Lightweight Headlamp

I bought Gizmos for my wife and I this year, and I'm all about them. With batteries, though, I get a weight of 1.6 oz.

However, they're bright enough to hike by and come at a plenty agreeable price. Not sure I'll ever use anything else.

The High beam on the Gizmo appears to be between the medium and high beam of my Petzl Tikka Plus. (A little closer to medium than right in the middle). The Gizmo is definitely enough to walk trails at night, but not enough to spot blazes 15 feet off the trail (The Tikka Plus "barely" is).

I carry the Gizmo, since it fits in my pocket better (~2/3 the bulk) and the low beam doesn't keep my wife up when I'm tryin to read at night, or wake her up when I get up for a midnight bathroom break. The Gizmo's angle adjustment also allows walking uphill better (The Tikka mostly points straight ahead and down).

The Gizmo's button needs to be held down for several seconds to turn the light on or off. I find this irritating, and never had a problem with the Tikka coming on in my pack.

Also, the Gizmo doesn't have a medium beam, but it's high beam (really medium/high in brightness) & low beam cover 90% of my needs anyway.

The new Petzl Tikka XP 2 is a really nice light. I have the "old" XP as well (which used to be my favorite of my 10 headlamps) and they have incorporated all of the features that I wanted in the new model.

The shape is more streamlined wedge shaped like the old style Tikka, there is one big button instead of the two tiny little buttons, it is brighter and lighter, still has the diffuser except now it has a bigger catch tab and is easier to flip up even with gloves on, it has a red LED for camp lighting built in, and a low battery indicator built in. It also has clear panels on the side so that you would be more visible from the side, although I'm not sure how useful that is. On bright it is way way plenty bright enough for trail walking.I even used it to spot night animals in the woods a few days ago.

All in all it is a fantastic feature combination and a lot of light in a small package. It's not as lightweight as a Petzl e lite but to me it's totally "worth the weight."

The Gizmo looks nice, but I'd rather they used a single AA battery instead of 2 AAA's. You'd get about 50% more battery life for virtually the same weight. It would also be nice to see red LED's. This looks better than the Tikka (that I have now) but I'm still leaning towards a Petzl e+LITE which is less bright but lighter and has a red LED.

Thanks for everyone's insight so far. The New Tikka 2 XP does seem like a really nice light. I love the diffuser and the red LED is a plus, but it is quite pricey considering the small weight savings over my current light.

Dan-

I too would like a single AA light that was reasonably bright and had red LED option, but there just doesn't seem to be an option like that from the major players in the headlamp market.

I thought I would resurrect this thread as I am still considering replacing my Petzl Tikka XP (3.3oz) with a lighter option. I just can't find exactly what I am looking for.

The Black Diamond Gizmo is 1.2oz (spec) without batteries. It uses 2 AAA batteries and I get a weight of 0.4oz per AAA Alkaline, so that should make it around 2 ounces total.

Although I originally was only considering AA and AAA headlamps, the Black Diamond Ion looks tempting as well. It uses a single 6 volt battery and I have seen weights listed between 0.95oz and 1.3oz. Does anyone have experience with the Ion? How easy to find are the batteries?

Petzl and Princeton Tec don't seem to have anything light enough to be considerable upgrade from my Tikka XP but what about other makers, am I overlooking some worthy lights? I am not a light fanatic, but I want something usable (the e-lite doesn't seem usable) with a headband.

Thanks for your help!