M**C
My search for the perfect light continues.
I should preface by saying that I'm hard on my bike -- I commute several miles every day in all weather including rain, snow, ice, etc., and the bike sits outside all day on a college campus. I probably average a new light every ~4-6 months because that's about how often they break or get stolen. I saw this light mentioned over on a WireCutter review and thought I'd give it a try. It's more expensive than ones I've tried in the past, but I figured this one might last me a long time.Sadly, it didn't.Pros:- I like the clean, simple design. No buttons, or rather, the surface of the light itself is the button, so you just press the light and it turns on. One fewer thing to break!- Nice and bright- I loved the removable battery concept, so that I could carry a spare with me when I forgot to charge.Neither pros nor cons:- It takes time (~15-20 mins?) to install. But that's the point, of course -- difficult to install makes it difficult to remove! (At least, that's what I thought.)Cons:- Installing and removing the battery was trickier than it should be. I often put the battery in backwards, or upside down and had to adjust it several times before it would work. And opening and closing the light to insert or remove the battery was a lot harder than it ought to be, and sometimes it wasn't clear if the battery compartment was fully closed or not. Once I rounded a curve while riding and the tail light opened up and the battery flew out, for example.- My battery was often dead. I would charge at night, ride to work and park, and it would be dead by the time I tried to use it in the evening. I thought I might have a bad battery, but I had the same problem with the tail light and even tried exchanging my battery with a friend, and still had the same problem. I finally noticed that the light was on during the day even when I hadn't meant to turn it on. How did this happen? It's still a mystery. Maybe I accidentally pressed it during my ride (but that would explain the headlight but not the taillight)? Maybe it turned itself on when I hit bumps in the road? Maybe one of my colleagues turned it on each day just to mess with me? I couldn't figure it out. But only had about a month to figure it out because...- This "theft-proof" bike light was stolen! I parked it outside a building on campus and came back an hour later, and it was gone. I don't know how this happened but have two theories. One is that a prankster who owned this light had the magical little tool that lets you take the headlight off, and searched around campus for a bike light. The second theory, which is probably much more likely, is that the perp simply cut the light off, or just whacked it hard enough to break the plastic.Now in defense of the company, I contacted them to report the theft and they answered immediately, saying they would replace the light if I supplied a police report. This seems perfectly reasonable and I could have done this, but just didn't feel it was worth the trouble to go to the police and report such a petty theft. So "theft-proof", this light is definitely not. But the customer service does seem good and it seems like they're serious about their theft-proof warranty.In summary, the concept behind this light is great, but the execution needs some work. Much cheaper lights have lasted me much longer, so I'll go back to one of them for now. Maybe when version 2.0 of this light comes out, the bugs will be fixed and it will live up to its promises.
A**Y
Its decent, design could be refined to make it a great light.
After having a $50 light stolen, I ran across this product and it seemed to be just what I am looking for. Great output and theft proof - for the price this seemed almost too good to be true.Well, it's okay, but there are some design flaws, and Fortified's customer service has yet to help me out.1. Mine arrived with a stripped screw hole. This is not surprising, as the screw hole is tapped into aluminum, and probably somewhat low quality aluminum at that. With a steel screw, it is a matter of time before the aluminum strips. Mine arrived this way and I am still waiting after two days to hear back from Fortified customer service on a replacement. I do not think this design would withstand repeated removal of the lights. It should have a treaded steel insert here. Anyway, it is serviceable, just be careful mounting. With aluminum, and TINY threads it won't take much to strip this out.2. The mount is unnecessarily wide on the "light" end. This prevents you from tucking the light as close to the stem as you can. If my handlebar started curving even a few millimeters closer to the stem I would not be able to point this light straight ahead, which brings me to the next point -3. Lack of directional adjustability. The mount will allow you to change the angle of the light along one axis only. You can basically rotate it around whatever it is mounted to, and that is all. It needs to have some adjustability along the other direction as well. For instance, the angle of your seat tube sets the vertical angle of the light. If your seat tube is closer to vertical, the light will be pointing up. Very slack seat tube? Light will point down. Likewise, on the handlebar end you can only set the vertical position of the light, by rotating along the handlebar. If you handlebar is such that the light won't point exactly straight ahead (like if you have an oversize bar that quickly tapers down) you are out of luck and there is no way to adjust that out.4. The custom torx-like screw and driver are not necessary. Why not just use torx? No one who is walking around looking for a light to steal has a torx set on them, and that way if you lose the driver or a screw you can go to a hardware store rather than waiting for Fortified to get back to you. (In all honesty an allen would probably be fine. Lights are a grab-and-go thing, no one will sit there for ten minutes fiddling with bolts. Kinda makes the 5-point screw feel like a marketing ploy.)A couple other minor quibbles: Like others have said, there is no way to tell how much battery life is left (many competitors have this), and the switch is a little dodgy. It doesn't always turn on first try, and sometimes the light flickers a tiny bit.I will update this review when I hear back from their support department, hopefully they take care of the light. It has been two days though... and they don't have a phone number.EDIT: Couldn't wait anymore to hear back from Fortified, so I initiated the return myself from Amazon. Their support should do better than that, but they were willing to help so it isn't all bad. I did end up just replacing them with the same set. There just isn't really anything else on the market like this. So, even though I wish it was better, and there is a lot of room for improvement, this is what I am stuck with. Issue with the new light - the rear one is incredibly hard to open up to get to the battery. Hopefully this will ease up with use. I think this speaks to some manufacturing inconsistency, but I'm guessing that is just growing pains and Fortified will figure it out.tl;dr: All in all the light is decent. It's a lot of output for the money, and the theft-proof feature is functional if not a bit overboard.
Trustpilot
1 month ago
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