Petzl  Swift RL Headlamp

I was looking for a brighter headlamp to run in the evening as daylight saving time approached. I have to say this is the best bright headlamp I've ever used. I find it easy to run with not clunky at all. Fits comfortably. The headlamp does have 3 modes of 1st as you can see in the pictures. The brightest picture is in the last mode. It also dims when another light hits the headlamp like a cars head lights- I assume not to blind a driver. People can see me more easily now. It find it holds a decent amount of charge. I have found I can run with it for 3 days before it needs charging. The one thing I wish it had was a little red light on the back sort of like a tail light. For now I will take it as is. I highly recommend it.

I've owned many different headlamps and used them in a variety of outdoor activities. In general, when one has a lot of experience with headlamps, it's hard to be surprised. This particular headlamp surprised me on how bright it was along with the reactive lighting sensor. The lighting optimization provided by the sensor is pretty neat; which I assume helps with battery life. On high mode, it almost functions like a dual spot and flood light. The battery appears to last as advertised and the battery indicator is a huge plus. I love the fact that it can be plugged in for recharging, which is super handy if you have a portable charger in your backpack. Another point where this headlamp really hits the mark is the adjustable band. I felt as those the design of the dual strap kept this on my head better than a single strap - even in situations where I was wearing a skull cap. If you are in the market for a high end headlamp or would like an elite offering this light will not disappoint.

The new Swift is a great improvement over my older Petzls, and so far I love it for trail running. Very bright - medium mode far outdoes what I had before, and when I'm tired, bright is fantastic. The light shows you via a 5-level LED display how much battery is left, and it's simple to replace the USB-charged battery if you need to. The headstrap is great and stays on without fiddling, and it's pretty comfortable, too. The only thing I can't answer yet is "how long does the light REALLY last?" So far I've used it for 2 and 3 hour stretches and had at least 2/3 battery left after each one. I have a longer race coming in March and will know more after that journey. So far, though, this is a great light for running.

All of Petzl’s prior top end front battery headlights have been stellar, I’ve had many and love this brands ergonomics and reliability. I buy one every time they change and still have and use the two prior iterations of this lamp. This one took a few steps back. Pro: Yes very bright, balanced and comfortable. Reactive lighting is great. Con: no red light, seriously? That was the stupidest omission, shame. Having to toggle through all light levels to turn off. Lame. You get used to it, but having to do three clicks to turn off on a light of this brightness level often leads to you ending on the highest setting and blinding yourself before having to toggle back through to turn off. Otherwise a great lamp.

We wanted to love this headlamp. My wife and I bought two. It's very bright, which is useful for fat biking or skijoring with a dog in the Alaskan dark. After two years, one of the headlamps abruptly quit working for no reason we could discern. For a headlamp that expensive, we expected better. Pros: It's very bright for the size. It has adjustable brightness. Bright enough for biking. Cons: Rechargeable battery (not AAA's) means you will need to bring a battery bank and charging cord along on multi-night trips. No red light- difficult in a shared tent or public use cabin. Reliability is not good.

Pros: The 900 lumens are great when you need it. Other settings are great also. Charges Fast. Not bulky like other headlamps with less power. Cons: Quite Expensive. The headband does not stay cinched, which makes it useless when skiing in the dark, and when you don't have your hands free to hold it. I've had others try to fix the headband to make sure it wasn't a user issue, but it's definitely the headband. Resorting to safety pins to keep it where I want it.. I've used this headlamp on several day trips, and an overnight winter camping trip, but have not run out of battery life yet. Will update in a few weeks after a 6-day glacier trek, which was the purpose of getting this.

I've used this headlamp for a couple of years. It works fine for weekly ~1 hour night trail runs, but I noticed I have to fully recharge it before runs even if I only use it 1 hour a week. I wore it for a 6 hour (dry) night run and it worked fine (6 hours got it down to 1 bar of charge so would have needed to recharge if going longer). However, despite being fully charged pre-run, during an ultra it quit working after 3 hours (except for the dimmest setting which was not adequate for running) of wearing it in pretty heavy rain (1 hour not turned on, 2 hours turned on). It does not accept regular AA or AAA batteries. I would recommend this for short dry night runs but not ultras where you are running through the night if there is any chance of rain. IPX4 rating is apparently not waterproof enough for that.

(a) In a flag ship product being sold in nearly 2022, USB-C should be standard. (b) No red LED is surprising (c) Odd too see this use an internal battery as opposed to the common petzl core/AAA option. This leads to a fairly exposed USB charging port.

The only drawback of this product should be the price. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It's impressively bright and a great proof of concept for the reactive lighting. The entire point of the reactive lighting is that you will not blind yourself while using this lamp, but you will blind others. This headlamp is unusable in a group. It would be perfect with a red light setting, but, without that, it's unusable in my application. I hope Petzl takes the feedback and flushes this product out a little bit. A mode memory option would be fantastic! For now, I'll stick with one of the Black Diamond offerings and use a high powered flashlight when I need a long distance spotlight.

Very expensive piece for the 3 simple features. No red light to assist the eyes. And as bright as this is, you’ll need to take a few to let your eyes adjust after turning it off. Not compatible with the hybrid concept battery. This takes its own special battery. Charging port exposed to elements. Good luck in wet possibly freezing weather. Petzl really missed the mark on this. I’m surprised.