UKC

Dear  Headlamp Manufacturers,

I hope you are readers of UK Climbing, spending your time digging through the mountains of arguments about the ethics of bolting and university clubs using popular crags to pick up small morsels of information about your products.

I thought I could help you out. Please please stop making headlamps with complicated modes, which are accessed through holding down buttons in different orders and through different lengths of time. I know it's clever to put computer chips in every single product, but it is a total waste of time.

The last thing anyone wants to do, in the freezing cold, whilst trying to abseil off a route, swearing and cursing at their own ineptitude, is find that their headlamp is stuck in a mode which blinks happy birthday in morse code using a green LED and can only be returned to a useful state by holding down a series of unmarked buttons for a predetermined and totally forgotten length of time.  Perhaps American yotube reviewers think it's neat, but i don't find it useful.

Won't be buying a black diamond headlamp in a hurry again. No thanks.

Funnily enough, Dan Bailey raised that exact same point within the following thread: https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/gear/head_torches_bd_or_petzl-752561

"I do wish brands would keep torches genuinely simple. One big button, three output modes, no faff"

I recently got a new Petzl headlamp after my old one went through the washing machine more times that was good for it.  I used it for the first time the other day, turned it off and it still had a green light on (where the bulb is).... after trying for several minutes and flashing myself with the collapsed sun a few times I finally realised it was actually glow in the dark. 

I have a similar frustration with microwaves. I lose my patience with them when warm and relaxed in my kitchen. Although usually hungry which doesn't help.

I haven't bought a new headtorch in years because my two circa 2010 Petzl ones just won't die.

Have Petzl gone away from the excellent setup of that era? Click once for bright, again for dim, again for strobe. Single click after a few seconds turns it off (so you never have to scroll through modes to turn the torch off).

I guess these modern rechargeable batteries aren't backwards compatible? My torches take 3x AAA, but the space is shaped accordingly so a simple oblong of the relevant size wouldn't work.

My old (and my new) Petzl was like that. Press and hold to turn on to low, press for mid, press for high, press for strobe, press and hold to turn off.  There is a red setting too, if you are feeling fancy, I think you press to turn it on but keep pressing and it will go red - same options for red too. 

I don't want to start any trouble or anything, but do you have any views on head torches that need a phone app to manage functions?

Don't make me angry now.

Unnecessary use of technology, it's all bollocks.

KISS

Agreed, any microwave that doesn't have a single button that enables you to just make it go is a waste of space. Why some of them insist on a power setting, then a time and then start...grrr. That's adding precious seconds to the time it takes to feed me. 

It's worse than that, press the wrong button on mine and it takes me into a weird submenu that I can't get out of to get things started without unplugging it and plugging it back in. More grrrr.

Petal Nao+ - low/high/off and you can use a chunky glove!
However so simple you have to turn if off to go from high to low!
You can do all kind of things with a phone app apparently.

I don't have very much beef with head torches, but phones - why 20 years on is call quality, the principle reason for having a phone, still rubbish despite costing hundreds?

I have one which has 2 separate buttons. One gives progressively brighter flood beam and the other progressively brighter spot beam. I like the simplicity, it just works as it's meant to. A bazzillion complicated options are just not needed!

There is a new standard coming for headtorches, unfortunately I don't think that user interface commonality is included (was discussed in the last BMC tech committee meeting). 

If that isn't a joke: what kinds of things are covered by the standard?; and, which body is responsible for the standard?

I agree with the OP btw. I have a BD headtorch which I no longer use because I can't remember the various button-pressing sequences.

Some kind of standard for reporting battery life would be a start so that you could quickly compare weight, features and how long you can see for.

Check out LED Lenser headtorches. Simple operation as described by others, excellent quality, and not a rip-off like the ones made by "climbing" brands.

Get a zebralight.

Very much not a joke. Galpinos may be along shortly to explain what is in the standard. I think standardisation is around battery run time and how they measure light intensity/ beam width etc so you can compare products more fairly. I think he did feed back my suggestion to consider the Human machine interface.

The standard would be published by BSI in the UK, however it is being written by an industry working group with reps from Petzl and BD etc. 

Really? I've had one for a while and it's been driving me nuts with all its stupid flashing modes and spontaneous switching on. Totally baffling. It's now stopped charging. I intend to enjoy smashing it up in a violent frenzy and I'll then get something reliable and simple (if such a thing still exists).

Frankly, the most consistent use (ie daily in winter) that my headtorches get is taking the dogs for a walk and picking up their 'leave-behinds'.  Most of them (the torches) die young - the field is littered with the dead of Silva particularly.  I've recently given up and dug an old Mini-maglite out of the car pocket where it has rattled around for decades.  It got a new LED bulb about 10 years ago and must be 25 years old now.  Twist it, and it switches on.  Twist it back and it goes off.  Put some new batteries in it once in a while.  Oh, for a time when things were so simple.  If I want hands free, I just stick it in my armpit.  A few years ago, I even took an Exposure bike light on an ice trip, mounted with a maglite headband, because I was so pissed off with headlamps.  Current petzl is ok though...

or worse, having just needed a little bit of light, to turn the thing off you have to cycle through 'nightsun mode' first.  If you don't shut your eyes, bang goes your night vision, and as for your poor companion, well he's walking into or off everything for the next 20 minutes, when it's usually time for a little more light and rinse and repeat....

I've learnt now - look up at the sky before touching a switch, but if it's snowing or foggy you're still going to be blinded.

Agreed - why it can't go back and forth is beyond me.

I was taking a newbie caving last year and she tried to adjust the light beam.........on a hanging re-belay.  Five minutes later she had to pass the rigging on a flashing red because she couldn't work out how to get the main beam back on.

She was new to caving but not to head torches.

For mountaineering any torch that you can't operate wearing gloves is a total no-no.

Thanks the Lord that we are finally beyond the point where on every headtorch thread some greybeard Luddite goes on about how amazing petzl zooms are. 

Does anyone ever actually use the flashing settings? Mine would be so much easier with just high, low and red.

We'll - the control mechanism on those things was pretty damn good.

They were sufficient, fitted easily on helmet with elastic straps, no fancy mounts needed. Easy to unclip one wire to avoid draining the battery in your bag. 

I couldn't agree more! It's been a gripe of mine for years.

I asked for a new headtorch for Christmas about 10 years ago and 'Santa' brought me a  Petzl Reactik. It's been a superb bright, reliable light, but the switching and all the different modes have driven me nuts.

A head torch is a lot of components like the torch bit (reflector, lens, strap, battery box, switch, wires etc) - plus a battery - plus the LED/LEDs (i.e. the emitters) and crucially... some driver components. While the quality of the battery, LED and all the rest of the torch stuff is more apparent, the quality of the driver circuitry isn't as easy to see. It actually does a hard job. Batteries have a nominal voltage, but when fully charged (new if non rechargeable) their voltage is noticeably higher than when running low. Unlike the incandescent bulb of say a Zoom an emitter needs to be maintained more carefully and different currents are needed for different settings, for simplicity... let's consider the driver as a device that reduces the voltage to a (roughly) set value despite a varying higher voltage input. You could just use a resistor to reduce voltage but to have a decent battery life (high efficiency) you don't want to waste all that energy heating your resistor. Another way to reduce voltage is to rapidly switch the power on/off and have a capacitor which charges and voltage rises and when at a target voltage is reached the switch is off until it falls to a target then back on again, very rapidly switching. You may get have noticed some cheap high power torches quietly whistle or certain torches and cameras can "fight" so what's filmed is a bit strobey. Anyway the electronics is complicated and I have no expertise, but know just enough to greatly respect people who really understand the design of this, particularly high power very high efficiency ones. There are certain drivers commonly available and the choices are overwhelming made in china. People like petzl typically won't develop their own custom drivers due to cost and buy commercially available ones. It's possible for a cottage producer of high quality lamps to do things like remove unnecessary diodes (which can drop half a volt across them) or short out some stupid flash settings but for a bulk manufacturer they will use the driver as shipped. For whatever reason the Chinese manufacturers seem to think everyone loves a million settings to cycle through and a wide choice of flashing modes. In my case they are very wrong on that assumption.

So petzl are economising by buying cheap standard drivers with stupid flashes, in a growing number of their torches. They still make some very good torches but that is a shrinking proportion of their range and some like tactikka + are now flimsy cheaply made rubbish. The day when they were the market leader and head and shoulders above others is a distant memory back in the Zoom/Duo etc days, which is a sad thing.

If you don't like it, vote with your feet and buy a torch that is more robust and simpler from someone else.

That's not always true!  I think I might use my phone for a voice call maybe once a month max, while the other functions get used daily!  It's a pocket sized computer that just happens to do voice calls

Network innit - the phone itself works beautifully in a controlled environment. Stick it in the wild and you get what ever call quality is available at that point in time.

It is now - but I'd hate to think that back in the day when I was doing network quality surveys that all the hours being driven around making automated calls, looking at a laptop and trying desperately to ignore the constant motion sickness were a waste of time.

Now let me tell you about the 'vomit comet' van that Motorola had running out of Swindon when we were doing nascent 4G testing in the early 2000's. That had to be hosed down on occasion things got so bad.

Yikes!

Bluetooth enabled torches.

WTAF? If you need a phone to make your torch work properly, then surely it's the wrong torch....

To be fair I have a Petzl Nao and I did once connect it to my phone, and have never needed to do so since, but I'm irked that someone thinks it's a good idea.

b

Get an SEO3. Bright, dim, flash, off. Long press gets you into red mode (continuous, flash). Longer press gets it turned off and won't come on unless you hold it down for an equally long time. Takes 3x AAAs, no charging faff. They're a good simple lamp, I've had mine long enough for the elastic to start to become perma-stretched.

Wait until you find out about "enthusiast" torches, which come with UIs like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/sk1upj/and%C3%BAril_2_ui_chart...

All good apart from this bit - I find charging less faff than replacing disposable cells. 

Do you replace them before they actually need replacing?  Do you carry spares and wait for your headlight to conk out?  Did you remember to buy some? etc..

I have an SEO7R (bought second hand off here), can fault it generally and I like that it's rechargeable, but it is a bit too complicated.  It goes bright, dim, user-definable dim, sensor, flash, off. (I think.)  There's no need for the two different 'dim' modes, one or other of them could go in the bin for starters.

I've never used the 'flash' but it's there for emergencies, so dunno.  I'd be inclined to keep it, I've never used my first aid kit or PLB either.

Simple? That sounds about as complicated as mine! And I do like the rechargeable option.

So is there a headtorch that just has bright, dim and off? No flashes. No red. Preferably rechargeable option.

My BD onsight got stuck on a low power flood mode a few weeks back while doing a night nav for my ML assessment 😵‍💫 absolute nightmare.

In the end I couldn't figure it out in situ, so I had to rely on the other members of my groups touches for anything more than illuminating my map!

I still reckon petzl are one of the biggest market leaders for lamps.

I like a simple lamp and despite sounding complicated, reactive lighting is a proper step forward towards simplicity in use and no other manufacturer has this as far as I know.

My petzl swift is the most complexly engineered headlamp I have ever owned but it is by far the simplest to use, one button to cycle through 3 levels of reactive lighting.   

going back to old school 3 mode lamps now seems painful, I have to press a button every time I want to see in the distance or pull a map out.

As a fan of rechargeable headlamps, can we please resign micro-USB to the museum and have headlamps with USB-C.

Ta.

Just looked up what reactive lighting means. Sounds properly annoying.

Zebralight as a headlamp looks quite unwieldy with a helmet. I would also be worried about losing the headlamp by it slipping out the headband.

For me Petzl reactive technology has been a huge innovation. 

I thought that, but although you can turn off the reactive element and just have 3 levels of brightness I leave it on pretty much all the time, it just works.

I know what you mean. that was the same response I had when it first came out. another daft gimmick to stick in an advert.

But it is genuinely a good idea. 

The system reacts to where I point it so seamlessly that I rarely perceive the brightness actually changing. Everything is just always lit up by the right amount.

I'd recommend giving one a proper go if you can. Get a decent nightime run or bouldering session in before writing it off. 

I thought 'Zebralight' was a dietary choice for overweight lions; similar to 'I can't believe it's not buffalo'.

The Fenix HM65R-T could do with a snappier name, but it's a brilliant torch. Two LEDs (narrow and wide beam), each with their own button which cycle through power levels. A bit heavy but has monstrous brightness available, and seemingly infinite battery life as far as I can tell so far.

https://www.myfenix.co.uk/product/fenix-hm65r-t-trail-1721

I've used a Nao and it was far from intuitive, often got switched on in my bag by accident, and the reactive power was a total pain.

Can you put a non-rechargeable battery in in too? If not, pretty useless - I can't imagine not carrying spare.

I have an LED Lenser H7r.2 that turns on at dim with one push or bright with a double push. Once it's on theres an adjustment wheel at the rear of the battery pack to dial the brightness up and down. Single push off. It's rechargeable or takes AAs. Bit heavy though.

Alpkit qark? Low, medium, high, red, flashing red, off. Not as bright as the Lenser and not as good battery life, but fine for trail running in the dark and a lot lighter. Again rechargeable or takes AAAs. I tend to just carry a spare fully charged battery pack (its tiny) and a Petzl e+lite so I can see to swap the battery packs out.

I should be working so this is a little brief....

Spenser is spot on. Two part standard, one part on standardization of performance (of both battery and beams, the current market of lumens and run time is more marketing than real world data) and the second part on safety (less interesting but required for electric products).

Human interface is tricky as standards should not stifle innovation or product variation. The market can decide if the idea is rubbish or great, the standard should it's safe and comparible.

It's UIAA not CEN so would be a voluntary standard, no BSI publication.

The rechargeable battery lasts for days, much longer than a disposable battery would. If I’m on a multi day sea kayaking trip I take a powerpack to recharge all my devices, phone, VHF, head torch etc but in practice I’ve not needed to recharge the head torch

Great in most circumstances, but a passing car can almost turn the lamp off. On the whole I approve as it works well.

That's the one I've got. Total nightmare of unwanted, spontaneous flashy modes. Aaaargh......!

I've had Alpkit ones in the past. One sort of caught fire in my rucksack and melted stuff. Not sure I'd trust them now. Also, I saw them being sold cheaply under a brand endorsed by D of E, which bssically means they are desgned to fail after about four days. Seemed about right.

I have had so many bad experiences with headtorches, that I now always carry two.

Makes sense.

The one in my Lenser seemed very short lived and died very suddenly. 

I've got a couple of basic Petzl's and a couple of basic Silva's and any complaints I have a pretty trivial.  Simple modes, very reliable. I bought them in a shop and read what they did beforehand on the packaging

I've got two, one lives on my MR helmet permanently. There's no chance of it slipping out and it's lighter than my old BD storm which has half the battery life and is much dimmer.

On one of the many occasions I was descending off something after dark I got my Nao+ out to find I'd got the rear red light on flashing mode, I guess I'd last used it out in my bike or something. To turn it off you have to connect your phone via Bluetooth. The problem with that is that I'd recently got a new phone and didn't have the petzl app installed. Absolute joke. Obvious a flashing red light isn't the end of the world, but a bit annoying, especially for my climbing partner if I happened to be in front.

I've got a mountain biking helmet light, which is generally pretty good except for having no on/off button. Instead it has a touch sensitive lense. I guess it's good for staying waterproof and not having moving parts to wear out. But the thing with mountain bike lights is that you only use them when you're out riding after dark. And the thing with that is that I only really do it in winter. When it's cold. And I'm wearing gloves...

Hmmm. Admittedly the instructions appear to be german, translated to chinese, then into serbo-croat and finally into english, so it's a pain to understand how it works.

Random flashing when the light is on normally is a low battery warning. Other than that mine has 3 modes:

1. Low-high-off

2. High-low-off

3. High-pointless flashy mode-off

Sounds like it's stuck in mode 3? Easiest way to get it into mode 1 is pull the battery and leave it for a few minutes.

Alternatively, with the lamp off, press and hold the button on the back for about 5 seconds. The main light will flash, then stay on. If it flashes once its now in mode 1, twice its in mode 2 etc. If its not in the right mode turn it off and repeat the process to cycle through the modes.

this made me laugh a lot - in the end this issue forced me into the lower end of the market because my cheapy one only has three modes.  I just don’t understand why light needs to be so complicated.

F ucking hell. That nicely illustrates the central point of this thread, doesn't it? Imagine trying to sort that out in a storm at night.

Note to self: never buy one of those.

Thanks for correcting me.

I would still prefer there to be a marking on the body for how to unlock the thing (pictogram on the back of the body so you can check before it gets dark would be my preference), but can appreciate that prescribing a way of doing it can limit innovation. 

Can anyone tell me what the point of having a Bluetooth and wifi connected dishwasher is? Why would I want to turn the dishwasher when I'm not home? Am I the only one who just loads the dishwasher and then turns it on? 

The point is you don't, it comes with a nice, basic 'low-high-off' as default so don't f uck about with it 😉

But you're right, it's pointless 'functionality' that nobody needs.

I've been going through the process of choosing a new headtorch. It's not straightforward.

Cutting a story short, I've ordered one of the new Petzl Tikka. 350 lumen, simple operation, will take standard alkaline, lithium, Ni-MH. Looks like a sensible design which pivots in the middle (viewed side-on), rather than at the bottom. £27+pp . We'll see...

To all: I have a old Petzl Tikka XP. It has regulated-output circuitry built in to the torch; why don't they do so today?

I remember doing the High Peak Marathon and of the four of us, all had standard zooms bar one of us who had a zoom with "the halogen bulb*". We spent the whole time joking about him being "the lighthouse" and it blinding us at every opportunity.

When I look at the size and beam of my Reactik I'm amazed at how much better it is, despite being a fraction of the size. So much comfier to run in.

*if my memeory serves.

I don't have one, but I could time it for when my solar panels are at their peak?

But these f****** f*** about with themselves in one's f****** rucksack😡

On a long trip I can see the point of a powerpack, but if I'm just out overnight I want to have the minimal weight of spare batteries. 

Obviously now outdated and heavy.

However, I lost all faith in Petzl when they replaced the bombproof tub with a lid in which you could change the battery in a precarious position in the dark with mitts on for a squashy pop-on back which was tricky to get on properly with warm hands at home.

A very basic requirement of any headtorch should be that it is easy to change the battery in the dark. Very obviously.

If you read the user guide, you will see that if you hold the on/off button for 5 seconds, the light is locked and will not come on when stowed in a rucksack. To unlock, repeat the action of holding the on/off button for 5 seconds. 

Yes - but that can presumably (*) all happen by itself in one's f****** rucksack, if some other piece of equipment inadvertently presses against the on/off switch for 5 seconds or more.

Stupid, over-complicated f****** things.

(* Disclaimer: I don't own the torch which is being described - so perhaps the mechanism is better than I'm imagining. On the other hand, if you need a user manual in order to know how to operate a torch, then by definition the f****** thing is already too f****** complicated.)

So how would you prevent a headtorch from switching on when stowed in a rucksack, short of taking out the batteries?

Disconnecting the batteries was indeed the strategy in the Petzl Zoom days, and it was very easy to do.

Some well-designed mechanical interlock system might be the solution for modern torch designs. I have nothing specific to suggest, other than to keep things as simple and as foolproof as possible.

I’m a petzl fanboy, just because. I’ve had petzl since the zoom with remote battery and halogen bulb (sea fishing) Petzl have never let me down so why change? I don’t need the features fancy lamps have so for my climbing I have 2 of the old tikka’s. 

I lost the first one year so just replaced it like for like, then found the original the following year at the bottom of my sleeping bag 😃

Both been used loads, torrential rain, winter mountains, bouldering, dog walks etc and they’ve eaten up everything thrown at them. Both headbands replaced a few years ago as the originals became a bit baggy. nice and simple single push button (tricky in winter climbing gloves though) cyclic sequence - off on on+ on++”. Think Honda 90 gearbox for those of a certain age. I’d say they are 20 and 15 years old now, 2 or 3 years ago i noticed the output had deteriorated, even with new duracells. LEDs do deteriorate over time and these are comparatively old tech. This year I’ve got a new petzl, The actik core. I’m trying to go over to rechargeable for everything, I do a fair bit of filming when out fishing sometimes and have gopros, microphones, bite alarms etc that are always being recharged with various powerbanks. Headlight was the last disposable battery gadget I had. Actik core is a hybrid design that takes a micro usb rechargeable  battery that is shaped like 3 AAAs so you can use either. has the same cyclic on to off control. Has red too which is controlled by long presses but i can’t see myself ever using red but seems intuitive enough to control. time will tell how it holds up to the abuse I give these things but happy so far. definitely noticed the different lighting patterns over the old tikka, the difference between local flood lighting and distance main beam is stark.

Wasnt there a petzl that you programmed the battery via PC to deliver different power outputs? Might of dreamt that but if I did it seems I’m not far off - bluetooth headlights! 🤣 seriously? just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 😎

Anyway, just a real world headlight user is all.

My god this ring so true, just got a BD cosmo 350 and just gave up, so complicated!

I do. It's not.

F****** right!

A stiff switch. Like on my camera. 

I have a Myo XP I must have bought c. 15 years back. Still going strong (original died and Petzl replaced it) - very simple to use with three modes. BUT the on/off switch is tiny and can only be used by pressing it with the edge of your finger. Impossible with gloves...I guess minimal risk of it accidentally switching on in your pack and draining the battery but I've always thought it a huge design flaw....

Same.  I have a manual one with two dials.  Dead easy.

Some of the fenix headtorches you can unscrew the battery cover half a turn and it will disable the torch. The NAO has a large dial that needs to be rotated 180 before the electronic switch can be used.

I've had excellent customer service from LEDLenser, I asked a question about a torch that failed on first trip (because I'd been a plonker) and they sent me a brand new one! (It was a frogman d14.2). If you think the battery is substandard and it's fairly new still, speak to them, you never know!

Hi Freeloader Joe.
Just finished digging through the mountains of arguments about the ethics of bolting and university clubs using popular crags to pick up small morsels of information about our products and was delighted to find your post and the associated comments.

You'll be pleased to hear our new TIKKINA, TIKKA and ACTIK range (and our existing IKO and BINDI) are exactly as you describe, one button/three modes. In fact they've been this way for some time. We do have the added complexity of holding down the button to enable lock mode and prevent the headlamp switching on accidentally and to switch to red lighting for those models which have it but hopefully thats acceptable.

Our Reactive models (SWIFT RL and the new NAO RL) follow a similar system, one button and three modes for low/middle/high but with these headlamps our design team thought it would be useful to let you switch between reactive and normal lighting which you can easily do by holding down the button.

Hope that helps a little and look forward to reading the rest of the comments

Does the new NAO take the same batteries? Might be a good present for partner if so. 

Sorry, battery for this new model doesn't have backwards compatibility as it's a completely new design, although it does offer lots of benefits, here you go:

https://www.petzl.com/GB/en/Sport/Headlamps/NAO-RL

The change has allowed for USB C recharging and a 'simpler to switch on and off' rear red light, which looks pleasantly like the original Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.
No bluetooth some of you will be glad to hear, albeit we know many found this useful in some situations

Rob G has used a pre-production sample more than most and when we can get him a unit will hopefully sort a review, there's a few starting to come into stock in the UK if you keep your eyes peeled... It's really rather a special headlamp.

OK. Fine. Just given you some of my money. I'll be giving the black diamond one to someone i don't like for christmas. Thanks.

I've received the new Petzl Tikka (it's the 2022 version, not the older model).

First impressions are good. 350 lumen with standard AAA batteries, which won't melt metal but is is good enough for my use. I plan to run it on AAA high capacity NimH rechargeables. It seems well-designed and reasonably robust. The plastic used for the body feels less brittle than previously, and the hinge/tilt design seems good.

In UK it only seems to be available in muted colours, although Petzl list a yellow option. I'd rather have a torch with a bright-coloured body, it's less-likely to be overlooked, forgotten or misplaced. Mine is blue, so I've cut pieces of yellow insulating tape and put them on flattish surfaces of the torch; not very aesthetic, but much more noticeable.

Worth mentioning the new TIKKA is brighter than the original NAO when it was released in 2012
Currently limited stock availability but other colours should eventually arrive. 
Remember you can also use a core battery with your new TIKKA to give lots of benefits, e.g. lighter, rechargeable and an increase to 450 lumens for your TIKKA

https://www.petzl.com/GB/en/Sport/Headlamps/CORE