UKC

Tough, waterproof, and easy to operate, the Explore 5 strikes a great balance between brightness and battery life, making it one of the best headtorches in its class for serious mountain use, says Dan Bailey. 

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What is the orange light for? In my wild guess, is it a compromise between the red and white lights, I mean, it does not harm the night vision as much as white light but gives better lighting to read a map than red light?

IP68 😀 excellent... Unusual in a head torch like that, they're beating Petzl at their own game? Compared to e.g. Actik Core this sounds way better

Or you can get the UKC Skoda Octavia of head torches of the Fenix HM65R also IP68 rated, but with the ability to pop another battery in, for the occasions you forget to charge, play Star Wars too long with full beam, or it gets left on for some reason.

Wonder whether it helps with seeing contours compared to red. Of course, theory often differs to reality!

Does it take spare non-rechargeable batteries when the rechargeable one runs out? Or do you need to buy a spare rechargeable battery (or carry a backup headtorch)?

Silva on the website state a built-in rechargeable battery. No mention of it being swappable for ordinary batteries or a spare silva bespoke one. So presume not.

Odd that Dan didn’t mention……

Yes, a major downside. You basically have to carry a spare headtorch then for most serious use (though there is a strong case for doing this anyway given the reliability of most headtorches in my experience!).

Strange that UKC haven’t reviewed Fenix torches (I think). Very durable, simple, user replaceable industry standard batteries, they even have replacements for the headband elastics. I only replaced my first one after I lost it, having just replaced the elastics and battery. Doh.

That's a major disadvantage in my eyes.  At least the Petzl core batteries can be replaced by standard AAAs.

You're right, they haven't.  I'm sure they'd love to, but I think they'd need Fenix to meet them half way and provide a couple of head torches to be tested.

I think that with rechargeable batteries and torches you can always set off charged up so running flat shouldn't be an issue. But a small power pack can be carried for your torch and phone. Helpful for epics . Carrying a spare probably isn't a bad idea either. Because dropping it and just how hard it can be changing batteries in winter conditions 

Which is why I quite "hate" torches that need 3xAAAs or use them as a backup, when a single AA would deliver almost the same runtime as three AAAs. I get it, a single AA needs a voltage booster circuit which adds more component cost unlike three smaller cells, but the likes of Petzl are pretty pricey already. And a single cell is much less of a faff to change than trying to align three tiny cells in the dark, one having to be reversed (seriously, you could have run just two more traces on the PCB to allow all the cells to be aligned the same +/- way, WHY?!?) 

End of rant

Ideal head torch for me:

1. Uses one easy to change cell – either AA, or 18650, 14500 and similar Li-ion rechargeable option. Not a fan of proprietary packs, even if they have a slight capacity advantage over circular cells
2. Allows charging of Li-ion in the torch
3. Easy mode changing without much faff, well spaced out
4. Accepts both Li-ion rechargeables and same sized non‑rechargeables (like 1x18650 or 2xCR123A, or AA 14500 Li-ion and regular or NiMH AAs)

Sounds good to me.

It's mentioned under Charging: "The inbuilt rechargeable 2050MAh Li-Ion battery charges via USB-C."

Perhaps I should've made more of the fact it doesn't take removable batteries, like some alternative models.

Personally i'm not hugely bothered by that, because I'd always carry two torches in preference to one torch and spare batteries. But there is another potential disadvantage: as the cell degrades (over years/many hundreds of charges?) the torch will become less effective, and you cannot simply replace the battery.

Still, all in all its a damn fine torch.