Product Geek: PDW’s Daybot is a locally designed, consciously crafted tail light

The new Daybot from Portland Design Works.
(Photos by James Buckroyd)

— JBucky (James Buckroyd) is an avid cyclist and “product geek,” — he blogs at buckyrides.com which he set up to document interesting routes, but also houses product tech reviews. Read his past BikePortland contributions here.

Jbucky in his element.

Portland Design Works designs, engineers, markets and ships a growing assortment of bicycle accessories from their headquarters in southeast Portland. You might remember a while back I reviewed their Full Metal Fenders. The fenders are still going strong and I’ved used them on an almost daily basis for 13 months now. It’s a bomber setup.

But could they repeat that success with a light? Is a locally designed, consciously crafted bike light a fallacy?

I picked up one of their latest tail light models, the Daybot. I was impressed by the Daybot as a product, but also because it’s a local company. With a peak behind the scenes, I saw they had some some good ethical practices in place as well. The Daybot is a $35 rear light specifically designed so it’s effective during daylight hours, this means a switchable light mode where the output is higher so you go noticed during the day. 100 Lumens is the benchmark nowadays for daylight flashers.

Dual LED’s – a high power above and a low power below the weatherproof on /off button

Easy to use silicone band for quick mounting to seatpost & sealed USB charging port.

Thick silicone with pull tab.

Ample brightness for daytime riding.

Summary: The Daybot rear flasher by PDW is a great experience overall: the packaging, instructions, installation and use of the product are all excellent. It’s well-designed, rechargeable, features five flash modes, has easy-to-use controls, comes with great seatpost and seatstay mounting options that are durable and easy to use (which is more than can be said for most) and is backed up by a two-year warranty. Thus the Daybot offers great value at $35.

Read my in-depth review of the PDW Daybot over at at Buckyrides.com

— JBucky

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