volador) so you've only got the LED on the top - this is green as shown when fully charged, then changes colour in the standard traffic light fashion as the battery runs out).

Anyhow. Mixed feelings at the moment - obviously the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I'm going to see how it works out when I actually ride with it - but right now I'm a little disappointed. Certainly, it's miles better than the sort of blinding front facing LED light that you usually get on the UK market, but it isn't quite up there with the very best shaped beam lights.

PS: I did try to get a beam shot of the Volador light but it came out a bit blurry - I'd have had to tweak camera settings which might have confused the issue so left it out - you'd probably need three of them side by side to approach the level of the saferide/fluxient, although it has to be said the shaping of the beam is better on the Volador than the Fluxient - there isn't the same dark patch close to you.

wolfsbane2k

Thanks for that; appreciate pics and write up muchly!

onemoresolo

Could you post a picture of the mount please? Wondering if this would work on flat topped aero bars.

timothyw

With the standard mount, it almost certainly won't - my normal 31.8mm bars are at the limit of it - however, you can unscrew the mount from the bottom of the light and perhaps replace it with another one which is compatible.

Also, the fluxient is light enough to use with one of these silicone light/accessory bands - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silicone-Ela ... 3202346972 - something every cyclist should have a few of IMHO.

Anyhow, I'll try and grab a couple of shots for you later.

timmyotool

Hey,

Great review, thanks for taking the time to do so.

Looking at the pictures you're right, it doesn't quite match up to the saferide, but it is half the price and half the size - and the fluxient feels big on my handlebars!

I''ll second that the hotspot is quite hot, max mode doesn't seem to add a lot bar making an already visible piece of road visible.

Still 10 x better than most of the 1000 lumen lights you see floating around imo.

timothyw

onemoresolo wrote:

Could you post a picture of the mount please? Wondering if this would work on flat topped aero bars.

OK here's some shots of the mount - as you see the rail on the bottom of the light could potentially be unscrewed and replaced:
2018-10-15 16.37.10 by Tim Walker, on Flickr

2018-10-15 16.42.42 by Tim Walker, on Flickr

2018-10-15 17.39.36 by Tim Walker, on Flickr

onemoresolo

That's really helpful thanks. My current issue is I can't mount an Exposure Strada on a flat top profile bar. The Fluxient looks like it would do the trick, but a more straightforward solution might be using the silicone straps to mount the Exposure instead (if they're robust enough, its c240g). It feels like a tether for security might be a good idea. Thanks for this.

timothyw

240g might be pushing it with the silicone straps but you can double them up or as mentioned fit a tether for safekeeping.

Other option is to get something like this to provide a secondary fixing point: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minoura-339-20 ... B00A3NALZ8

Obviously will impair the aero credentials but you only have to use it after dark ;-)

timothyw

For anyone wondering, the Fluxient seems good about charging on the go - you can turn the light on while the battery is charging, connect the charger while the light is on, all seems to work fine there.

The Saferide can't be charged when going, although, if for some reason you have usb (5v) power available, you can connect it directly to the battery terminals internally and the light will switch on (you'll need to take the batteries out....) - I chopped open a usb cable over the weekend and tried it out with my slightly broken saferide over the weekend!

This might be a fairly easy solution if you have a big USB power bank and want your saferide to last a long time, although you'll probably have to drill a hole in the saferide to get the cable through neatly - might not be so good in the rain without a lot of insulating tape!

It hasn't been dark enough to give the Fluxient a proper test on my commute yet.

timothyw

Probably won't get a proper outing with the fluxient until next week - did leave a bit late one day last week, and had a couple of thoughts:

- I wasn't riding in proper darkness, but in the twilight the beam shape looked pretty good - there was an appreciable amount of light thrown down in front of the wheel even though this is, as shown, a fairly dim part of the beam.
- In the medium setting that I was using, the 'hot spot' was large enough to be useful and provided a very comfortable level of illumination of the road.
- The green charge LED on the top is a bit uncomfortably bright - I might have to stick a bit of tape on it.

Either way, I'm happier now than I was just from the beam shots - will try and do a side by side comparison on a ride at some point with the Philips.

timothyw

So, a few more thoughts now that I've been using the light in the dark for a couple of weeks.

I've mostly been using the light on the medium setting, which for me gives a fairly ample amount of light - I haven't been using it on it's own, I do also have one of the Volador lights from above and my Lezyne Macro duo on my helmet - although both are set on their lowest settings so don't really contribute much.

And I should also add, the vast majority of my commute has at least some street lighting, and cars around which obviously throw out a bit of light (although are quite counterproductive when coming towards you as the dazzle makes it harder to see the road).

In use, the light shape works really well - Yes, you can see the cut off from the hot spot to the dimmer section closer to your front wheel, but in practice the amount of light thrown on the road close to you is enough to see any potholes/debris you might want to avoid. The beam isn't as wide as the saferide, but it's still plenty wide enough to cover the road in front of you - the only time you might notice it lacking is making 90 degree turns, where as you'd expect, you need to take a bit of care if the junction isn't well lit (and this is where my head torch comes in handy!)

More generally though, looking down the road in the area where the beam is 'hottest' is very comfortable - you can easily see what is on the road ahead, but the transition is soft enough that you don't get that tunnel vision sensation (of not being able to see anything outside the main beam). You might want to kick the light up to the high mode if you have a lot of cars coming the other way, but I found medium was basically fine for any situation in the dry where someone doesn't have their full beams on coming towards you!

As you'd expect, the hard cut off on the light works well - I've not been flashed by any drivers or shouted at or anything like that to indicate that the light is dazzling, despite it being an undeniably bright light.

We've had a couple of rainy days, which create a big challenge for lights - the light gets reflected by the water away from you, instead of illuminating the road surface - so lights will always seem less effective. Then to compound this you get more dazzle reflected at you from cars etc coming the other way. I did find it was a struggle to see in the wet on the medium setting, but putting it on the high mode was a big improvement - basically I could see the road again!

I can also confirm that the sealing appears to work well - there was no condensation or other moisture visible inside the light afterwards, it still seems to work fine, still looks good as new.

Battery life is basically as expected - it lasted for perhaps 6 hours of commuting on medium mode - although I did have a bit of an unpleasant surprise yesterday. The battery indicator status light on the top has three colours, the standard traffic lights of green, yellow and red to indicate how much charge you have left. Because the green light had lasted for several days, I decided I'd see how long the amber state lasted, then charge it on the day it hit red.

Well, yesterday on the way home it hit red, then within half hour or so it turned off! Lesson learned - if the indicator turns red, put the light in low mode as it will not last (and don't push it on the amber mode!)

Speaking of low mode, it's probably plenty to be seen with but not much to see with unless you're pootling - although same as with everything, this is subjective - if you're on properly dark roads it might be plenty once your eyes become adjusted. Roads with traffic don't do your night vision any favours unfortunately!

So in conclusion, it's a solid 4 out of 5 from me. This is a great light for the money - I don't have any regrets. It'd be perfect if:

- it had a halo or some other kind of side visibility feature
- it lasted a bit longer when the battery hits red (or automatically changed to low mode when it does so!)
- it was a bit less of a fight to release the light from the mount - it's quite hard to get the catch to release.