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TECH NEWS
BEAM and ICON2 (Header Image)See.Sense’s Beam and ICON2 lights successfully funded on Kickstarter
See.Sense has launched three new lights, the 700 lumen Beam front light and the updated ICON2 front and rear light, using Kickstarter and they’ve smashed past their funding goal, with a staggering £50,000 raised with 27 days to go.
The new Beam is the company’s brightest ever light, with a single LED producing 700 lumens to help you see where you’re going. It has a claimed 30-hour runtime and weighs just 100g. It’s recharged via micro USB and it has a low battery mode that reduces the output to hopefully ensure you won’t be left in the dark.
- The best 2018 front lights for cycling — 40-light beam comparison plus how-to-choose guide
Like the original ICON, the new Beam is able to automatically adjust its brightness depending on the speed and the surrounding light levels. For example, it’ll increase the brightness when going downhill, or conserve battery life when riding in urban areas.
The ICON2 is an update of the company’s original and very clever ICON light - it can automatically adjust its brightness based on speed and braking forces - available in front and rear versions, with 400 and 300 lumens respectively.
The new ICON2 is brighter with a longer runtime than the original and uses two different types of LEDs to provide visibility up to 3km away with a 270-degree range of side visibility.
The lights even pack ANT+ so you can pair them with compatible cycling computers. There’s also the See.Sense smartphone app that lets you do neat things like customising the brightness and flash pattern, check the battery level, get theft alerts and send crash notifications to an emergency contact.
As mentioned, the new lights were launched on Kickstarter where they smashed their funding goal within just seven hours, and at the time of writing £51,032 has been pledged. With 27 days remaining it’s likely the total raised will be much higher, far exceeding the £30,000 initial target.
You can still pre-order the lights until 20th December with early bird discounts starting at 45% off the eventual RRP of the lights. You can buy the lights as a set or individually.
“Launching both BEAM and ICON2 is a sign of how far See.Sense has come as a company, and how committed we are to making cycling better for everyone,” says CEO Philip McAleese.
“We’re not content creating just another bike light. Instead, we’re developing intelligent products that benefit cyclists, our roads, and our environment. All with the aim to get more people cycling more often.”
Check them out here www.kickstarter.com
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
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And that's just the bikes that have been reported stolen.
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Get thyself over to Buildhub - a community owned forum where I am on the moderation team ("Ferdinand") which is about self-build and renovation....
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"30mm outer diameter 18mm inner diameter 13.4mm". Good luck finding a skinny tire.
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This may well be the case although Im unaware of the brands popularity on their home turf. I used to see them being advertised more in the UK...
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8 comments
I've bought one of each generation of see.sense lights and have finally decided to stop chucking my money away and bought an Exposure Blaze which will probably see me out. See.sense are great at promotion and hot air but a little short on actually delivering.
Preordered an Icon2 hoping it would be good as a DRL and would have a long enough battery life for a few days commuting (especially in winter when not on max brightness).
I really wanted to like it; it's made in the UK by a small company. It's small. It's light. It's very bright.
But it feels like I bought an unfinished product that was ruished to market.
The on/off button has weird, ugly rubber flaps with no apparent purpose.
The battery life was disappointing - it seems to leak charge while switched off - apparently there's an app update which may have improved this.
The app works now (lots of people complained about the lack on an Android app) but mine seemed to reset itself to full brightness every time it swtiched off - unfortunately I didn't get time to properly investigate what was happening.
But - worst of all - it kept falling off. Tried adjusting the postion in the mount (it's about 1/3 longer than the Ace and has 4 positions instead of 3 but fits into the same mount) because the length of the light seemed to make it wobble around when using the end position, but it still fell off.
Unfortunately I didn't know it had fallen off again until I got home and discovered I'd been cycling without it.
Also - the crash detection feature clearly doesn't work because it didn't send a notification to say it had fallen off the back of my bike.
See.Sense assure me they've tested them thoroughly and they never fall off. That wasn't my experience - it fell off three times in the three weeks I owned it.
They offered me a half price replacement, but as I've no guarantee the next one will be any better I'll look for something else.
I ordered an Ace in August with an end September delivery projection.
October 26th- no product: Email chaser : See.Sense response 7th November- stated that the delivery would start in a week via Amazon.
3 weeks later , no product , yet you can 'buy' an Ace on their website as if they have them in stock.
I think that qualifies as a scam?
Backed the original SeeSense lights and had nothing but trouble with them. I emailed Phil McAleese and he kindly replaced but that also broke.
Personally I wouldn't back again but then I suppose thats the risk with kick starter stuff
I guess those whose backed these projects have not read the Ace’s feedback. If they had then they would stay well away. I for one have given up on my Ace.
700 lumens sounds impressive, but all I can think of is that it would be positively blinding to be riding/running/walking down a trail toward one of these lights. I've had a few incidents where I could have sworn a motorcycle was coming toward me by the power of the lights. I couldn't see a blessed thing until it had gone by.
Thanks for drawing our attention to this project.
Why is there a link, to The Best 2018 Front Lghts for Cycling, when the precursor of this light isn't in the list? It would be great to see this in your beam comparison engine.
Before this one their front lights were only to be seen with. Not to see - so there wouldn't have been a beam.