Halogen vs. LED Bike lights?

Question

pros? cons? for each?

Answer 1

Halogen lights tend to be expensive, high output lights.  They are mostly used by people needing lots of light to see where they are going.  For example, halogen lights are popular with mountain bikers for night rides.  (Surprisingly, you really need very little light for night riding on roads.  You really need to be concerned with visibility to motorists.  This means good quality tail lights.)  Due to their power consumption, halogen lights require pretty substantial batteries to provide reasonable burntimes.  As far as I know, most battery systems for halogen lights are rechargable.

LED lights come in a very wide variety of costs and light outputs.  Some are designed to put out fairly minimal light that would be ideal for night riding on roads.  Others will light up the world.  Depending on light output and required burntime, an LED may have a regular battery or a rechargable.

Another type of high output light is HID.  HID systems usually put out more light with less power consumption than halogens, but are most expensive.

If you go with a rechargable system, you have another set of decisions to make.  The lightest, but most expensive batteries are Lithium Ion.  Nickle Metal Hydrid are heavier, but somewhat less expensive.

So, the real question is not what light source do you want, but what do you intend to do with the light?  If you are commuting on roads, a low power LED will be OK.  You can decide whether you want rechargeable batteries.  If you need high light output and long burntime, you can go halogen, HID or LED.

Hope this helps.