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Is Osram Night Breaker Really Good?

The first thing I thought when one of the two headlights burnt out of my Honda Civic was that it could be interesting to try an Osram Night Breaker headlight bulb. Until this time I used an average Tungsram bulb (as far as I know currently it is owned by General Electric). After searching the light bulbs, I realized that its price is about twice as much as Tungsram's. The second thing I realized that its marketing promises 150% brightness, 150m distance visibility, +20% color light for shorter lifetime. I said let's give it a try and I bought a pair of Osram Night Breaker Laser.





Probably only a small part of the customers will notice the QR code on the side of the box. And an even smaller part looks at what it really is.



After I scanned the QR code and typed the product code, I got this notofication: 'The code on the safety label of your OSRAM packaging has been authenticated'. And it asks if the following data is displayed on the DOU BOX packaging of the halogen lamps:

• Lamp 1
• Product type: H4
• OSRAM order no.: 64193NL-HCB
• Product family: NIGHT BREAKER LASER

In the next part of the article I'm going to show a comparison of the brightness between the Tungsram and the Osram Night Breaker Laser bulbs. I user and Android app called Lux Light Meter Pro. I took the measurements in my garage, in full darkness. The only light source was the headlight of the car.

Distance	Tungsram (Lux)	Osram (Lux)	Difference (%)
Low beam 180 cm	7212	9268	+29
Low beam 360 cm	1443	1403	-3
Low beam 620 cm	224	287	+28
High beam 180 cm	3751	3452	-8
High beam 360 cm	2674	2315	-13
High beam 620 cm	987	1142	+16

As the result we can see that the Osram at low beam in most cases is better and at hight beam at long distance is also better than the Tungsram light bulb. The higher performance has cost and in this case it is the lifetime, which is, as it is shown on the box, probably shorter than the Tungsram's.

As a point of interest and additional information, the following brightness values may be worth considering when evaluating the above table:

• Parking light from 180 cm: 9 Lux
• Parking light from 360 cm: 2 Lux
• Parking light from 620 cm: 0 Lux
• Sunlight directly to the Sun at a sunny afternoon: 96913 Lux
• Sunlight reflected from concrete at a sunny afternoon: 2435 Lux

Take a look at how I changed the light bulbs in the car.