Magicshine Seemee 400 ANT+ review – a great little rear light provided you don’t buy it to fulfil its more grandiose claims

The Magicshine Seemee 400 ANT+ is fantastic, unless you want it to live up to all its promises, in which case it’s pretty poor. Which one it is will depend on what you actually want from a rear light.

If you simply want a very visible tail light with easy one-button operation and are happy to recharge it regularly, there’s only one small irritation with the Seemee 400 ANT+. The hook is quite a tight fit for the holes in the strap, and as that hook is recessed behind the lamp body, it’s awkward to push the chunky silicone strap into the little gap to engage it… until you realise the light detaches with a neat little quarter turn fitting.

Fit the mount separately and the problem goes away, and so long as you don’t mind leaving the mount permanently on the bike, it’s great. It’s only a minor extra faff if you’re swapping bikes a lot, but it would be nice if the light didn’t block the strap so you could easily fit and remove it whole, as you can with many lights.

Other than this tiny niggle, as a basic light the Seemee is excellent. It’s secure, the five modes are easily selected via the illuminated button, the alloy body is very well sealed (IPX6), and visibility from every angle is excellent. The rectangular border lights up as well, which is very noticeable from behind, and as the lens protrudes it throws a lot of red to the side for angled visibility.

The really impressive part, however, is the domed lens underneath that chucks more light straight down at your tyre, frame, pedals and even the road. It’s bright enough to glint off various components when you glance down even in broad daylight, and in the dark your tail light can be seen from literally any angle.

You might think 400 lumens is overkill – and really it is. That’s why this, like most other lights, reserves its headline output for Day Flash. The next brightest setting is the solid High mode, which is a still very bright 90 lumens. In Day Flash the downward lamp (Magicshine calls it the Optitracing light, confirming my suspicion that naming things is not its strong suit) slowly pulses 90 lumens as well.

Night Flash has an appropriate maximum of 75 lumens (Day Flash is obnoxious in the dark), while the solid Low setting is just 15 lumens and the least noticeable choice of all. The final mode is the inevitable Eco Flash, which doesn’t use the Optitracing lamp and ekes out the greatest run-time.

The button glows green for full charge, then red, and finally flashing red once it gets desperate for a fix from the mains.

Basic use then: fantastic. If I hadn’t read the manual, I’d have no complaints.

Battery and advanced features

If you do read the manual, however (or even the box), you’ll be aggrieved at how far out the run-time claims are. I never got more than 2:30hrs out of High mode before it stepped down to Eco Flash, and it only managed a little over 4hrs in that. That’s massively short of the 8.30hrs claimed, even if you count the time it’s in Eco as well.

And this is without the fancy brake light function switched on. That boosts brightness whenever the unit detects deceleration, which obviously burns through your reserves at a faster (and very unpredictable) rate.

Like all such brake lights, it’s not 100 per cent reliable at working out what’s braking and what’s not – which for anything beyond ‘please notice me’ town use is a liability, in my opinion. An accelerometer might feel high tech, but it can’t match a 5p on/off switch in a brake lever for performance. Still, here we are. It’s not a good idea for following riders to rely on what it’s saying, unless they want to embody the ‘move fast and break things’ tech mantra quite literally.

Switching the brake light on also enables sleep mode, where the light will power itself down after five minutes with no motion, and back on again when it feels movement. It’s a shame you can’t have sleep mode without the brake light, however. Sleep mode is potentially more useful.

On the positive side, getting the 1,600mAh battery to full from flat proved slightly faster (2:10hrs) than the 2:30hrs Magicshine claims. Also, the run-times are still long enough to be entirely usable. Many lights only manage similar times. They’re just not what Magicshine says they are.

ANT+ means you can connect this to your computer (Magicshine lists Garmin, Wahoo and Hammerhead as compatible) and faff about with it from there, but quite frankly it’s easier to press the button on the light.

It will also connect to a remote on your handlebar – Magicshine sells the MJ-6558 for £19.99 – but while these remotes are great with headlamps, few of us need to adjust the rear light often enough to make it worthwhile. Perhaps on a very long ride you’d feel the need, but most likely only because the battery life isn’t what’s promised.

You can even connect to other compatible Magicshine lights in your group – assuming your group is packed with compatible Magicshine lights – and get them to all flash in unison. Does this work? Sure. Does this improve anything? No.

For me, the advanced features involving wireless connections and accelerometers function to no particularly notable or worthwhile effect. In almost all cases, the better option is just to press the button on the light and carry on with your life.

I’d happily swap all of it for a battery that lasted as long as claimed.

Value

At £69.99 this is reasonably priced for the spec. It’s close to the Moon Helix Sense 450lm at £64.99, for instance, though that’s a little awkward to control and the strap is not the best. The battery lasts well, though.

Many lights this bright cost a lot more, though you may well be getting a ‘radar’ that detects approaching vehicles at the same time. That’s a tech this Magicshine lacks. The Lezyne Radar Drive 300 rear light, for instance, is £170, and though it obviously has radar it’s not as bright at 300 lumens.

While the Seemee’s build quality and brightness make this feel entirely worth the £69.99 asking price, in reality you’re unlikely to actually pay that – Magicshine is one of those companies that heavily and habitually discounts its products. At the time of writing this was £49.99, for example, plus there was a 10 per cent off code as well.

For £50 this feels impressive.

> Best rear bike lights — increase your day and night visibility with a bright beam at the back

Overall

If you just want a bright and well-made red light for the back of your bike, this really is great – so long as you’re happy to charge it fairly frequently. How frequently very much depends on which mode you’re using.

If it’s the high-tech features that draw you to it, however, you may well be underwhelmed (or at best, whelmed), especially as they can eat further into the already far shorter than advertised run-times. Forget about the ANT+ is my advice and buy it for the Seemee.