Future Eyes F150 Aux Lights Reviewed

The Future Eyes F150 are an entry-level pair of auxiliary lights that cost Rs 10,999 and are brought in India by MotoVanguard. They sent us a pair to review and thus hatched a plan of a 300km night ride to test the lights. 

Future Eyes F150 Specs

The F150s are 60W units, and have 6000 lux illumination. The box includes a pair of light pods, a controller, a digital switch, and mounting brackets & components.

These have a low beam and a high beam. The low beam is a narrow, yellow-tone fog light for a closer illumination and the highbeam is a white light that spreads far and wide. You can cycle between these using the supplied switch. There are five modes to the lights: low beam mode, high beam, both beams, strobe, and alternating strobe. I would suggest avoiding the latter two unless you want the other motorists to call you the C word – not that one, the other one. Switching off the lights entirely is a one button activity which makes it easy to not cause nuisance to other motorists, especially when using the high beam. 

Installation

Installing the lights is fairly simple, once you decide where to mount them. In my case, I decided to go low and installed them on my stock KTM crash guards. You can connect them directly to the battery (something I wouldn’t recommend), or, if your bike has accessory power ports, it would be a more prudent choice. I chose the latter, and just had to get matching connectors (to my bike’s) installed on the lights’ wiring, after which it was just plug and play.

These lights also have a high beam synchronisation wire. Connecting this to the high beam wiring of your bike will allow you to trigger the aux lights with your bike’s high beam switch. A pretty nifty way to get around the complex CANBUS wiring feature that the aux lights four-five times the price offer. Plus, you don’t need to fiddle around with multiple switches – not that the supplied switch is bad, but having just one switch to rule them all is just plain simple and easy. 

After installation, you’ll need to adjust the pods so that they illuminate the road as you desire. I went to a dark, unlit street near my home, to do this. I went out a bit late in the evening to ensure there won’t be anyone on the street being bothered by the lights. Plus, I could also then get a pretty unobstructed look at the throw of the lights. Unless you want the high beam to illuminate the skies, you’d have to adjust the beam such that the low beam illuminates the immediate front of your bike. Considering these are fog lights to be used in precarious foggy situations in which you won’t ride fast and hard, it’s acceptable. 

The Road Test

If you have ridden on roads in Maharashtra, you know how dark they can get at night. It doesn’t take long to understand that these lights do what they are supposed to, quite well. The high beam has a throw far enough to allow you to ride on empty unlit highways at highway speeds. While this is pretty useful on the aforementioned roads, it’s better to keep these lights off when riding in traffic or in the city. Just don’t be a D-head and a motorcyclist that ruins the name of the community. The only time I felt it was necessary to use the strobe mode was when some adamant cars wouldn’t let an ambulance pass. But apart from that, I never used that mode ever during my ride and will never ever do so. 

The high beam is well spread and has a good height, even at distance, which makes it easy to spot road undulations, upcoming median gaps, and other obstructions. These also illuminate the road signs pretty well so that you don’t need to slow down to read them from up close. But their power is their drawback too. Just cannot keep them on while there are vehicles in front of you or oncoming – it’s not safe either. 

The low beam, as mentioned, is pretty much for foggy conditions, which meant I never really got to use them at full capacity. Though, as they are, they are quite useful on rough roads and highlight bumps and potholes for you to swerve and dodge. 

A combination of both lights is also a useful mode, should the conditions arise for such. 

What I Didn’t Like

While the switch in itself is quite well designed, the mounting brackets could have more thought put into them. There are three brackets to choose – a yoke mount bracket, a mirror mount bracket, and a bracket that sits between your handlebar grip and the switchgear. The latter would require you to remove your handlebar grip and then install – something I wanted to stay away from. But it will bring the switch closer to your thumb. The yoke mount bracket positions it right of the switchgear pushing the switch away, taking away the intuitiveness. The mirror mount bracket would put the switch atop the switchgear. I would have preferred if the yoke mount bracket was slightly more extended. However that’s something you can fix by getting a bracket fabricated from a local metal fabricator. 

The second thing that might be of concern to some is the controller box which is rather bulky. It needs to be either mounted firmly or kept under the seat, depending on your wiring. But there’s no mounting brackets for the same, should you need to mount it somewhere on the bike. 

However, these are small niggles that don’t really get in the utility that these lights offer. 

Where To Buy

You can order these lights directly from MotoVanguard’s website or you can check with your local dealers, who might also help you install them for an additional cost. But if you are mechanically inclined, it's as easy as using a construction blocks playset. 

Verdict

For Rs 10,999, the Future Eyes F150 aux lights do a great job, and come in a compact form factor. If you mount them smartly, they can hide in plain sight unless you turn them on. They are built well, have seemingly strong mounting brackets, and don’t look cheap like some of the other options in the market.