Best LED Lights For Motorcycles – Complete 2021 Buyer’s Guide

Whether you are a beginner or long-time motorcyclist, you might have had problems with the stock lighting system on your motorcycle being unreliable due to dimming, being of average beauty, or reduced visibility on the road. 

With the best LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights for motorcycles, you can enjoy all-around reliability, improved bike aesthetics, and enhanced visibility on the road. 

This article explores some of the best LED light solutions for motorcycles to enhance your overall biking experience. 

Comparison of the Best Motorcycle LED Lights

Characteristics of Our Favorite LED Lights For Motorcycles

As with any other product you buy, you must look out for several factors or characteristics to ensure you make the best choice as per your needs. 

The key characteristics of the LED lights we have chosen include color multiplicity, shock and waterproofing, multiple usages, and type of control system. Let's take a detailed look at these factors below. 

Color Multiplicity

The most important reason for using LED lights on your motorcycle is to enhance your safety on the road. However, they can be an excellent aesthetic addition to your bike. LED lights are beautiful when used the proper way. 

The use of different colors helps add beauty to your motorcycle.

Depending on the brand, solid, dimmable, or flashing color systems can be used. The most common colors include red, green, yellow, brown, and white. 

The dimming, static, and flashing modes add to the bike's aesthetics and help you control the brightness of the lights so that they cannot blind you or other motorists. 

You can even get a LED lights system with varying lighting effects that allow you to merge your music setup with beat-dancing lights to make your bike stand out all the time. 

Besides using LED lights for decorative purposes, you can use them for safety. White light is suitable as a license plate light and for general riding, while the yellow light is suitable as a fog light. Red lighting is good for braking solutions to ensure other motorists can easily see your bike's moves. 

Shock, Rust, and Waterproofing

Since LED lights are electrical components, there is every reason to ensure they stay fully operational by ensuring they remain resistant to shocks, rusting and water damage.

Waterproofing is important as it ensures that strip LED systems do not fall off the bike. It also helps prevent water damage through a mishap like short-circuiting due to water cleaning or bike usage on foggy or rainy days. 

The battery is a crucial component of the entire lighting system and has to be waterproof to prevent short-circuiting and consequential damage to the LED lights. 

Making the entire LED lights setup shockproof is important as well. 

Multiple Usage and Universality

You should check the nature of the usage plan of the LED kit. Motorcycle LED light kits may either come as flexible or fixed usage systems. 

LED strips are remarkable for their flexibility. You can use them best for decorative purposes since they rely on adhesive to stick on various bike parts. 

Some fixed LED light solutions for motorcycles include tail lights, brake lights, and headlamps. 

The fitment of the LED kit could be universal, which means that you can fix the system on different motorcycles. Such compatibility is excellent because you get real value for your money. You can easily change a kit from one bike to another if you own several of them.

The flexibility of strip LED lights makes them highly universal. You can stick them onto any kind of motorcycle as much as its shape allows. If a bike has fewer curves, the easier it is to fix the strips.

You can also consider multiple usages of an LED lights kit in terms of other motor vehicles you can use them on. Other than motorcycles, some kits are usable on SUVs, buses, boats, trucks, ATVs, golf carts, scooters, UTVs, and snowmobiles. 

Type of Control System

One other major characteristic of a LED lights kit is the type of control system it uses. 

Manual control kits are rare and are usually standalone elements such as headlamps, taillights, license plate lights, and brake lights. Such standalone parts usually require no color or brightness manipulations. 

Most LED kits use either infrared (IR) or radiofrequency (RF) remote control. Some use both. The motorcyclist uses a remote to perform tasks such as controlling the music mode and changing the light mode between bright, dim, flashing, or solid color schemes. 

It's also possible to get LED light kits using smart control systems like smartphone apps with Bluetooth connectivity. Some kits even use apps, IR, and RF control systems all in one or simultaneously to reduce instances of connectivity and operational failures. 

Review of the Best Motorcycle LED Lights

This section reviews our top best motorcycle LED light picks for your consideration. Depending on where you want to put the light and the purpose it will serve, you will find a variety of lights for different purposes to fulfill your custom lighting needs. 

Why Choose LED Lights?

There are many reasons you should choose LED lights for your motorcycle. Curious enough? Let's see what some of these reasons are. 

Improved Safety

LED lights on a motorcycle are an excellent addition for enhancing your overall safety on the road due to the improved bike visibility. A motorcycle with LED lights on the frame or body can be easily spotted by other motorists, who can give way whenever necessary.

Crucial LED light bike components like the taillight, license plate light, and brake light come in handy for alerting other motorists of your movements or intentions on the road. They will thus consciously recognize and accommodate you riding alongside them.

A LED fog light comes in handy for ensuring fellow motorists can still see you even in the deep of the blinding fog despite the reduced visibility. 

A LED headlight lamp enhances your view of the road ahead due to its superior brightness so you see the road ahead in advance rather than abruptly, which helps you avoid mishaps and accidents that could easily ruin your bike or end your life. 

Enhanced Aesthetics and Customizability

If you are a Do-it-yourself enthusiast who likes customizing items to add a personal touch, enhance the performance, or boost the aesthetics of an item, LED lights are a good bet for you. 

The best LED kits allow you to add that crucial personal feel to your motorcycle to make it different and unique from others. LED strip lights are particularly a good option here as they are easy to install on your bike in different locations of your choosing. 

LED lights make your bike beautiful when done the right way and in the right amount. Too many of them will be counter-effective. To use them for decorative purposes, you can select the best colors and color modes in line with your tastes. 

Top Brands in the LED Light Space

For most buyers, brands are a crucial aspect to consider when purchasing an item. You might want to learn of the most famous brands in the LED lighting sector so you can make a better decision. Here are some of the top brands in the LED light space. 

Ambother

Ambother makes high-quality, universal LED light kits for motorcycles, SUVs, ATVs, and trucks. 

The company's key win is that it makes kits with advanced smart control systems using smartphone apps. There are also remote control options with infrared or radio frequency functionality. 

Installing Ambother LED kits is easy since the strips have pre-installed adhesive. The kits come in varying sizes and numbers of pieces, usually 8 or 12. To ensure the durability of the kits, the company ensures they are waterproof and have a lifespan of over 30,000 operational hours. 

Suparee

As a high-technology optoelectronic company, Suparee makes high-quality LED lights for motorcycles. The company has its factory and office in China, with warehouses in Japan and the USA. 

The company's main products include LED conversion kits, rear-use bulbs, sealed beam lights, and driving lights. Some of the products have earned ROHS, EMC, SAE, and EMARK certification. 

For further customizability, you can request the company to engrave your logo on products like LED headlights. 

The company offers professional after-sales services and 12 months warranty against the manufacturer's defects, which Suparee says stand at an all-time low of 0%. 

Price Points of LED Lights

This article will be incomplete if we do not mention how much you should expect to pay for a good LED light kit. 

Take extra care when using pricing as a consideration when buying such lights. Even when you are on a tight budget, do not compromise on quality. 

LED lights usually come in the price ranges discussed below.

$5 - $50

This low price point should not dupe you into thinking that the LED lights are of poor quality. No. Generally, LED lights are pretty cheap. 

With LED lights in this category, you will enjoy good qualities such as multiple colors, music activation, multiple control systems, universal fitment, and more. 

Some of the common brands here include Govee, Tachico, CZC Auto, Suparee, Partsam, and Keenso. 

$50 - $100

How Do LED Lights Compare to Other Motorcycle Lights?

LED lights are an excellent alternative to traditional motorcycle lights, but how do they stack up against the latter? Let's see. 

LED Light vs Halogen Light

Similarities

In a motorcycle, you can use both halogen and LED lamps with direct current (DC). The battery is the source of the current and connects directly to the headlight and other lights. 

Many bikes use the DC power system, meaning that you can directly replace a halogen light with a LED one. 

With an alternating current (AC) bike, you can still use LED lights, especially those that convert the AC to DC. If you buy a LED light that doesn't convert the power, you have to install a device to convert AC power to DC supply before it reaches the LED light. 

Differences

LED lights are way more superior compared to their halogen counterparts. They last about ten times longer and consume about 85% less electrical power. They are also brighter and can be controlled in different ways to change colors or color modes. 

To change the color or color mode in halogen lights, which is not common, you have to use colored objects placed against the light. LED lights have apps or remote control systems for changing colors and modes. 

Halogen lights emit high heat amounts, which can cause burns when touched. LED lights emit only about 10% of their energy in heat form and are thus safer to handle. 

While halogen lights last only 800 to 1,200 operational hours, LED lights last over 50,000 operating hours. Brightness levels are generally higher in LED lights, depending on the color and intended use of the light. 

LED Light vs HID

Similarities

Both LEDs and HIDs shine very brightly when used in headlights and are usually mistaken as hi-beams. They are usually too bright for other motorists and may lead to accidents if you do not control their brightness. 

In some places, LEDs and aftermarket HIDs are prohibited because of the excess glare. 

Differences

High-intensity discharge (HID) lights contain an inert gas in a glass casing. LED lights are a solid-state technology. As such, LEDs last about 10-25% longer than the HIDs or over 50,000 hours compared to the 10,000 to 25,000 of the HIDs. 

Color solutions are easier with LEDs than with HIDs. The former can produce a range of visible colors rather than the dependency on the material used to affect color temperatures in HID lights. 

HID lights are omnidirectional and emit light at 360 degrees. On the other hand, LEDs are directional and emit light for 180 degrees by default. 

HID lights require warm-up and cool-down periods to function well. LED lights are more automatic and have faster switching modes with no warm-up or cool-down times needed. 

LED Lights on Motorcycle Laws

LED lights on motorcycles are allowed in most states. The main restrictions, where there are any, are based on the color and location of the LEDs on the bike. 

Many states require that the kits be concealed and should not include colors red or blue because law enforcement agencies like the police usually use these two. 

For example, the Alaska state legislature prohibits you from having a red light visible from the front, and you can't have a rotating or flashing light.

According to California neon underglow lights, you can't have a red color displayed at the front. Such light has to be predominantly yellow to white. Lights on the rear have to be predominantly red. 

Since laws on the use of LEDs on motorcycles vary from state to state, it is important to first check your state's specifications before installing lights on your bike. 

Are LED Lights On Motorcycle Legal?

LED lights on motorcycles are legal in most states. However, their legality remains valid as long as you keep them concealed, unlit on roads, and do not flash or include blue or red colors. 

Who Should Not Buy LED Lights?

Since LED lights are showy because of their high brightness, multiple colors, or flashing modes, they are not for you if you are a reserved person who enjoys inconspicuousness. If you like to keep things subtle, you should keep off LED lights on motorcycles. 

Finding the best LED light kit for your motorcycle isn't the hard part. Staying in line with the regulations and laws governing the use of LEDs on motorcycles is the real task. 

You want to enjoy the three worlds of beauty, lawfulness, and safety. As such, you must ensure your choice of LED light kit is lawful, safe for you and other motorists, as well as beautiful enough to satisfy your desire for extra customizations and aesthetics.