[H4] Osram Night Breaker 60/55w
Having installed and used the Night Breakers for about a week, it is safe to say that i have the necessary observation to make a review on this highly acclaimed halogen bulb which promises a few things that a standard halogen bulb doesn’t possessed.
- light beam throw up to 35 metres.
- up to 90% more light.
- 10% whiter light.
… but before we go on to evaluate, there’s a few “equations” that you guys need to hold in your head, it’s common sense actually but there are still people who don’t know this. It is regarding the relationship between headlights alignment and light output.
↑ height = ↑ light beam throw = ↓ light output
↓ height = ↓ light beam throw = ↑ light output
You can easily test this with a torch light in your hand. Pointing it high and you’ll have practically no light to shine the floor right in front of you whereas if you point it low then you can see that the floor right in front of you are well lit.
Let’s see now one by one if the claims made by Osram are true.
Light Beam Throw Up To 35 Metres.
To be honest, i don’t really know whether the Night Breakers does produce a longer light throw on streets because i don’t remember at all the performance of my standard halogen bulbs, the last time i was using those are about 3 years ago and after that i had some China brand “blue colored” bulb installed which gives awful light output, upgraded to a 4300k Hid kit and then Osram Cool Blue.
“Up to 35metres”, this has to be looked at in comparison to the standard halogen bulb and that would mean if the standard bulb throws a distance of 30metres then the Night Breaker will give up to 65metres in length, that would also mean if the Night Breakers only provide an increase of 1 metre in length, they still lived up to their promise. I don’t know because i didn’t measure and unless you are a damn lighting system mechanics or you owned one of the latest laser measurement device manufactured by Bosch, measuring the distance would a little bit stupid.
Taking into consideration the “equations” i put earlier, at this level, the light output is at its optimum. Any higher, the light output seems to be a little faded.
As you can see that the roadsign on the far left is being illuminated so you have got to admit that the light beam throw is very far.
Of course if you want, you can always turned on your foglamps and you might just get about the same light output as a decent Hid kit.
One great thing about Malaysian drivers is that, they turned on their foglamps be it that the street is covered with fogs or not. They just have it turned on because they think it is the cool thing to do and it’s very irritating for some cars because the foglamps are adjusted in an angle which is glaring to oncoming traffics and don’t even get me started with heroes who decided to have a 6000k Hid install there and drive only with their foglamps and not their headlights.
Up To +90% More Light
More light means higher intensity, higher intensity means better focus and better focus means a brighter “hot-spot”. It’s very easy to test this, the brighter will always outshine the less and if what Osram claimed is to be true, the Night Breaker will definitely casts itself onto the standard bulbs.
Ever since i have the Night Breakers installed, i will drive up next to any car which i am very sure that they are using standards and see if my beam outshines theirs and to my expectation, it did. I can see that my light output just casting themselves on the standard’s light output but i sincerely think that this has got to do with the +10% whiter light.
+10% Whiter Light
If you googled image for Osram Night Breaker, the search results would end up with something like this…
… ignore the brightness of the light but rather focus on the light temperature. My guess is that this is about around 5000k to 6000k. I am not saying that the person who took the shot is a fraud but because cameras have a auto white balancing ability and so usually lights are made to look whiter than they are in reality. This is how the Night Breaker actually looks like in reality.
Yes, be surprise as you may but the Night Breaker is indeed about 4300k in temperature and this makes absolutely good sense because higher in temperature would produce less light (The Concept of Lumens) unless you’re running on Hid but even so, 6000k is stupid. I tried to tweak the colors of the light output but i couldn’t get exact that i saw with my own eyes but this is the closest i can get. The +10% whiter output has very little effect. Try to imagine your standard halogen bulbs, very warm but with a very slight tint of white.
There’s something unique with the Night Breaker however, i don’t know whether did they do it on purpose or was is just a mere coincidence. I find it that when you have your high beams on, the light output is whiter compared to the low beams.
This is what i get when i have the high beams are on. Comparing to all the previous pictures that i had on low beams, this is indeed whiter and it reminds me of the Cool Blue i previously had and which also explains the immediate loss of brightness. Maybe it is because of the nature of the bulb.
Whole of the bulb is tinted with a thin blue layer except for the part where the light source is to be emitted, the low beam protected by the shield will allow light to only go out from the area where the bulb is not tinted whereas high beam ignores the shield and allows light to bounce off every corner within the bulb which means that lights are now not prevented from getting “filtered” by the tinting.
Whatever it is, i think that the Night Breaker is quite a buy since the Road Transport Ministry has issued a blanket ban making all retrofitted Hid kits illegal altogether irregardless whether they are properly aligned or not which i think is stupid because at the very least, allow cars with aftermarket Hid kits to go for a test to see if it is properly aligned or not.
