XTM 4 Inch LED Light Bar Pair Review

What’s in the box

In the box are two lights, two brackets and a bag of stainless bolts, nuts and washers with an Allen key. Each light has six 5W OSRAM LEDs and puts out 2,200 lumens, so the pair gives you 4,400 lumens of 6,000K white light in a spot beam. The housing is aluminium alloy, the lights are rated IP68 against water and dust, and each one comes with a plug on a 30 cm lead plus a 15 cm extension with bare wires to connect to your own cabling. The wiring harness and switch are sold separately.

Quick Specs

Mounting them

The brackets that come with these lights are pretty solid. On our Kings Grand Tourer Lite they fitted onto the channel along the side of the rooftop tent with the included bolts, so there was no drilling and nothing extra to buy. The order matters: fix the brackets first, then mount the lamps onto them.

Each lamp then attaches to its bracket with two small bolts through the slots in the bracket, and those same bolts set the angle. You can set the lamp anywhere from completely horizontal to slightly angled down, then tighten the bolts to hold it there. It’s a simple setup, but it gives you enough adjustment to aim the beam where you want it.

Wiring them in

These lights don’t plug into a cigarette lighter socket or run off a battery of their own: they need to be 12V wired into your system before they work. Each light has a plug on a 30 cm lead, and the 15 cm extension that clicks into it ends in bare red and black wires for your own cable. The wiring harness is sold separately, so budget for a harness or a switch and some cable on top of the $30.

The current is easy to plan for: 2.1 amps per light at 12V, so about 4.2 amps for the pair. They also run on 24V, at 1.1 amps per light.

Light output

They throw a good amount of light. Each light has six OSRAM LEDs behind a spot lens, and the 6,000K white is a crisp, bright white rather than a warm camp glow. XTM gives the pair 1 lux at 389 metres, and the spot beam is made for reaching out, not for spreading light around camp.

What you can’t do is dim them. They’re simply on or off, at full brightness every time. For a softer light at camp you want something dimmable, or a warmer colour, next to them.

Size: a bit bulky

For a 4 inch light the XTM is a chunky little unit: 10 cm wide, 9 cm tall and 6.6 cm deep, and our kitchen scale put one light with its lead at 376 g. It fits in your hand, but the deep finned body sticks out further than a slim light bar does.

Next to the Stedi Micro Touch

Next to our Stedi Micro Touch Flood Light on the same tent, the XTM is clearly the bulkier of the two. The Stedi is only 2.6 cm tall and dims in white and amber, so it’s the better camp light at the back of the car. The XTM costs much less and throws its light a lot further: it’s a 30 W spot light, where the Stedi is a 12 W wide flood made for lighting up camp.

Conclusion: XTM 4 Inch LED Light Bar Pair

The XTM 4 inch LED light bar pair is a good simple light and a good cheap option. Each light puts out 2,200 lumens in a 6,000K spot beam, the brackets are pretty solid and bolted onto the channel of our Kings rooftop tent with the included bolts, and two small bolts let you set the angle from horizontal to slightly down. They’re a bit bulky next to a slim light bar, you can’t dim them and you need to wire them into your 12V system with a harness you buy separately. At $30 a pair for BCF club members, they suit 4WD tourers and DIY installers who want bright lights for very little money.