{"id":3538,"date":"2014-02-04T21:55:28","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T21:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/?p=3538"},"modified":"2014-02-04T23:44:12","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T23:44:12","slug":"blaze-laserlight-a-first-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/blaze-laserlight-a-first-look\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaze Laserlight &#8211; A First Look"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12310432416\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Back in November 2012, I backed my first Kickstarter project &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/embrooke\/blaze-bike-light\">the Blaze Bike Light<\/a> &#8211; and today it arrived fresh from manufacture in China.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/85868363\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/85868363\">Blaze Laserlight &#8211; A First Look<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/abowie\">Adam Bowie<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12309996753\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Now known as the Blaze Laserlight, its description basically explains what it does. It&#8217;s a regular bike light with a laser alongside that beams an image of a bicycle onto the road in front of it. The bike light is a fairly traditional type that offers either 100 lumens or 300 lumens output making it pretty bright. But it also comes with a green laser that projects a cycle image on the road ahead of you.<\/p>\n<p>Having only got my device today, it would be unfair to call this a review because really I&#8217;ve only had a chance to use it getting home this evening. Think of this as a &#8220;first look&#8221; then. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12309847245\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first thing you notice is the manufacturing quality which is gorgeous. The casings are all beautifully made in anodised and sandblasted aluminium, although the manufacturing speed means that they&#8217;re shifting to someone else after this initial batch. And it&#8217;s a weighty thing, coming in at just over 180g. <\/p>\n<p>Out of the lovely box, there was already some charge in it, but I spent the afternoon using its bespoke USB charging cable to give it a full charge. While in some respects micro-USB would have been nicer as we all have lots of cables already, the magnetic charging device means that they can weather seal the light better. Other rechargeable bike lights I have rely on a plastic screw on cap to keep water out. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12309851745\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The main light offers a flashing 100 lumens mode, as well as constant 100 lumens and 300 lumens modes. Once a light mode has been engaged, you can choose whether to turn the laser on, and whether you want it to flash or to remain constant. In my brief usage, I tended to use the constant mode.<\/p>\n<p>There are stickers aplenty around the outside warning you not to shine the laser in someone&#8217;s eye. The laser is quoted as being <5mW with a 510-525nm wavelength in case that's important to you.\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12310439086\/player\/\" width=\"534\" height=\"800\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What I can say is that it&#8217;s perfectly visible even in well lit central London streets. I should also add that a safety feature means that the laser is inoperable unless it&#8217;s on the mount. Obviously I went through a brief panic when I failed to turn on the laser when first getting out of the box and not reading the enclosed manual. I&#8217;m a bloke clearly.<\/p>\n<p>The device comes with a mounting bracket and three thicknesses of rubber so you choose what&#8217;s best for your mounting situation. The design means that it overhangs back towards you rather than towards the front of the bike. And Blaze even supply a hex key to help you fit it. The mount isn&#8217;t quite as solid as I&#8217;d have liked &#8211; perhaps because of the weight of the light, I detected a small amount of movement. But in the scheme of things, that probably doesn&#8217;t matter. A trigger allows you to quickly remove the light from the mount. You won&#8217;t want to be leaving this light on your bike when you pop into the shops.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, I had no problem attaching it to my S Type Brompton handlebar.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12310002553\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What you notice is that like any other mount, vibrations from the road surface will cause the laser to bounce around a bit. The very clean image is really only viewed when you&#8217;re completely still or if you&#8217;re on an incredibly smooth road.<\/p>\n<p>Blaze suggest projecting the image about 5-6m ahead of you, and obviously depending on the height of your bike, this will affect the angle of the light. What I will say is that the light is much brighter than my existing Brompton&#8217;s lights, and I remain completely visible to oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n<p>It should also be noted that although I left the light in a forward facing direction, you can tilt it left and right a bit should you wish the projection to be offset.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12310426036\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s it like to ride with?<\/p>\n<p>Well the first thing you&#8217;re going to have to get over is the fact that you will receive attention. I heard a few people comment on the laser as I rode around (although others were oblivious to it). One cyclist did pull over to have a chat about it, and I&#8217;d anticipate plenty such chats with fellow cyclists until there are more on the streets!<\/p>\n<p>I did notice that in some circumstances when I was close to a cyclist in front of me, the projection jumped ahead of them, and I wondered if that might be off-putting. <\/p>\n<p>Part of my route home is along a separated cycle path and I switched the laser off for this because there really shouldn&#8217;t be a need for it. Although ironically at one junction it might have prevented a motorist pulling out into the cycle lane had he seen the light.<\/p>\n<p>My home stretch is on busier roads with few other cyclists and more traffic, and you know what, in a non-scientific single journey, it did feel like I was getting a bit more room. That may be my imagination, and time will be the only true test. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12309992803\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So in summary:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; It works well<br \/>\n&#8211; The light itself is an incredibly good and bright model<br \/>\n&#8211; The mounting seems to fit most bikes<br \/>\n&#8211; And it looks beautiful<\/p>\n<p>The only problem you now face is getting one. I believe that Blaze is now taking orders for delivery in March priced at \u00a3125.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/12310267784\/player\/\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in November 2012, I backed my first Kickstarter project &#8211; the Blaze Bike Light &#8211; and today it arrived fresh from manufacture in China. Blaze Laserlight &#8211; A First Look from Adam Bowie on Vimeo. Now known as the Blaze Laserlight, its description basically explains what it does. It&#8217;s a regular bike light with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,9],"tags":[126,56,128,125,127,123,124],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3545,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions\/3545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}