I wrote about the VOLT1600 the other day（→here）
but I need to make a correction regarding the mode switching via the button.
I noticed the error during a night ride.
From my previous article.
I had written that double-clicking switches to high,
but that diagram was wrong.
However, it is true that it becomes "high brightness."
If it's already in high mode, two short presses would switch to low,
but if you switch from low to high via double-click,
then two short presses from there would enter HyperConstant mode.
I realized this during my night ride and figured out what was happening.
Let me redraw the diagram.
First, a long press from the off state turns on the light,
and the mode that activates is "the mode that was on before it turned off."
Then, each short press while the light is on cycles through modes, and this cycles continuously.
Double-clicking from either the off or on state makes it high brightness,
but this is not the high in the cycling mode
It becomes a separate mode called "Double-Click High" which has the same brightness as high, but is distinct from the normal cycling modes. That was the error in my previous diagram.
And if you short-press from "Double-Click High,"
it returns to the mode that was active before entering "Double-Click High."
Confusingly, even if you double-click from normal high,
the brightness doesn't change, but the mode still switches to "Double-Click High."
So in the diagram, to go from "Double-Click High" to middle requires
two short presses, and that's exactly what happens in practice.
The first short press just returns it to normal high.
A long press from "Double-Click High" turns it off,
but when it turns back on, "Double-Click High" is excluded from
the memory of "the mode that was on before turning off."
For example, if you operate it as: HyperConstant → "Double-Click High" → off → back on,
the light will turn on in HyperConstant mode.
Double-clicking while in "Double-Click High" doesn't change the mode.
It doesn't switch to normal high either.
This isn't because the mode doesn't change, but internally it probably
processes it as "switching from 'Double-Click High' to 'Double-Click High'."
When you double-click, whether the light is off, in normal high, or
in "Double-Click High" itself,
in any case it switches to "Double-Click High."
In my case, I only need to use low and high brightness,
so I was switching from low to "Double-Click High,"
but I was confusing it with normal high,
so I accidentally short-pressed twice from "Double-Click High"
and switched to HyperConstant mode.
When the light turns on via long press from off in one of the normal modes,
it lights up in the memorized mode from before turning off.
CatEye calls this the Mode Memory function.
Actually, the short press from "Double-Click High" also uses mode memory,
so if I redraw it that way
it ends up like this.
To reiterate what I wrote earlier,
"Double-Click High" is excluded from the mode memory targets.
The state shown in this diagram matches
↑the CatEye instruction manual,
where indeed high and "Double-Click High" are shown as separate things.
（The ★2 marks the mode memory function）
My usage of the VOLT1600 is
just high brightness (either normal or double-click, both work)
and low, which covers almost everything I need.
If I make a diagram using just those two modes with the fewest button operations possible,
↑it looks like this.
What I need to be careful about is
to avoid short-pressing when in low mode to keep mode memory on low.
I've realized an annoying issue: because high and "Double-Click High" are separate modes,
if you ever want to switch from low to middle,
you have to go through the blinking modes.
With the VOLT1200, the double-click switching target was blinking, and
since blinking wasn't in the normal cycling modes,
"blinking was sealed unless you double-click,"
but with the VOLT1600, the double-click target is also high brightness, so
"there are two highs," making it seem like a complicated spec.
Finally, a separate note from mode switching.
Regarding HyperConstant mode,
I had two customers at the shop who actually use it.
The first one commutes home at night where there are street lights,
so the brightness doesn't need to be high, but they use HyperConstant mode for
"announcing the bike's presence" rather than to illuminate the road.
The second is someone who does brevets all the time, and unrelated to brevets,
they use HyperConstant in dark residential areas when passing through poor-visibility intersections
because it seems to help prevent collisions and head-on accidents.
I tried HyperConstant myself going down the Hannan Expressway at night, and
while the road is harder to see, it's not unusable.
However, blinking is impossible. The flash brightness is too strong and actually dangerous.
A dim light's steady mode is actually easier to see.
but I need to make a correction regarding the mode switching via the button.
I noticed the error during a night ride.
From my previous article.
I had written that double-clicking switches to high,
but that diagram was wrong.
However, it is true that it becomes "high brightness."
If it's already in high mode, two short presses would switch to low,
but if you switch from low to high via double-click,
then two short presses from there would enter HyperConstant mode.
I realized this during my night ride and figured out what was happening.
Let me redraw the diagram.
First, a long press from the off state turns on the light,
and the mode that activates is "the mode that was on before it turned off."
Then, each short press while the light is on cycles through modes, and this cycles continuously.
Double-clicking from either the off or on state makes it high brightness,
but this is not the high in the cycling mode
It becomes a separate mode called "Double-Click High" which has the same brightness as high, but is distinct from the normal cycling modes. That was the error in my previous diagram.
And if you short-press from "Double-Click High,"
it returns to the mode that was active before entering "Double-Click High."
Confusingly, even if you double-click from normal high,
the brightness doesn't change, but the mode still switches to "Double-Click High."
So in the diagram, to go from "Double-Click High" to middle requires
two short presses, and that's exactly what happens in practice.
The first short press just returns it to normal high.
A long press from "Double-Click High" turns it off,
but when it turns back on, "Double-Click High" is excluded from
the memory of "the mode that was on before turning off."
For example, if you operate it as: HyperConstant → "Double-Click High" → off → back on,
the light will turn on in HyperConstant mode.
Double-clicking while in "Double-Click High" doesn't change the mode.
It doesn't switch to normal high either.
This isn't because the mode doesn't change, but internally it probably
processes it as "switching from 'Double-Click High' to 'Double-Click High'."
When you double-click, whether the light is off, in normal high, or
in "Double-Click High" itself,
in any case it switches to "Double-Click High."
In my case, I only need to use low and high brightness,
so I was switching from low to "Double-Click High,"
but I was confusing it with normal high,
so I accidentally short-pressed twice from "Double-Click High"
and switched to HyperConstant mode.
When the light turns on via long press from off in one of the normal modes,
it lights up in the memorized mode from before turning off.
CatEye calls this the Mode Memory function.
Actually, the short press from "Double-Click High" also uses mode memory,
so if I redraw it that way
it ends up like this.
To reiterate what I wrote earlier,
"Double-Click High" is excluded from the mode memory targets.
The state shown in this diagram matches
↑the CatEye instruction manual,
where indeed high and "Double-Click High" are shown as separate things.
（The ★2 marks the mode memory function）
My usage of the VOLT1600 is
just high brightness (either normal or double-click, both work)
and low, which covers almost everything I need.
If I make a diagram using just those two modes with the fewest button operations possible,
↑it looks like this.
What I need to be careful about is
to avoid short-pressing when in low mode to keep mode memory on low.
I've realized an annoying issue: because high and "Double-Click High" are separate modes,
if you ever want to switch from low to middle,
you have to go through the blinking modes.
With the VOLT1200, the double-click switching target was blinking, and
since blinking wasn't in the normal cycling modes,
"blinking was sealed unless you double-click,"
but with the VOLT1600, the double-click target is also high brightness, so
"there are two highs," making it seem like a complicated spec.
Finally, a separate note from mode switching.
Regarding HyperConstant mode,
I had two customers at the shop who actually use it.
The first one commutes home at night where there are street lights,
so the brightness doesn't need to be high, but they use HyperConstant mode for
"announcing the bike's presence" rather than to illuminate the road.
The second is someone who does brevets all the time, and unrelated to brevets,
they use HyperConstant in dark residential areas when passing through poor-visibility intersections
because it seems to help prevent collisions and head-on accidents.
I tried HyperConstant myself going down the Hannan Expressway at night, and
while the road is harder to see, it's not unusable.
However, blinking is impossible. The flash brightness is too strong and actually dangerous.
A dim light's steady mode is actually easier to see.