Magicshine SeeMee 300 Smart Tail Light

The Magicshine SeeMee 300 Smart Tail Light is a clever design with plenty of options and neat little details, all for not a lot of money. Don't get fooled by the heady lumen count, though – it's not as bright as you might think.

For more options, check out our guide to the best rear bike lights.

> Buy now: Magicshine SeeMee 300 Smart Tail Light for £39.99 from Magicshine

Having used many Magicshine front lights over the years, I would describe its lumen claims as, shall we say, optimistic.

The SeeMee 300 is so named because Magicshine states that the two main LEDs put out a combined 300 lumens, although in the majority of the modes you are using much less than that.

In the brightest modes of High and Smart (night) the SeeMee is rated at 100 lumens, and by a simple shine against the wall kind of test it outputs pretty much exactly the same as my Hope District Plus, which has a measured output of 105 lumens.

Smart

Like everything else 'smart' in our lives, in theory at least, the SeeMee 300 should make your life easier, and it kind of does. You use the single button to scroll through Low/High/Flash/Group Ride to arrive at Smart, a mode that uses a sensor to monitor ambient lighting levels and adjust the light's brightness accordingly.

In this Smart mode it flashes at 300 lumens during the day, with the OptiTracing light (more about that in a minute) turned off, and when it deems it dark enough the SeeMee switches to a 100/20-lumen flash plus the OptiTracing light on a static 60 lumens. All very clever.

And the light has a memory function too, so that when you turn it off and back on again it does so in the same mode, so in theory you shouldn't need to change anything.

It also has a brake light function (which increases the brightness of the light as you slow down to a stop). When that's turned on, the light will turn off when the bike hasn't moved for five minutes, and turn back on again once it does, so you're basically getting autonomous functionality.

The only thing I did find a bit annoying was that the light sensor isn't very responsive, with only the brightest of sunny days getting it to kick into its brighter 'day' modes.

OptiTracing

Each of the modes mentioned above has both a day and night mode controlled by the light sensor, although Smart is the only setting that changes actual brightness; all the others just get the addition of the OptiTracing light in the dark.

This is an LED mounted in the bottom of the SeeMee 300 that lights up the rear half of the bike and the road around you. I also found that it illuminates your lower legs and shoes too, so defines you as a cyclist from a long way behind, possibly even before a following vehicle's own lights have lit you up.

If the main LEDs and the COB static lights around the outside are on a static mode, like Low and High, the OptiTracing is flashing, and if they're flashing then the OptiTracing is on constant.

In my opinion the Smart (night) mode is the best: the main LEDs give out a solid 20 lumens, with a 100-lumen pulse over the top, plus the OptiTracing light on constant, outputting 60 lumens. This creates a package that is both eye-catching and reasonably frugal on battery life, with a burn-time of around six hours. For use in the dark, even in the gloom of a winter's day, 100 lumens is plenty bright enough – anything else is anti-social for those following you.

For reference, the other modes in the 'day' settings give 35hrs in Smart with its 300-lumen flash, 200hrs in Group Ride (20-lumen flash), 45hrs Flash (100 lumens), 8hrs High (100 lumens constant), and 60hrs Low (20 lumens constant).

Add in that OptiTracing light for the night settings and the run-times drop quite considerably, especially those where it is on constant not flashing. Low drops to 40hrs, High 6hrs, Flash 7hrs, and Group Ride drops by 75% to 50hrs.

With the sensor not working effectively, that means you are giving away quite a bit of battery life when using it in the daytime.

I would prefer it to not have the sensor at all, really, and just have the option to turn the OptiTracing light on and off.

Battery life & charging

The on/off button acts as an indicator for how much battery life there is left, but it's not the most helpful. It starts off green and remains that way until the reserves drop to 21%, which is a bit too large a gap in my opinion, especially if you are heading out on a ride and you don't know how much battery life there is to start with. I'd like to see an amber light come into play at around the 50% level.

As it is, at 20% it changes to solid red, before turning into a flashing red at 10%, where the light slips into low power Eco mode, limiting output and disabling the brake function.

A full charge via USB-C can take as little as two hours when plugged into the mains.

Build quality

Apart from the light sensor not being the best, the functionality is pretty good, and I don't really have any complaints about the build quality either.

The main body is aluminium rather than plastic, and everything feels finished to a good standard. It also has an IPX6 rating which means it can resist power jets of water from any direction, so in the real world that means the SeeMee is going to resist heavy rain, splashes, and spray from the road.

I gave it a proper soaking from the bathroom shower too and it passed with flying colours.

Mount

The mount is a rubber band affair that works fine for a rear light. The rubber section will adapt to any seatpost shape and the notches in the rubber band mean you can wrap it around various diameter tubes or posts.

The mount is also shaped to offset the angle of your seatpost.

Value

At £48.99 the Magicshine is well priced too (and it's currently discounted to £38). Other responsive lights can be double that – Exposure's Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton is now £100, though it is a very impressive option, offering 150 lumens as a brake light using the ReAKT setting, and up to 80 lumens in other modes, and the Peloton mode means it adjusts its brightness when it detects other riders' lights behind you... and it has very impressive run-times.

If it's maximum output you're after and you're not fussed about the smart features of the SeeMee 300, Cateye offers the Viz 300 rear light for £39.99. It doesn't have any smart features and it has an all-plastic construction, but Steve was impressed with the output.

BBB's SignalBrake Auto Brake has a built-in brake function, in case you hadn't worked that out from the name, and is also cheaper than the SeeMee 300 at £36.95, but its actual power outputs are very low in comparison, maxing out at 50 lumens. It does have an impressive IPX7 water resistance rating, though. (We reviewed it in 2022.)

Conclusion

There are a few niggles here and there, but overall this is an impressive light when it comes to output and battery life. I really like that OptiTracing light too, and I'd be keen to see it offered by other brands too. For the price, I can even forgive it those slight issues with the light sensor.

Verdict

A few niggles here and there, but a bright light with some clever functions