Handheld flashlights have come a long way over the past few years. LEDs have become brighter, more affordable, and more efficient. Reflector housings have been largely phased out in favor of beam-focusing optics, some of which slide to adjust the beam's spread. Certain flashlights even adjust brightness automatically depending on ambient light conditions. At the same time, one could argue that factory automotive lighting has lagged behind.

The Rigid ADAPT light bar represents a paradigm shift for aftermarket vehicle lighting.

Many cars and trucks on the road today still use halogen headlights, a technology developed in the 1960s — we go into more detail on this topic in the article “Light Up the Night” in Issue 14 of our magazine. Some expensive luxury vehicles do offer adaptive LED headlights, but they're still few and far between. Fortunately, aftermarket lighting manufacturers like Rigid Industries offer LED light bars to upgrade your bug-out rig's light output.

At the SEMA Show in Las Vegas last week, Rigid Industries announced a new type of LED light bar that could be a real game-changer. It's called the Rigid Industries ADAPT, and it's said to be “the world's first off-road lighting product that adjusts instantly to driving conditions.”

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So, how does the ADAPT LED light bar work? In a press release, the company states that it “relies on a patented configuration of advanced LEDs and optics, modulates the intensity of the LEDs to create 8 selectable beam patterns, then senses vehicle speed to determine beam pattern selection.” The light bar does all this with no moving parts, and can be controlled from the included backlit Dash Controller (see above image).

Once the Rigid Industries ADAPT bar has been installed, the user can toggle between 8 modes without leaving the driver's seat. An RGB-W accent lighting feature adds a soft glow in any selectable color, and could be used as a customizable daytime running light. There are two programmable presets for quickly changing between settings, or the user can leave the light in adaptive mode to adjust settings automatically.

The new ADAPT light bar is not available yet, but the company says it will go on sale in spring 2017. For more information, check out RigidIndustries.com/adapt or watch the teaser video below:

Written by Patrick McCarthy