Revolights – cycling’s wheels of light

Revolights bicycle lights, side on view

The thinking behind Revolights is to have the light for a cyclist located close to the ground, where they want the light most, rather than on the handlebars throwing the light down and forwards.

How do they work? Two strips of LED lights are mounted on each bicycle wheel, powered by a small Lithium-ion battery mounted on the back and front wheel hubs. The battery provides up to 4 hours of light, and can be recharged via a computer USB port. Each wheel throws 134 Lumens, and you can see in the two images below how well they illuminate the cyclist’s immediate surroundings, and how visible they are to other road users.



Revolights, comparison against other bicycle lights

Revolights, views from the front, back and side

Kent Frankovich, Jim Houk and Adam Pettler, friends from San Francisco, are the trio behind Revolights. The initial funding for the project was crowdsourced via KickStarter.

Revolights release date and price

June 2012 has been marked as the release date for Revolights. Intitially it will be a US-only launch, with a price of US$220. The system will be made for Road and Hybrid 700 series rims (aka 700c, aka 622mm).

The focus right now is on bicycles, but the idea has been thrown around that the Revolights system would work well for scooters and motorcycles, but the trio say that “We’d love to achieve this goal at some point in the future but, right now, [we] are focusing specifically on bicycles.”

Here’s a video of the Revolights system in use: