If you want minimum ‘fit and forget’ fuss from your front light, then Guee takes the guesswork out with an automatic shine selector on its already powerful, generously long-lived Sol 700 Plus.
The hard plastic clamp bolts securely around 25.4 or 31.8mm diameter round bars. It also includes a hinged carrier arm to let you lift the angle of the light, though we never used that on the road.
If you remove the fixed arm and flip the base mount around to centralise it, the Sol fixes onto GoPro mounts as well, which opens up a whole extra range of positioning potential.
The CNC-machined alloy casing includes through flow vents and it’s more than tough enough to survive being dropped or otherwise battered.
The solitary LED gives a medium-spread beam that gives a decent mix of reach and wider ‘see round corner’ coverage for all types of riding, even solo missions at speed. It runs through conventional full, usefully bright medium (500 lumens), low (250 lumens), flash and strobe modes via the central button.
There are no ‘gills’ or supplementary windows for side visibility, but, if I'm honest, most of those are so small they’re useless and the face is shallow enough for the single LED to be visible from a usefully wide angle in traffic.
What really sets the Sol apart is the ‘SAS’ Smart Ambient Sensor’ mode that automatically switches power levels to match surrounding darkness. While it sounds like a bit of a gimmick, it’s great for dawn/dusk riding or any time when gaps in lighting mean things can suddenly get dark.
Because you’re not using excess power when you don’t need to, it noticeably extends already very impressive run-times for its weight and price. It’s still a tough high-value light even if you don’t use the ambient mode too.
- Weight: 180g
- Run time (max power): 2h 50mins
