IXON IQ Premium LED Headlights

I have noticed recently that my Niterider headlight is not lasting as long as it used to. I checked my old blog postings and realized the light is about four years old. This means the lithium ion battery is at about 60% of its original capacity or worse. Time for a new light.

About a year ago I bought a Luxos U dynamo light and I absolutely love it. One of the many features that make this light worth over $200 is the beam pattern. This is one of the things that normally differentiates battery lights from dynamo lights.

The high-end battery lights from Niterider, Cygolite, etc have perfectly round, smooth beam patterns. These are far superior to the lower quality battery lights I used to use which had jagged weird shaped beams with black holes in them that made it very difficult to see rocks and pot holes.

The problem with the round pattern is that it puts too much light on the road near the rider which then washes out the road further away. The road further away needs a lot more light on it to look evenly illuminated to the rider. If you put the bright center of the beam on the road far ahead you end up with a third of the light above the horizon where it is useless. Peter White explains it perfectly.

My Luxos U (and most other dynamo lights) have beam patterns that put most of the light further up the road and have a hard vertical cut off so that you don't waste light illuminating the tops of trees or dazzling low-flying pilots. Although at first they don't look as bright, you realize they are evenly illuminating the road much further ahead, giving you more time to respond to hazards. On dark, country roads and bike paths they are far superior. On brightly illuminated streets there isn't much difference.

When I started looking for a new light to replace my Niterider I found the IXON IQ Premium LED Headlights on PeterWhiteCycles.com. They are more expensive than the Niterider or Cygolite but they boast the same optics as high-end dynamo lights. They use a custom charger instead of a usb cable which is a bit of a pain. For people who are OK with a smaller, less bright (and less expensive) light with excellent optics there is also the IXON Core. Both these lights are listed on Peter White's website. You should also look at his beam comparison page.

Here is a brief summary of the IXON IQ Premium vs Cygolite Expillion 850, both at the brightest setting..

The IXON is larger and heavier than the Cygolite.
The IXON is more expensive.
The IXON has a custom charger instead of a USB charger.
The Cygolite puts out more light in total.
The Cygolite illuminates the fog line 100' ahead of the rider (about 3 seconds at 18mph)
The IXON illuminates the fog line 200' ahead of the rider (about 6 seconds at 18mph)
The IXON has a wider beam, making turns safer and improving side visibility.
The Cygolite has a replaceable proprietary battery
The IXON batteries can be replaced with standard batteries (4 x AA) mid-ride.
The IXON runs for 5 hours. The Cygolite runs for 2 hours (up to 4.5 hours in low mode)
The Cygolite has four steady modes plus a flash mode. The IXON has two steady modes and no flash mode.
The IXON uses NiMh batteries which last much longer than the Cygolite's Lion batteries.

The two things that sell me on the IXON is the improved visibility on dark roads and the ability to replace the NiMh batteries with regular batteries during a long ride. As most of my night riding is on dark roads on very long rides - these features are valuable to me. But as you can see, there are many rides for which the Cygolite makes more sense - especially if your night riding is mainly city commuting.

About the same time as I bought the new bicycle light the flashlight we keep by my back door died. We use it to watch raccoons and when the power dies. My old Niterider has replaced it. Even though a two hour run time isn't enough to get on my handlebars, it's perfectly OK for a flashlight.