C's Bimmer

Umnitza - If it makes you feel any better, I'm a bit outraged by the claim that V2.0 was 2x brighter than V1.0, when I saw that it wasn't with my very own eyes at a meet. I have no plans to upgrade to V3.0 until we see proof.

That said, you know what would settle this once and for all???

A single picture of a side by side comparison of all the versions of both vendors on a number of cars.

The key for me and probably for most owners is:

1. Brightness
2. Ease of install

PS - That picture would have to have all the cars in one shot (not 2 different shots, since the lighting could vary for each photo), which means one of you guys are going to have to buy or get a hold of your competitor's products.

vegastrashed

Umnizta,
I've been giving you a hard time on the 6er forum at bimmerfest as of late, but I'm just telling you what I have seen in person. We had AIB v1, AIB v2, and Predator ICE all line up at a recent Meet and clearly both AIBs were brighter. So, for you to say that ICE is brighter than AIB v1 or v2 is INCORRECT. Maybe your upcoming release of ICE is brighter, but that is yet to be proven by the paying customer. We'll have to find out when one of us Bay Area e60 owners buys your product and we do another line up at our Cajun Crab House Meets in San Jose.

Now, I'm not a fan of AIBs at all. I can't believe I paid over $320 for v1 with the radio interference. I, along with another member, were the first to bring the radio interference to light. Angelibright offered the v1 owners a discount of $99 for the v2 promising 2x brighter and no radio interference. Initially, I was going to go for this but decided to hold out. When I saw for my own eyes that v2 was NOT brighter than v1, well that pissed me off. So, here I am disillusioned about any vendor offering aftermarket angel eyes.

umnitza

That's just it guys. I'm with you on facts.

Maybe it wasn't perfectly aligned, maybe it was a bad unit, maybe maybe. Heck, maybe the ICE isn't optimized for the E60's type of angel eyes versus the E39, E63, etc.

All I can tell you is that I'm open to ANYONE coming here to see it for themselves. I've got nothing to hide, literally nothing.

What I do know is that INTRINSICALLY the quality of Predator ICE is using a 3X brighter bulb in the V1 and a 5X brighter bulb in the V2 than the comparable and respective claimed outputs of our competitor.

Also, consider that the V1 owner probably paid $149 or less (many got in at the lower prices) and then the issue of "meh, it's maybe a little brighter" becomes completely moot, I mean for negligible differences, I'm not willing to pay $150 more, are you?

In 2 weeks, leaving for my 11 year anniversary this weekend with the wifey, when I am able to setup my car with the V2 in comparison with ANYONE's car, I'll be able to have the customer's photos posted, not mine, but the customers. I'll even lend the usage of my camera.

In the end, I'll tell you EVEN IF they are just as bright as the V2, they are still $100 less and don't have the issues (that's assuming we really missed it on the V2 claim of brighter, which I know we did not).

Cmansbimmer's last comment is bang on. I'll do it. Come to our shop for the weekend install fest in 2 weekends and let's just DO IT.

vegastrashed

Now, that is the right attitude I want to see from a vendor. The confidence to show that their product is what they claim. Talk the talk, now walk the walk and Umnitza is ready to walk.

alpinewhite

hm... im interested. my ICE V! has been acting up as of lately, maybe cuz the wires are loose. Maybe when summer school is done, ill drive to your shop and see.

info@trinityautosport

just went to a local meet last night and one of the guys with an e36 had angel eyes from umnitza. very nice and very bright and got me interested in getting aftermarket angel eyes. the thing is, i want something nice and bright, but i want to be able to tell the difference between the angel eyes and the actual headlights.

Owen530i

CustomAngelEyes/Umnitza:

Not to play devil's advocate, but could you measure the light intensity emitted by the angel eyes themselves outside the car?

I have replaced the Predator Ice V1 with a LED & driver with a Luxeon 5.8W (130 lm) LED and a 1,000 mA driver. All that changed is the color and there is no appreciable difference in brightness, especially in daylight. This leads to me to believe that increasing the brightness of the LED is not linearly proportional to the increasing the brightness of the angel eyes. Hence, advertising that a new product (LED) is "2x/3x/5x+ brighter" may be true, but is misleading. A multiple of the brightness compared to V1, measured from the outside of the headlights when the angel eyes are on, may provide a more relevant figure.

I do not believe (although I would like to be proved wrong) that simply increasing brightness of the LED would make the angel eyes have any sort of appreciable difference (as compared to the E36/E46 angel eyes), especially in daylight, due to the way the E60 headlights are designed.

For now I'll stick with the AngelIBright and Predator ICE V1's.

Thanks for reading,
Owen530i

rjcastr

Im in socal and i have v3 im willing to do what everyone is saying a side to side comparison of predator ice with V3 AIB, if Predator ice is brighter, ill be the first to say , "hey, their product is better and brighter"

rj

I was all for the predator Ice when it came out due to pricing over AIB but i did see pics of all 3 in a lineup and AIB were brighter and thats just the fact.

Clean slate lets do a comparison now!

rj

coolguy

Yikes, all of us sudden, lot of heat in topic ..

vegastrashed

I'm looking forward to seeing a consumer side-by-side comparison between AIB v3 and ICE v2.