Safe doesn’t mean boring, at least not according to the guys at MonkeyLectric. The bike lighting company began developing flashy LED bike lights for riders amateur and professional who were keen on making sure they could be caught sight of by pedestrians and drivers alike. Since they’ve started, however, they’ve come a long way. A couple of years ago, they introduced on Kickstarter the Light Pro, which consists of 256 LED lights that is fitted onto the spokes of your wheels, with a rechargeable 7000mAh battery. These LEDs generate a visual as your wheels spin, with stable images between the speeds of 10-40 kmh.
Examples of visuals include text, moving images and more. Image courtesy of www.k2.pl
But as the MonkeyLectric video shows, it goes much further. You can upload images to the device via Mac or Windows, and they can be moving images or static visuals. These create a powerful impact, not only in terms of style but also add a panache to your bike-riding experience, whether you’re a hipster rider or professional daily commuter. Plus, night riding just became a lot more fun and engaging.
Now, the company has gone one further, turning the MonkeyLectric lights into store displays, using standalone wheels to generate the same impact. The POV displays read from both sides of the wheel i.e. text does not look like mirror image displays on one side. These have been used in the Levi’s store in San Francisco, and various other stores around the world.
These lights don’t come cheap though, but for a thoroughly pimped out bike that adds safety as well in terms of visibility to the rider, US$1,000 seems like a fair price to pay.
