[Closed] Why are new LED lights so expensive ???

It's generally the batteries that cost money.

But you can get a DX light for £50ish, so go figure........ 😕

They're not.

Your looking at over £200 for most of them , how is that not expensive.

Probably because unlike a halogen lamp, it takes a fair bit more time and effort to design to get the best out of, and you could get some pretty expensive halogen lights!!

The problem with DX lights is the spread not the batteries

What is it you're trying to do for which the spread of the DX light is not enough? Racing downhill perhaps? Seriously.

Newer LEDs are a fairly new technology (we're not talking old style 5mm indicator LEDs here) and the optics for them take time to design etc. Thats why they work well, thats why they cost well too.

All of the above + the UK£ is pretty weak right now so anything coming in in is - relatively - expensive

I found using the old P5(i think) Emitter i got a bright spot and a shroud but at any speed they are not great compared to all pro builds.

Battery wise im using http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5790
and getting more burn time than i could every want ie 1 pair of batteries with one emitter.

Why so expensive? Because people will pay it, simples 😀

Lights are one of those things, like suspension, that has lifted off so dramatically in price over the last few years that I'm just not really willing to try and keep up. I'm sure there's a good reason for the price of them, I just won't / borderline can't afford them. 🙂

Unless you are doing marathon races where you need superlong burn times, or full on downhill at night where you require mega brightness, I really can't imagine why you would need anything more than the magic shine P7 bike light from DX, which only costs £50

Maybe a torch on the helmet to back it up but it's not essential.

weight vs brightness vs runtime vs MTB Numpties

(I've bought a Hope 4!)

Most (but not all)of the professionally built lights are using off the peg optics. There ais a huge range of optics out there.

They are expensive because they use good battery tech and the volumes sold are small. No economies of scale

I balked at buying expensive bike lights for years, reasoning that there was no point in spending a huge amount of money purely so I could go on miserable cold winter night rides, but the new LED ones have such a good combination of power, run time and convenience that I'm really glad I did.

Prior to having them I did stuff like 24 hour races and the Exmouth Exodus (an all-night road ride - the South West's answer to the Dunwich Dynamo) and inevitably at some point I'd end up faffing about with battery changes, riding home on one of those single LED Backupz or leeching light off someone with a set of HIDs.

Re the price differences between the DX and name brand lights, I'd be tempted to pay the extra just for the better build quality. Everyone's going mad for the cheap ones at the moment but they are still something of an unknown in terms of reliability. The likes of L&M have a pretty good track record for making stuff that doesn't break when it's being jolted about on the front of a bike, and that's with fragile technologies like HID and halogen.

But you would literally be able to buy about six of them for the price of one of many other lights with similar specs. And you have a warranty anyway.

And I have probably read about as many people having problems with Hope lights as I have with DX ones.

Build quality looks fine to my untrained eye.

I work in the trade and so have a vested interest but I'd suggest you pay the extra so you can have a light designed by like minded folk who are trying to produce a good product that can then be distributed and in turn retailed by more of these like minded folk. Ordering direct from the far east saves a whole bunch of money but sometimes middlemen are nice folk trying to make a living in an increasingly competitive environment and maybe they deserve a bit of support from end users.

you would literally be able to buy about six of them for the price of one of many other lights with similar specs.

And keep a spare one around in your Camelbak for when the one you're using conks out? Don't get me wrong, for the money they are unbeatable. But in terms of build quality they don't seem to be able to hold a candle to the big boys. I've heard of some problems with Hope lights but they've been out for ages, compared to most DX lights being a couple of rides old, and there's a lot more whinge mileage in your boutique UK-made product packing in.

Surely the big boys have to factor in time spent developing there lights into the price??

My P7 torch is now on it's second winter and for £50 I can't complain. I have a focused spot torch on the helmet for very fast/twisty sections.

Ordering direct from the far east saves a whole bunch of money but sometimes middlemen are nice folk trying to make a living in an increasingly competitive environment and maybe they deserve a bit of support from end users.

Whilst I do feel for you, and I'm really not trying to be harsh - this is business, not charity.
Sometimes the weight of money, and other financial commitments, mean Joe Public has to look out for number 1 ahead of all others?

DrP

And keep a spare one around in your Camelbak for when the one you're using conks out?

I normally have a torch with me anyway so I could get home if that did happen.

Ordering direct from the far east saves a whole bunch of money but sometimes middlemen are nice folk trying to make a living in an increasingly competitive environment and maybe they deserve a bit of support from end users.

If the difference was, say 20-30% then I might consider it, but there is just no way i would spend £400 on a set of lights - I don't go night riding often enough to justify it.

 

There for bikes, anything for bikes is expensive.

Another aspect to consider is most of the purpose built ones are either european or USA made thus have to pay European wages, use european standards of H&S and environmental protection in getting rid of toxic waste etc etc - that accounts for some of the price differential - the DX ones will be assembled by poorly paid workers and there will be little environmental concerns in disposal of waste

They cost that much because the people who make lights discovered that people were willing to pay £200 for a light. Some of them are fabulously well developed, some of them are just a bunch of standard electronics dumped in a case.

Or in the case of lupine, £500 for a light that is unreliable, very very expensive to fix when it goes wrong (£100 switch e.t.c.), but which everyone knows is jolly expensive, so it is a bit of a status symbol. Why on earth anyone buys those I don't know?

Joe

TJ - yeah I see that and I would prefer to buy something that is hopefully more ethically produced, but does it account for things being 6/8/10 times more expensive?

LOL, I'm sure those middle men are nice chaps, but middle men are just that. They don't add any value, just take their cut and there's far too many people who want a slice of any expenditure these days.

My P7s are on the way. 🙂

its interesting how the guy who i was riding with on sunday night claimed his torch on his noggin gave out 950 lumens but when i turned on my maxxD he was astounded at the light it gave out at 950 ... his looked nothing like it.

I also turned up at relentless and ride to the night time - turned the light on and rode till morning ........no battery changes **** all - thats why i paid for them.....

The ammount of piles of batterys course side was silly ....

This is right:

"Why so expensive? Because people will pay it, simples"

But also so is this:

"They are expensive because they use good battery tech and the volumes sold are small. No economies of scale "

It's not as simple as one or the other of course. But the bike light market is ridiculously overcrowded considering that it's relatively small, so even the best sellers have small production runs. And the lifespan of the products is also short, since you can't sell an older generation bike light for love nor money, unless it says Hope or Ayup on the side. So you have constant reinvestment in R&D for the latest batteries, emitters, etc, and suddenly last year's best seller and last year's genius knowhow becomes irrelevant. It's a pretty harsh market, and I really don't know how so many companies find it worthwhile.

But also, I think you can't deny that a lot of these products are intentionally sold at a luxury mark-up because the manufacturers know that people will pay for it regardless. If you look, frinstance, at the new lights that On One sells, they're direct competition for the £50 DX lights but they know people will pay 5 times as much for them, just because they're "proper" bike lights. And don't anybody say that they sell because they're better, because people on here were lining up to buy them before anyone knew how they perform. Fundamentally, some people wanted the performance of the DX lights but weren't happy using something so cheap and common.

Mr Agreeable wrote:

"And keep a spare one around in your Camelbak for when the one you're using conks out? Don't get me wrong, for the money they are unbeatable."

Use 2. One P7 is absolutely fine to ride on, and makes more light than a lot of people use. But 2 is fantastic, one on head one on bars, and also gives you a spare. And still far cheaper than anything else as good, or for that matter most things which are worse. Any light can fail, especially mountain biking where you might end up nutting a tree or somesuch. Would you carry a spare for an expensive light?

I'm quite happy to pay the price for good quality lights...I use them every other night summer & winter...I personally find Lupines the best performance, build and if I consider the use the get, value for money.

But also, I think you can't deny that a lot of these products are intentionally sold at a luxury mark-up because the manufacturers know that people will pay for it regardless.

I think a lot of people will only buy expensive lights - because there are £200 lights and £50 lights, they think only the expensive light must be a proper light.

Joe

i bought my exposure lights because they got great write ups , my team mates all use em with zero complaints and they impressed me ...

could have bought 12 DX torches for the price but would i have had such conveniant lights ? no

i agree on lupine being overpriced - been using an edison on my head for about a week and was not impressed !

I have 2 P7 torches from DX. One on the helmet and one on the bars and all my mates are buying the same set up. For £80 for 2 lights, 6 batteries, charger, 2 helmet mounts, 1 bar mount and a UK/US plug is brilliant value for money.

OK they are not 900 lumen like claimed (actually between 420 and 500) but 1000 lumen for the two combined is brilliant.

I've been lucky enough over the last few weeks to have had the chance to play around with some nice expensive lights...last night I was out playing on the Light & Motion SECA 900 Ultra - and good grief the light pattern was stunningly useful - the light is incredibly expensive - about £600 BUT you do get over 3.5 hours burn time (which is pretty good for lights from the big boys) on full power - it's very bright but the light beam is triangular in shape - loads in front of the wheel with a good spread and a nice spot beam down the trail...very usable at any speed.

I'm unsure where the £600 goes but as an end product it is very very good - if money was no object I'd be buying one in an instant.

I've also had a play with the Hope Vision 4 - very good light output - very usable light but not quite as good as the Seca as the light spread is more scattered compared to the Seca.

The Tesla 5 from Lupine is very similar to the Hope but not quite as bright.

All the lights are very usable and there isn't anything wrong with them - but the price determines if you can afford them or not.

Personally, I've got a DX P7 torch on my bars...and that is a very usable light - but I've not got a lot of cash so I went with what I could afford...it doesn't compare against the big boys BUT it is a very usable light output for biking so I've no complaints...but if I could afford the more expensive lights then I'd be going for them...

because you want them in a shiny cnc'ed housing.

[url= http://www.teamio.wordpress.com ]blog[/url]use 2 p7s, cost me about £50 then some more for the batteries & charger

ive done a review on my [url= http://www.teamio.wordpress.com ]blog[/url]

ive also got a fenix p2d on the helmet for fast twisty bits i go through in the woods.

Ordering direct from the far east saves a whole bunch of money but sometimes middlemen are nice folk trying to make a living in an increasingly competitive environment and maybe they deserve a bit of support from end users.

Maybe "back in the day" pre internet but now when you can import yourself why pay someone to do it for you? Last time I looked I could order (ie import) bike stuff from the States, pay ALL import duties/VAT if customs applied them and still be cheaper than they were being sold here. The only reason I can see is if you think you'll need the ease of dealing with a warranty claim thru the importer.

As for expensive - looking @ two head units without batteries

baby Trout = £170 for 4 XPG LED which most people think is excellent VFM (me included) and Trout himself says he's putting it together for way less than minimum wage and doesn't factor in design time etc.

Lumicycle = £165 for 3 XPE LED

Factor in 1 * XPG @ £3.50 (I think) and also the other plus / minus factors Lumicycle have - make a profit, company costs, economies of scale and I don't think the cost of good quality LED lights is too much. Yes, you can get cheaper alternatives which are good VFM and with technology moving on it probably makes sense not to pay a lot more for a slightly better light which may be obsolete in two years time. Of course, Lumi have said their head unit is upgradable which will be good.

To answer the OP
Because people go to work to earn money, [u][b]you[/b][/u] go to work to earn money, we all now expect to earn good money, the internet has a lot to answer for, it is/will be the death of British manufacture, thats why we will now excel in IT 😉

£500 or £600 is a silly amount of money, but you can get something perfectly decent for £200 or so if you get something from one of the smaller semi-pro makers. I'd snap Troutie's (or Mr Lumicycle's) hand off at those prices for a professional looking unit. I looked into the idea of trying to sell lights myself when the current LED tech was new and there were no commercial offerings (I thought I was ahead of the game - probably did have one of the very first homebrew Cree XR-E lights), but reckoned I'd need to be charging at least £150 to get close to covering my costs properly, and that would have been for something far more amateur looking than Troutie's when the exchange rates were rather better. At that price point it's more to do with what it really does cost to put a light together than what the market will stand.

Would really love to get an L&M, but guess I'll be sticking with the homebrew lights for the time being (still have some demand for my homebrew headtorch which comes out at ~£100 at mates rates).

Lumis head will struggle to upgrade as the XRE leds stop at the R2
so they will need a rethink for an upgrade .

having said that the R2 is a great led

The only way to make a packet is to go to the east for manufacter
as that is where all our old machine tools are residing now

joemarshall - Member

I think a lot of people will only buy expensive lights - because there are £200 lights and £50 lights, they think only the expensive light must be a proper light.

Joe

Ok I have a Lupine Edison 5 which I agree is not very reliable (HID) and also a Betty something which seems pretty reliable so far. Me and my riding mates have had various lights over the past years and indeed some are very happy with there DX thingy torches and "bastid" lights.

Thing is if i can afford to buy expensive lights which are brighter than cheaper £50 lights.........so what!!

Some people can afford to ride on custom made IF titanium crown deluxe jobbies that don't go any faster than your aluminium/steel whatever you ride.........who cares??

You earn your own cash, you're only here once so why not spend it on something you enjoy using??

There are cheaper alternatives that appear to be as good as the more expensive options. For example I've got a clone of a Lupine Tesla 5 rrp £325 (its from DX and is called a Magicshine - £50). I've also got 2 DX SSC P7 torches (around £35 each plus chargers and batteries). All are great lights - but and its a really BIG but - they have all (yes all) been unreliable.

My newest - the Magicshine - started playing up tonight going down a single track. Same problem as the 5 mode torch had - it changes mode or turns off every time you hit a bump. Not the end of the world if you're in town etc but coming down a mountain its a big deal. Fortunatly I've learnt my lesson with the torches - I never ride with just one light.

On tonights ride there were 10 folks - nearly everyone had 2 lights. Roughly 20 lights in total. Mostly LEDs, mostly expensive. Types were Ay-Ups, Lupines, Hopes various HIDs and a halogen. I was the only one with a light failure.

Tomorrow I've got to go and figure out what the problem is and probably bodge a repair as for me its not worth my while sending it back to Hong Kong under warranty (I'll actually enjoy the challenge of fixing / soldering it and will post some tips for any others in the same boat).

IMO - Sure anything can fail but on balance you get what you pay for. And if you buy cheap - buy 2 to be safe.

"the internet has a lot to answer for, it is/will be the death of British manufacture"

What total rubbish, british manufacturing was ****ed long before we all got the internet and started buying stuff direct from abroad. People like to blame all sorts of things for it but this is a new one. Traditionally cause comes before effect 😉

IMO - Sure anything can fail but on balance you get what you pay for. And if you buy cheap - buy 2 to be safe.

I work on the principle that anything can fail, but when the cheap lights fail, you either fix em (usually dead easy with such simple lights), warranty them, or pay another £50. When people's lupines fail, if you're not lucky and covered by the warranty for that particular occurrence (say you crash onto the switch) they have to pay £100 even for what should be the simplest part (funny switch unit). Even if they are under warranty, you're talking a couple of weeks wait while they get fixed, which is a pain, whereas with the torches I've never seen anything not cured by just tightening up some internal part that was loose when it was first bought, and even if you had to re-wire it completely, you could do it in half an hour.

My lumicycles were great mind - anything broke on those even out of warranty, it was dead cheap and quick to get them fixed. Fantastic design. Only got rid of them because they weren't very bright and they were a bit big and heavy (oh and cos the battery & charger died, and it'd cost a fortune for a new one), and a cheap torch was a better replacement than what they were offering at the time.

Joe

Bah, LEDS! I'm a single speeder. I use carbide lights.

🙂

I am just in the process of replacing my Lumi halogen bulbs with the LED units that Lumi are selling for retro-fitting into the halogen cans. Costing about £40 and appears to be going to produce about the same amount fo light that the halogens did, but with a [b]20 hour[/b] battery life. I'm mainly commuting on them, and if I go out on the mtb at night it's by myself so no arm's race effect, so they'll always be under-powered by modern standards, but the spares back-up and the fact that Lumi are still there at the end of the phone, re-conditioning batteries and keeping my rather neat system ticking over gently is really very cheering. 🙂

I've just replaced my 5 year old HID (one of the trailtech ones that were all the rage back in the day) with a Airbike from On one. Cost was £135, my HID was £240 ish IIRC, used it for the first time last night, and wasn't going any slower in the singletrack, so all is good, plus it doesn't flicker like my old HID used to.

I've gone from a reasonably heafty battery/ light set-up to a pretty small and light set up, that lasts as long, and in real terms has cost less. OK I could have saved even more money, by buying from dealextreme, but I needed my light now rather than in 10 weeks time, and if anything goes wrong, then I'm dealing with a UK company with a decent reputation, and not some faceless internet trader the other side of the world.

Costing about £40 and appears to be going to produce about the same amount fo light that the halogens did

The lumicycle 1W LED spot ones?

They will be about a 3W halogen equivalent. Be alright for road riding maybe (although I don't like fast descents on unlit roads using such a dim light), but blimey you're going to be riding by moonlight off road? Isn't that a massive downgrade from the halogens? I'd keep at least one halogen bulb in for off road.

Joe

Noted Joe. I'll experiment. I've not tried off-road or a side-by-side comparison yet. 🙂

trout - Member

Lumis head will struggle to upgrade as the XRE leds stop at the R2
so they will need a rethink for an upgrade .

Couldn't they just fit the 35mm Xpgs in the Lumi head? Can't see no reason as long as they change the optic too?

When I spoke to Lumi about their lights earlier this year they said upgrades would be available as / when new LED's came out. No boffin but would have thought it's a new PCB, LED's and optic. Driver, switch etc. stay the same?

Somewhere in Trout's thread on his new light he details exactly where the costs are in his light, and as it's easily upgradeable by me, just by unsoldering and replacing the LEDs when new spec ones come out, I really don't mind paying what Trout asks. I have a DX Bike light which is astonishing value, and a SSC P7 torch as well, but I want a real high power one but I don't want to spend more than neccessary. The battery is often the really expensive bit, Smudge's battery for Trout's light is £70. The cost of Lupine lights is way too much, IMHO, but the likes of Hope I think are reasonable, given developement costs, wages, profit, etc. Trouties or Luminous' homebrew lights are perfect for the likes of readers on this forum, who understand something about homebrew lights, whereas the commercial lights are always going to have a market in riders who want and are willing to pay for a quality light from small manufacturers but who never ever go on forums like the weirdo's who inhabit this one. Horses, as they say, for courses.

Davegr, I reckon the mr11 pcb "Cutter-XPGMR11T" and cute optic "Cute-3-XP Triple XPE Optic" would be all you need! There are even some mr11 quad pcb's appearing on the cutter site too! 😀