The Petzl Actik Core Headlamp is a high-powered 600 lumen twin energy headlamp loaded with easy-to-use intuitive options together with a single button management, a crimson mild to protect night time imaginative and prescient, a battery meter, and an digital lock to stop unintended battery drain. It’s additionally a twin energy headlamp that comes with a detachable Petzl Core Rechargeable battery, however can be powered by 3 AAA batteries with out an additional adapter. This offers piece of thoughts and adaptability in the event you’re climbing or backpacking in distant areas the place it’s troublesome to plug right into a wall to recharge a battery.
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- Product: Petzl Actik Core Headlamp (micro-USB , 3hr cost time)
- Sort: Twin Energy (included rechargeable battery or 3AAA batteries (every kind))
- Battery: 1250 mAh included
- Weight: 2.9 oz / 82g
- Max Brightness: 600 lumens
- White Runtimes: 600 lumens – 2h; 100 lumens – 7h; 7 lumens – 100h
- Headband: Reflective strap
- Execs: twin energy, intuitive management sequence, digital lock, energy meter
- Cons: not-USB C appropriate, battery compartment takes observe to open/shut
The Petzl Actik Core Headlamp is a finely made, high-powered headlamp with just a few quirks which are simple to adapt to when you get used its operation.
Battery
The headlamp comes with a Petzl Core battery inside. It is a rechargeable battery which is appropriate with different Petzl merchandise. It may be faraway from the headlamp and you should buy a number of of them if you wish to carry extras. Nevertheless, as a substitute of recharging the headlamp, you recharge the battery, which has its personal energy meter, utilizing a micro USB plug. It’s unlucky that the battery isn’t USB-C appropriate, which many manufacturers and merchandise are shifting towards.
The Core battery holds 1250 mAh of energy which is a bit on the low aspect in that it solely offers as much as 7 hours of burn time on the headlamp’s medium setting, which throws 100 lumens of sunshine. In most circumstances, that needs to be loads of mild for backpacking. For instance, when it will get darkish, I simply fall asleep and infrequently use my headlamp when tenting besides to pee a few times at night time. For those who plan on path working at nighttime, you might have considered trying a headlamp with a much bigger battery and an extended runtime, however for the typical three season hiker, 7 hours of runtime between costs is greater than sufficient.
Command Sequence
The Petzl Actik Core headlamp has a single button on prime which makes it pretty simple to recollect the command sequence and cycle by way of it, even in the event you don’t use the headlamp daily. I simply hate difficult command sequences, particularly ones that require a number of interdependent buttons to make use of.
The headlamp has an digital lock/unlock function to stop unintended battery drain, which I take into account a must have function on any headlamp that will probably be carried in a backpack. It has three brightness settings: 600 lumens, 100 lumens, and seven lumens, in a flood or broad beam sample, together with a crimson mode and crimson strobe. Whereas the headlamp is rated for 600 lumens on excessive energy, you hardly ever want that a lot mild for three-season climbing and backpacking. You’ll in all probability solely use the 100 lumen setting occasionally, and the crimson mode more often than not, so that you don’t wish to blind your companions when sitting across the campfire at night time.
Battery Compartment
The battery compartment door on the Petzl Actik Core takes just a few go-rounds to acclimatize to. It’s somewhat troublesome to open and get shut once more. However when you do it just a few instances, you’ll see that you need to use a good quantity of power to open it with out breaking the door. You do want a robust thumbnail although.
Greg P. says to make use of the sting of one of many headstrap adjustment buckles to lever the battery compartment open, as a substitute of your thumbnail. Good! That works nice.
Closing the battery compartment door is simpler. It has a gasket round its periphery to maintain water out. When you see how the door matches into place, it’s simple to get it again in the best place.
Suggestion
The Petzl Actik Core Headlamp is a twin energy headlamp with a single management button and an intuitive command sequence that’s simple to determine (time and again), particularly in the event you don’t use it on a regular basis. The power to make use of the rechargeable battery or 3 AAA batteries (and not using a particular adapter) is a “core” functionality that may prolong the utility of the headlamp in additional distant locales, or colder ones, as a result of you too can use cold-resistant lithium AAA batteries.
Whereas these are very worthwhile options, it’s a pity that the Petzl CORE battery is just not USB-C appropriate, since most hikers and backpackers and lots of gear producers try to standardize on USB-C to reduce the variety of recharging wires that individuals want to hold. I’ve little doubt that Petzl will make the CORE battery USB-C succesful sooner or later sooner or later; the query is whether or not USB-C is essential for you now, and whether or not you’ll prepared to pay for a brand new CORE USB-C battery when and if one turns into obtainable. Whereas there are a rising variety of rechargeable headlamps which are USB-C succesful, having a twin energy functionality on a light-weight headlamp continues to be comparatively uncommon and may be worthwhile to have. Carrying a number of charging cords isn’t a giant deal for me, since I’ve been doing it for years now, however I feel it’s a call level price contemplating relying in your circumstances.
Disclosure: Petzl donated a headlamp for assessment.
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