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Kickstart This: Magnetic Bike Lights by Copenhagen Parts
By Ray Hu - Aug 24, 2012
We've seen plenty of bike lights in the past couple years, listed below for reference, including two of the four winners for the Transportation category of the Core77 Design Awards (Project Aura last year and Revolights this year). While removable lights are far and away the most popular solution, as they're cheap and pocketable, but designers continue to up the ante with wheel-mounted LEDs or otherwise integrated lights that are at once more secure and more elegant than most commercially available options.
Enter Copenhagen Parts' Magnetic Bike Light, a discreet illumination solution that offers the best of both worlds: it's as close as you can get to having built-in lights without actually having to build them in.It's an all too common design problem: how do we make something that looks nice and still works as it should? Well, in our case, we kept it simple—but dedicated a long time, nearly 18 months, to refining the product to a point that we were all completed satisfied with the end result.
By combining magnets and LEDs we have created a bike light that looks good, works well and can be fitted and removed instantly... Magnets and steel tubes were an obvious match. We've spent countless hours selecting the right components and perfecting the details so that the lights will fit to different frames and stay put. The prototypes have been tested for several months so as to make sure that they:
· Are easy to fit anywhere on the frame · Have the right angle to optimize visibility to other road-users · Stay put; regardless of the road surface
Perhaps the most interesting feature is the on/off switch, or lack thereof: the lights are activated when they're attached to the frame, and they automatically shut off upon removal. The Copenhagen Parts team notes that the rare-earth magnetics should be plenty strong, and the lights run on standard batteries (we're assuming they take button cells). All of the details can be found on the Magnetic Bike Lights Kickstarter page (vid & related links after the jump).
Bike Lights Galore:
» Project Aura Bike Safety Lighting System
» Project(ing) Aura: Bike Safety Lighting System Revisited
» Benedikt Steinhoff Finds New Places to Hide LEDs
» "Revolights" Join the Revolution
» Knog Beetle Bike Lights
» Knog USB-Rechargeable "Boomer" Bicycle Lights, Road-Tested & Very Thoroughly Reviewed
» Bookman Lights
» Mitchell Silva's GLO-BARS, Another Noteworthy Bicycle Lighting System
...and last but not least, "LumaHelm," a Gesture-Controlled, LED-Embedded Helmet
Ray Hu
Formerly an editor and currently a contributor to Core77 (among other publications), Ray relocated from New York City to the Netherlands in September 2015 to pursue a Master’s in Curating & Writing at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Insatiably curious, he brings a broad interest in popular culture, media, and technology — alongside an abiding passion for art, music, and cycling — to his practice as a journalist and critic.
11 Comments
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I think this is a nice bit of product design from a Dieter Rams less but better kind of thinking. Regarding people riding around on non steel (I have steel bikes and a carbon bike, a cheaper modern bike isn't much better (sometimes worse than a very good quality steel bike). I'd be surprised if they don't come with an adhesive steel disk to mount to any surface alu, carbon etc. Seems like the ideal solution. Also could come with different angled steel disks to alter the geometry of the bike town, mountain, road or even for seat stays etc. Not beyond the wit of man. Also it is a valid point that not all lights fit all bikes and no successful product is aimed at everybody.!Report as spam
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1. this is for steel frames - what's the problem? 2. it would be too stupid to mount this on a mountain bike (as someone suggested) - why'd you want a minimalistic light on a mountain bike?!? this is more for design bikes, singlespeed, fixies and other form of clean-designed bikes... besides, the light is not powerful enough to ride off road at night! 3. ... what's the issue on being made for steel frames?!?!?! I don't ride road tires on my mountain bike... they don't fit!!! does that makes them "useless" or "pointless"... duhhhhhh!!!!Report as spam
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Billions of steel-framed bikes out there? Really? What exactly is your source for that information? The vast majority of those "billions" of frames have a headbadge made of either aluminum or brass. If the magnet on the light can stick through the badge, it certainly won't be as elegant. Next is the rear light. Fine for sidepull brakes, not so much centerpulls. Why not attach it to the seat stays? And of course, production of steel bikes in the last 20 years would be at best a low one-digit market share. Not to say I'm not trying to change that. I own 4 steel bikes and 1 aluminum.!Report as spam
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nurb, how remiss of them to design something for the billions of bamboo bikes out there. If you need something for your bamboo bike, I'm sure you could whittle something and attach it with wood glue. As for the more valid point about aluminium frames, sure this doesn't work. But it still works for the billions of steel-framed bikes out there. There is stilll a very high proportion of people who ride steel bikes - and not just hipsters. Just because something doesn't fit 100% of bikes out there doesn't negate the fact that it works very well for 50% of them. It's the equivalent of claiming that 700c tyres are defective because they don't fit your 26" rims.!Report as spam
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nurb, I think we both missed the disclaimer: Made for hipster bikes, not bikes made in the last 30 years!Report as spam
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Core, love you though I do, leave the stage directions to the playwrights.!Report as spam
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I think formally, these lights are quite beautiful, and the idea of the light turning on simply by magnetizing to the frame is innovative. Where this design is problematic is obviously in it's reliance on steel bike frames. That means if your riding aluminum (which many seat posts are by the way), carbon fiber, bamboo, titanium, ect... your out of luck. Especially in an industry that is constantly pushing new materials, it is a shame for that to be the limiting factor of your design. The other issue I have is that the form seems to be tailored for specifically track/road geometry, and might fit awkwardly on say a mountain bike, which typically has a more sloping seat tube and head tube. Just my two cents.!Report as spam
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On your aluminium bike, you mount some other light. Troll.!Report as spam
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Who has a steel bike nowadays?!Report as spam
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It's a nice stylish solution for those with steel-framed bikes who don't mind having to remove their lights all the time, I guess. I wonder how much variation there is in the angle of the vertical tubes in bikes, though?!Report as spam
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So on my aluminum bike, I'll just use the magnets to mount the light to my frame.... oh wait. Wouldn't even work on the bamboo bike I don't have either.!Report as spam
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