Halogen vs LED Light - Which Is Better For Bike & Scooter? | Is It Safe To Replace Halogen With LED?

You must have noticed that some motorcycle (bike), scooter (scooty) and car have halogen headlight while other have LED headlights. Headlights are an essential feature on motorcycles, not only for lighting your way but also for keeping you visible on the road. Working, roadworthy light systems for motorcycles can mean the difference between a safe journey home or not.

Halogen lighting is the most commonly used type of headlights on motor vehicles, motorcycles included and is a type of incandescent light which uses a filament housed in a halogen filled bulb. When these bulbs are powered up, they send an electrical current through these filaments. The flow of current heats this tungsten filament until it gets white-hot, at which point it will start emitting light.

A drawback of these type of bulbs is that they can become hot from how much power is needed to illuminate them - this heat could be enough to cause some discolouration on the housing of the lights on your bike. However, because of how simple the design of the bulbs means that they are very cheap and easy to replace. The lifespan for a halogen bulb is around 2,000 hours which works out to around 2-years worth of use - if you were to ride about 3 hours every day - which could be a reasonable assumption if you are a commuting biker.

LED lighting does not make use of filaments like halogen bulbs do. Instead, they are made up of semiconductors which, when powered, emit photons which results in light being emitted. LED Lights require more complex electronics that can consist of heat sinks and fans and makes them inherently more expensive to produce. The benefits here are that they consume less power and have a much longer lifespan than conventional halogen lights. Although they produce some heat, it is not very significant, especially when compared to that of halogen lights. Unlike halogens, LED lights can run for up to 20,000 hours. This massively improved lifespan is why many industries have abandoned the use of halogen lights in favour of LEDs.

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