If you’re going to drive at night on country or outback roads your vehicle’s headlights will need all the help they can get. These Australian designed and made Lightforce Genesis LED driving lights are bright enough to turn night into day.
The Details
What: Lightforce Genesis
Price: $699 (each); $115 (harness); $33.20-$37 (filters); $49 (anti-theft lock set); $19.50 (top stay bracket)
Where: lightforce.com
The Lightforce Genesis is a 210mm LED driving light that’s claimed to punch out an astonishing 1 LUX of light at 1053m. Let me assure you, that’s bright! I’ve been running a pair of Genesis lights for a couple of years now and they are certainly some of the brightest driving lights I’ve ever tested.
Each Aussie-designed and made 140W Lightforce Genesis LED driving light has 37 Lumilelds LEDs in a tough cast-aluminium housing with a UV-stable powder coat finish. The housing has an IP69K rating, so it offers outstanding protection against high-pressure water and dust ingress.
As well as throwing plenty of light down the centre of the road, the Genesis also offers a good spread of light, and they emit a colour temperature of 5000K, which is a comfortable white without getting too far into the blue zone, and the response time when turning on the lights is almost instantaneous.
The Genesis also features a daytime running lights (DRL) mode to improve vehicle visibility when driving in traffic. There’s also an optional combination filter that improves light spread to a width of 120m, but with ample spread from the standard polycarbonate covers, I haven’t felt the need to go down this path.
Each Genesis weighs in at 2.4kg, so they need to be mounted on a solid base, such as the top surface of a bull bar. A sturdy and easily adjustable mounting bracket ensures the lights don’t vibrate or move out of alignment while driving, and for extreme driving conditions Lightforce offers optional top stay brackets.
Despite an overall height of 232mm and width of 214mm, the Genesis is not very deep at 73mm, making it easy to fit to a wide range of vehicles. Each light is supplied with a M10 35mm stainless steel hex bolt and a nyloc nut for secure fitment, and an anti-theft security lock set is available as an optional extra.
Another option is Lightforce’s DIY driving light harness, which means you can easily fit the lights at home. There are several options when it comes to wiring but on my Defender the easiest was to utilise the H4 harness adaptor, plugging straight into the back of the driver’s side headlight. I then just had to find somewhere to mount the relay and fuse, run the wiring to an ignition source and the battery box under the passenger seat, and route the switch wiring into the cabin through the bulkhead.
The Lightforce Genesis has thermal overload protection, is CISPR25 compliant (reducing radio frequency interference) and is supplied with a replaceable impact resistant polycarbonate filter. It’s covered by a three-year warranty and Lightforce offers a wide range of replaceable filters and other optional extras.
