Gear Review: Halo Belt

I was contacted by a company called Halo Belt to try out a product that contained neon colored, bright LED’s. The purpose of the belt was to maintain visibility while engaging in night time activity on the street. Since I live on a pretty dark road with no street lights, I thought this would be a great product to test in the evening hours after the sun goes down.

I requested two belts so that I could cross them on my chest, over my shoulders to create almost an LED x-vest. They arrived and were packaged nicely. I received a red one and a neon yellow one. Right away, I noticed they were rechargeable and used a detachable USB port which makes them pretty universal.

I tried to cross them over my shoulders to create an “X” on my chest and back as mentioned above but found the belts weren’t long enough to cross down to my waste. Unfortunately, by crossing them over my shoulders, I found they dug into my armpit too much for comfort, especially since I was going running. I think if you were short and petite, these belts would probably cross over the way I had expected. This was no big deal however, and I decided to just wear one as a belt. Another thing I noticed was that the LED coverage was only long enough to cross your front or back region while used as a belt. When running, you want visibility in both directions so I saw this as a negative. To be fair, the portion of the belt that doesn’t have LEDs does have a reflector screening on it.

 

Functionally, the belts were bright. They had two settings, one which was constant illumination and one where the illumination turned off and on causing a blinking affect. I used this setting as I figured it would be more effective for drivers to notice. The belt was light in weight and at its loosest setting, it fit around my waste. I can imagine this belt would be tight if you have a larger midsection.

The unit worked well for what it’s intended to do. I wore it so the LED’s were facing to the rear of me and I didn’t get hit, so I assume the belt helped create awareness to passing motorists. I was hoping the unit would be more versatile, having a longer reach and a longer LED section so that it could be worn in a different way than a belt, comfortably. Because it was missing this versatility, other products need to compliment the function to make sure you’re visible from all directions. But, all in all, it’s a good product and does the job! 

Note: Halo Belt sent me samples for an unbiased review. All views in this post are the unbiased opinion of myself. 

Gear Review: Halo Belt