Be seen from all directions – NiteRider Bullet 200 Bike Taillight Review – feat. 200 Lumen

thanks for tuning in today we’re going to
be reviewing the NiteRider 
Bullet 200 bicycle tail light.
In order to make a bike tail light stand out 
in the crowded marketplace companies either
focus on integrating smart features or improving 
the visibility. With the NiteRider Bullet 200
it’s obvious that NiteRider focused on visibility.
Now in terms of packaging really simple you have 
a cardboard backing some zip ties hold it in
place and the accessories on the inside. The specs 
are written here on the back with all the modes
the FL1 standard ratings and the 
charge time all printed pretty clearly.
I’ll go ahead and take it out of the box and we’ll 
go over the specs. Retail price on this is $39.99
it has 200 lumens of output so very bright 
and this is in line with their daytime visible
flash philosophy which the means all taillights 
should be visible during the day as well
for additional safety. It has 360 degree 
visibility so they’ve really invested in
visibility and with this large protruding lens 
you can be seen from the front side or back.
It has up to 29 hours and 15 minute run time 
at the lowest setting and it’s also IP64 rated.
They also include an aero and a round seatpost 
compatible design with a little channel built in.
Now in terms of what comes in the box you get 
the taillight with the mount already on here
and then we get the little accessory bag.

So we have the instruction manual
we also get the micro usb charging
cable to recharge the light
and it looks like we have two mount options.
You can see the aero mount strap and this looks
like to be pretty long and you can see it’s
quite thick as well these rubber straps are
usually thinner and they can crack with this it
looks quite thick and robust. Also a standard
round seat post mount strap. Now let’s take a
look at the weight of the taillight. Putting
just the taillight on the scale that comes
out to 60 grams then the aero seatpost strap
that’s 12 and then the shorter round seat post
trap comes in at 6 grams so pretty light overall.
Now what makes the Bullet 200 so unique is the
form factor. You can see it has a very elongated
body with this protruding lens even though
they call it Bullet i’m not quite sure why
aside from the elongated shape. To me it looks
more like a peg or a mushroom style with this
protruding lens. What’s really nice about this
design is that with the multiple led elements you
have one in the front the center as well as the
back that you get visibility in all directions. So
you can see as I rotate around
even directly from behind it
you can actually see the lens so it really helps
with daytime visibility and nighttime visibility.
Most of the body actually is the lens itself
you can see a nice transparent red lens
a little extended transparent portion near the
bottom as well. You have the mount here on the back
pretty simple rubber strap style it’s easy to use
you just wrap it in here with the built-in hooks
and pull it around. You get two different
straps and they both feel quite robust
you can see they’re very thick and the aero
one particular is a lot thicker as well.
You can see the mount is just a little
rubber piece and in order to accommodate
both aero and non-aero you have the little
slot here and it’s a really clever design.
We’ve seen it with the Magicshine lights so it’s
easy to swap between bikes without an issue.
You have a usb port on the bottom it’s a micro
usb not a usb type c unfortunately and this is
only rated for IP64 which seems a little bit low
for water but should be sufficient for wet riding.
Then you have the power button on the
front of the lens this is kind of unique too.
So you just turn it on there’s six different
modes and you can see there’s multiple led
elements you have one in the center on the front
face and then on the rear face and depending
on which mode you’re in the either constant or
alternating flash. So here they’re in sync flash
and then here you can alternate where
the front is flashing and the back is not
or in different modes where they’re
alternating as opposed to being in sync
so it’s pretty unique. It has a simple one-click interface
hold it to turn it off and you have mode memory
to remember which mode you’re in. You can also
see it stays illuminated after you turn it on
to indicate the battery status. This is a three
level design so it’s blue when it’s above 50 it’s
yellow when it’s between 25 and 50 and when it’s
under 25 it’d be flashing so it’s nice to have the
information before you ride. You can simply turn
it on and then turn it off to check the status.
Now let’s take a look at the different output
modes of the Bullet 200, there are six total modes
with some of the modes running the rear and front
leds out of sync like the steady flash and the
alternating flash which is really cool feature. Now
there’s no customization here but you can see with
the six modes there’s plenty of options and you
also have two constant modes which is great for
group rides with the steady low actually being the
highest run time of 29 hours so more than enough
run time. If we put all the modes side by side
here you can see that definitely visually engaging
it’s not nearly as customizable as say the Raz
Pro or other tail lights with cell phone apps but
I think the options from the factory are pretty
good and you don’t have too many modes. This is
also a daytime visible flashlight which means even
in this bright sun you can still see the taillight
from a pretty far distance away. Now it’s less
focused since it has a wider lens than say the
Light & Motion Vya Switch but again with 200 lumens
it’s more than bright enough for day or night time
riding and speaking of night time you can see here
a shot at the night with the round 360 degree
design of the leds this thing throws a bunch of
light on the ground in front of you behind you
so it’s really great for night time and
make sure you’re visible from all angles.
So now let’s compare the Bullet with
some other tail lights on the market.
We’ve reviewed quite a few tail lights and the
Bullet reminds us most of the Vya so this
is the Vya Switch variation. They also have the
Vya Pro and you can see similar elongated shape.
Now with the Vya the usb port is actually built
directly in here so you don’t need another cable
which is a pretty unique design but then they
have a single very focused led so this is good
for daytime visibility and it has this irregular
flash pattern that’s unique to Light & Motion as
well. Now the Bullet is brighter
and also larger with the better visibility thanks
to that larger lens, you can see with the Vya you
can’t even see the lens at a some higher angles.
Now more traditional taillights usually look like
this is the Rojo from Planet Bike and you can
see it’s a large transparent body you have good
side visibility. So you can see multi-led design
but it’s only about 270 degree visibility so as
you go behind it you can no longer see the lens.
Now the one thing that’s really lacking from
the a Bullet are smart features so a lot of
tail lights these days come with smart features
such as the Bontrager Flare RT
a really popular tail light. Now this also
has Bluetooth connectivity which is really cool
so you can connect this to your compatible
Bontrager or Garmin computer and control it
as an integrated light sensor so we can do
auto night mode but you do pay a premium.
So this is about 75 dollars versus the 40 of
the Bullet and it’s only 90 lumen versus the
200 lumen here so you definitely pay for the
extra features versus the better visibility.
Same thing goes with some of Magicshine
lights i believe this is the 180 the Seemee 180
it’s a COB led design with this really large
lens and again it’s about 270 degree visibility.
So you can see the transparent body but as you
go behind it obviously you can’t see it again
and with this large Bullet shape you can actually
see it for the night rider but again the Magicshine
has some more features to it. So again
this has an ambient light sensor so
we can do a smart mode which is day or night that’s
really convenient you just leave it on one mode
and forget about it. Also it has a brake sensor
so it will flash when it detects deceleration
as a feature that’s nice to have it can
deteriorate some of the battery life just
because of the unpredictability of it but can help
draw attention. With the Bullet 200 you just get
a bright visibility without those features i also
want to point out Magicshine also has a similar
channel design to accommodate aero seat post which
is again really clever really simple way to handle
multiple seat post designs but i
do prefer the Magicshine design where
the mount and light are separate with
a simple Garmin quarter turn style. So
the Magicshine is really easy to charge you leave
them out on your bike pull this off charge it put
it back on with a knife rider and similar tail
lights as this you actually have to pull the
rubber strap off charge it come back and pull
the rubber strap on so a little less convenient
now what we liked about the Bullet 200 is the fact
that has a unique form factor it definitely stands
out compared to other tail lights on the market
it’s also daytime visible with an impressive
200 lumen output so it’s perfect for daytime or
nighttime riding it’s also compatible with arrow
seat posts right out of the box with a clever
rubber pad design some of the negatives for the
tail light is the fact that it has a fairly large
size so it definitely stands out up mounted to
your seatpost it also has a non-intuitive battery
status indicator it’d be great to see a multi-led
design or even a runtime display and finally a
lack smart features and connectivity which is
sometimes becoming more common on the marketplace
now here the simple design actually works better
as it’s easier to use and for most riders provides
more than enough customization taking everything
into account would give the Bullet 200 a 9.3 out
of 10. This has a great 360 degree visibility
with a very simple and well thought out design
it’s also fairly affordable at forty dollars
for the 200 lumen output. Thanks for watching
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