Accessory lighting on your side-by-side is a great thing to have, as the stock lights are normally...trash. I know, I know, I'm gonna catch some flak from my friends at all the major manufacturers, but it's true and they know it, too. It's why each of the big makes also has a catalog full of accessory lights that you can buy directly from the factory.
But even those aftermarket, or dealer-option, accessory lights have their limitations. And one big one is a limitation that's slowly going away in the automotive space, as well: on-the-fly adjustability.
See, the last few cars I've purchased, along with those I've tested, have all had adaptive headlights. However they work internally, all of them somehow change the angle of the headlight's beam to adapt to your steering inputs, which just makes the whole process of driving at night and on winding roads that much better and safer. And while that's not exactly what Baja Designs' Reflex Light Actuators do, you can see where the industry is heading, while still making the act of off-roading your side-by-side at night that much safer.
Get ready to point start pointing your accessory lights up and down.
The basic idea behind the Reflex Light Actuator is to take a single light pod, i.e. something like a ditch light or bigger, and be able to tilt the accessory light up and down to better illuminate the road ahead or the road right in front of you. This may sound odd given most folks think the projection of these lights are more than enough for most, but when you're thrashing the desert at high speed or climbing gnarly rocks, having the ability to change the angle of the light to better see what's immediately in front of your wheels or way out ahead means a ton.
"Born from racing in Baja," states the company, "the Reflex brings professional race-level engineering to a consumer-ready solution. Engineered exclusively for our lights, the Reflex delivers instant, on-the-fly control of light pitch angle. Drivers can adjust their light up to 20 degrees depending on light type, ensuring perfect light coverage for every terrain change, climb, descent, or high-speed section."
The Reflex Light Accuator will be compatible with Baja Designs' LP Series, XL Series, S8, and OnX6+ light bars, and "mounts directly to existing Baja Designs universal brackets," as well as some universal brackets. That said, while the wiring harness for the mechanism is sold separately, the actual actuators aren't all that expensive, as the lowest starts at $99.95 with the lowest harness coming in at $69.95. Not terrible for 20 degrees of actuation if you ask me.
And what I see from this Baja Designs' part is the industry moving more toward those adaptive lights, though with far more control than you're average Audi. I'm, personally, pretty stoked with how these work in concept, and could easily see how I could've used them earlier this year for some late-night side-by-side work. But what do you all think? This something you're going to adopt?
