Quick notes on Philips SafeRide vs. B&M IQ CYO-RT

Ediblestarfish

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Ok, my stupid curiosity got the best of me, and I have both dyno-lights in my possession, in a total lapse of good judgment (I only have one bike). :shakehead Tested them back and forth, and have some notes to share.

Running them off a Shimano DH-3N80 dynohub.




The B&M CYO-RT...

...to me has a better controlled beam--albeit, a bit too well controlled, since it's narrower than I'd like. It's also a little dimmer, despite lighting up less area, and more bluish in tint, which makes it even harder to see clearly. There's a small spot in the center that shows up, which is a minor annoyance.

The daytime running light feature is questionable, since it pulls as much drag as when the light is on fully. I can't deny it adds to your visibility noticeably, albeit, so much it can be somewhat embarrassing when people stare. The DRLs (only 2 of the LEDs) also take up duty as the standlight which I do not like at all. It's fine in the day, but not at night. It's just not bright enough in my opinion.

It does not flicker as much as the Phillips at lower speed.

But the mount is sturdier, and the lighter weight housing construction resists vibration much more than the Phillips SafeRide light. I like how you can tuck the rear light wires into the small housing on the mount for a cleaner look if you are using a battery taillight.

The switch at the back seems a bit flimsy. It doesn't engage with much positive feedback, and at inconsistent contact positions. I'd just leave it in automatic mode and not fiddle with it for concern of long term durability.




The Phillips Saferide...

... has a nice, solid housing, which looks like a single piece of aluminum. It's heavy, but unfortunately, the mount seems flimsy for that weight. Just the usual road imperfections cause the beam to shake to a fuzzy blur sometimes; it doens't happen to the IQ CYO-RT nearly as much. The button on top is a bit small, hard to turn on with gloves, and has no way of indicating if it's on or off. Clicks pretty nicely though.

Turning it on and off, you can feel the drag go down on the dynohub--it doesn't feel as notchy.

The light beam is kind of odd. The mid to long range is well done, with very good consistency, decent throw, subtle gradation on the beam edges, nice width. The nearfield is messy. Artifacts everywhere, light in a wide arc. At least there's no claustrophobic sensation that you get with the IQ CYO-RT, but then again, it could be better controlled. Perhaps add some textured areas to the reflector?

Beam color is coolish-neutral, at least on the one I got. Much better than the IQ CYO-RT. It's brighter too, by just a bit.

It starts flickering at modest speeds, which I highly dislike. It's described as being very flicker resistant, but it's not as good compared to the IQ CYO-RT. Standlight is good, reduced, but useful light. Much easier to walk around the unlit garage with the Phillips standlight than the IQ CYO-RT's.


Overall
...

I prefer the Phillips SafeRide light to the B&M IQ CYO-RT, but it's fraught with trade-offs. Going up hills at low speed, the flickering of the Phillips can drive you a bit crazy. The artifacts are distracting. The shaky mount is poor oversight.

But more and more neutral light, over more area at medium speeds, on relatively smooth roads is what I need most of the time, and the Phillips fits that solution better for me. Not by a large margin, but a significant one nonetheless.
 

PpPete

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The bracket on the Philips is indeed flimsy.
Mine broke after 200 km - and neither the retailer nor the manufacturer have been able to replace it. Very disappointed in Philips (lack of) customer service.
 

Savvas

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The bracket on the Philips is indeed flimsy. Mine broke after 200 km....

I am wondering if the SafeRide is shipping with different brackets at different times. Mine appears to be very strong. What do yours and Ediblestarfish's look like?

ta,
Sam
 

PpPete

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I am wondering if the SafeRide is shipping with different brackets at different times. Mine appears to be very strong. What do yours and Ediblestarfish's look like?

ta,
Sam

Not the greatest pic - sorry

philips-1.jpg


you can just see there is a flattened section where the fork crown bolt/nut might go, and all the lower section has grooves in it - I guess to stop it slipping, but in fact all it does is create stress risers.

I've heard of other users here in UK having similar problem to me - but I think we all bought our units from Bike24 in Germany as AFAIK it is not sold in UK yet.
 

Savvas

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MMM - interesting. I think I got mine from either Bike24 or Roseversand. Mine has the same bracket! Looks strong. Obviously is not! Thanks for the heads-up.

I note that eDelux comes with a similar bracket but without the flattened section (and therefore one presumes without the possibility of stress fractures).

Sam
 

swhs

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The flattened section is to have some sort of fix so the mount won't slip down, but I heard of a broken mount a few months ago. Didn't happen with me, but it's obviously a weak point. For retail sales however, the seller is responsible! So you should get a new bracket from bike 24. Or do some DIY and modify the mount on the bottom, make it 10mm wide and use another bracket. Or make a new mount on the bottom instead of the current one. If you have some time and a small block of alu or plastic this is not that hard.

Another thing: From a dutch user I heard (ca. 2 months ago) there is a new type of bracket coming. But I also heard from another source (not Philips) that they are reworking their entire line up of lamps which should fix these types of teething problems, perhaps the new mount will come with new lamps.

Communication from large companies btw is always problematical. It's as if no-one knows who is the right person to deal with some problems and then emails probably get shelved or into an infinite referral loop :)
 

PpPete

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The flattened section is to have some sort of fix so the mount won't slip down, but I heard of a broken mount a few months ago. Didn't happen with me, but it's obviously a weak point. For retail sales however, the seller is responsible! So you should get a new bracket from bike 24. .....

Communication from large companies btw is always problematical. It's as if no-one knows who is the right person to deal with some problems and then emails probably get shelved or into an infinite referral loop

Unfortunately Bike24 do not have separate brackets in stock, and cannot seem to obtain them from Philips. I have had long e-mail correspondence with Bike24 and I think they probably just as frustrated with Philips as I am.

I keep mentioning it on as many forums as I can find - in the hope that these things might be read by some marketing type at Philips who can kick @$$ in their woefully bad customer service department.

Or do some DIY and modify the mount on the bottom, make it 10mm wide and use another bracket. Or make a new mount on the bottom instead of the current one. If you have some time and a small block of alu or plastic this is not that hard.

That's what I did - a little bending on an Edelux bracket, out to 22 mm, and I once again have a useable light.
23928.jpg
 

Ediblestarfish

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I have the same mount as PpPete. That flattened section with the stamped notches is the same. The wire thickness for the mount actually seems to be ok, but after the stamping, it's too thin, right where the vibration affects it with the most leverage.
 

swhs

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I have the same mount as PpPete. That flattened section with the stamped notches is the same. The wire thickness for the mount actually seems to be ok, but after the stamping, it's too thin, right where the vibration affects it with the most leverage.

Aha, that reminds me, I mounted the lamp with a stainless steel washer, so the load will not be on that specific section. I just checked and the washer contacts the mount and stays put in the flattened section and it then can't go up nor down. That's originally why I used the washer... Also, the washer contacts the bracket on the edges of where the mount is flattened, so no lever action on that thin section and not much stress. This may explain why it works fine with me despite extensive testing. So, I would recommend using a washer when using the original mount.
 

Savvas

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Rode home in full dark this evening with my Philips Saferide dynamo light. It's the first time I've actually been in the dark for the full commute home. The bean was very impressive - much wider (or maybe with more 'spill') than my eDelux (which I think has the same lens as the regular Cyo).
The eDeluxe may be a better light for throw - seeing way down the road - but for riding around lots of corners and negotiating bike paths I reckon the Saferide has a more useful flood of light. The standlight doesn't seem as good as the Schmidt light's but the Philips is very bright, even at a slow walking pace. I reckon it's even bright enough for tooling around on an mtb in the scrub (maybe not downhill at speed though).
I'm going to put a washer on the mount as swhs recommends above.
Sam P.
 

2_i

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To reduce the chance of tbe bracket breaking, I soldered on a boot out of stainless steel sheet:

6007184353_37a07ae6e5.jpg


One extra hidden weakness of the Philips bracket is the flattening of the holding rods inside of the reflector. The next place where the bracket can break, after the bolt area, is then right at the entrance to the reflector. For the moment I will take chances with that. I found the bending of the Cyo's bracket, to adapt it to SafeRide, too hard, and I put it off for the moment.
 

froze

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I had to spell the number two before I could post this...weird.

Anywho, I own a Phillips Saferide rechargeable model and absolutely love it. The first thing I wish to respond to is the comments about the bracket not being very strong, I haven't found that to be true. I assume since mine has batteries inside of it than it should be heavier than the dynamo model?? If that's true the bracket holds my light just fine, could it be made better? I guess anything could be made better; but todays world is all about making stuff cheaper, and I have seen both headlights and taillights to have under engineered brackets compared to the ones made 15 years ago. Taillights have really gotten bad in the bracket department, my 20 year old Vistalite tail light's bracket is as stout as my headlight bracket is! Over engineered? perhaps, but it hasn't broken in 20 years either! Todays taillights give you a rubber stretchy strap that should last about 2 years; and today's headlight brackets are not as stout as they use to be either, but the Phillips isn't bad. But I have found no need to want to reinforce the bracket.

If you go to MTBR Light Shootout here: http://reviews.mtbr.com/2012-bike-lights-shootout-backyard-beam-pattern-photos and look at the back yard beam comparisons you'll find that the 400 lumen output of the Phillips is brighter than most of the other lights even though their rated higher, this is due to the aim of the light. Phillips aims their light low and flat, like a motorcycle or car headlight, so the energy of the light is not being wasted showing tree tops which is great for road use but not for offroad use. Look carefully at those beam shots, the grassy area, which is where the road would be, is much more lit up then any other light until you get into the real high dollar lights costing more then twice as much as the Phillips.

On the road the Phillips actually appears brighter than the MTBR camera makes it appear. Also what the MTBR doesn't reveal is that the light casts out it's light 90 degrees to the side and the beam casts the full width of a lane which makes itself more revealing to cars coming from behind as they can see the light on the pavement. The Phillips lens has a ring around the lens that glows when on which when viewed 90 degrees to the side it works double duty as a very effective side lighting.

I also tested the light at night in the rain with my wife using the Phillips on the bar, and my Cygolite Mitycross 480 on the helmet. She approached me in the PK-UP from 6 blocks away and she immediately noticed the Phillips because the lens is larger than the Cygolite so instead of seeing a pinprick of light she saw a larger light and it appeared brighter.

The battery will run the light on high for 2 hours and on low for 6 hours, actually I use it mostly on the low mode because I find high a little too bright for most occasions. It is recommended that the first 3 times you use the light that you fully charge it and discharge it each time to assure the longest battery run time.

If I had one complaint about the light is that it doesn't feature a flash or strobe mode, but it was built for the European market and front flashing lights are against the law there to use on bicycles. Still, a strobe or flash mode would be great for riding in dark rainy days or foggy days.
 

GRAVELBIKE

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I'm curious if the battery-powered version's mount can be converted to a fork crown-type mount.
 

GRAVELBIKE

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I just returned from a brief ride where I compared the IQ Cyo N plus to the SafeRide (80 lux, battery version), and I'm amazed at the difference in beam shape/coverage. The Philips--even on low--puts more light where you want it.

Looks like I'll be selling the Lumotec and replacing it with the dynamo-powered version of the SafeRide.
 

HakanC

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I own a Phillips Saferide rechargeable model and absolutely love it. The first thing I wish to respond to is the comments about the bracket not being very strong, I haven't found that to be true. I assume since mine has batteries inside of it than it should be heavier than the dynamo model?
Not only is the battery version heavier, the light body is bigger too
Please see the pic below
edelux-sld-lbl-1.jpg

From: http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/verlichting/lamp-grootte/index_en.html

For 2013 there will be a new bracket for the Philips battery light.
Apparently the new bracket will also fit current lights and it will cost 2 € more

This is what the new bracket looks like
40677_00_a.jpg

http://www.bike24.com/1.php?content=8;navigation=1;menu=1000,5,66;product=40677

The old bracket:
http://www.bike24.com/1.php?content=8;navigation=1;menu=1000,5,66;product=19212


/Håkan
SWEDEN
 

pdw

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I think the comments about the mount not being strong related to the fork crown mount of the dynamo version, rather than the handle bar mount of the battery version.

That said, I wasn't very impressed with the old handle bar mount of the battery version, particularly when mounting to narrower bars as the additional rubber inserts aren't solid enough and it was very hard to get it tight enough to stop it rotating. The new mount looks like it might be better in this respect, but I've already swapped mine for a Cateye mount, which is smaller, attaches better, and makes it easy to remove the light using just one hand.
 

nlighten

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Oct 3, 2013
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I think the comments about the mount not being strong related to the fork crown mount of the dynamo version, rather than the handle bar mount of the battery version.

That said, I wasn't very impressed with the old handle bar mount of the battery version, particularly when mounting to narrower bars as the additional rubber inserts aren't solid enough and it was very hard to get it tight enough to stop it rotating. The new mount looks like it might be better in this respect, but I've already swapped mine for a Cateye mount, which is smaller, attaches better, and makes it easy to remove the light using just one hand.

(I know this is an old thread, but I've been looking in vain for an alternate mount for the battery version of this light...)

Which Cateye mount did you find worked? I've looked at the various mounts (e.g. the ones like this: https://www.shopcateye.com/product/h-32-bracket) and none of them seem like they'd work. Did I miss one that does?
 
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