Wow. Just wow. I came home for a second before heading out to Peel Sessions to find a box from Portland Design Works sitting on my stoop. Inside was a generous amount of product; including two of their light sets. The first is the familiar Radbot design. I’ve posted about it before and how much it reminded me of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Side note; did you know that HAL is IBM? Just move each letter one to the left in the alphabet. Anyway…

The packaging is what struck me as really clever. PDW worked with Shin Tanaka on the design and branding of the whole light line. Really well done. I’m sure the crew at PDW were giggling to themselves when they got the first design sheets back. The Radbot features a precision reflector and Japanese LEDs to ensure proper visibility. Another side note; these Japanese LEDs are the same lights used in the brake lights of modern cars.

Check out their other light grouping below; the Spaceship and the Red Planet.

Here again, PDW worked closely with Shin Tanaka and it couldn’t have turned out better. The Spaceship and the Red Planet is a light-pairing package. It contains a handlebar clip-on front light and a blaringly-bright red rear light. Their site describes the lights as:

The spaceship headlight cuts through the darkness of space by blasting a brilliant Japanese LED through a special German-engineered lens. The red planet taillight sports three red LEDs which shoot straight back and two which blast sideways.

Both lights are built to withstand rain and meteor showers to keep you safe from blastoff to touchdown in all conditions.

Intense.

Now, this isn’t a proper review because I’ve yet to put them on my bike. Mostly because I’m in a rush to get out the door and I don’t want to rip the boxes. I’ll be sure to put them on later tonight, after Peel Sessions and do a little write-up on their performance.

Seriously, thanks to PDW for sending me these. I’ll make sure the toys don’t take them while I’m gone. I completely geeked out here and I even put this post in the Design and Reviews categories.

Previously:
Radbot 1000 aka Hal 9000