Petzl Iko Core Overview – iRunFar

We’ve discovered loads to like in regards to the Petzl Iko Core ($100), which is why we picked it as our favourite headlamp for path runners for our Greatest Working Headlamps information.

Weighing simply 2.4 ounces and producing as much as 500 lumens of unpolluted, cool white gentle, this headlamp is good for our each day path operating wants. Whereas it positively checks all the suitable containers for weight and efficiency, it made the highest of our checklist as a result of it’s additionally tremendous comfy with its modern band and even distribution across the entrance, sides, and again of the top.

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A aspect view of the Petzl Iko Core. All pictures iRunFar/Meghan Hicks until in any other case famous.

Petzl Iko Core Options and Specs

The Petzl Iko Core leads the market in know-how, innovation, and luxury. This light-weight headlamp is constructed with a skinny, adjustable panel of LED lights on the entrance, an ultralight however sufficiently inflexible Petzl AIRFIT silicone band to carry it in place across the head, and a battery pack on the again to steadiness the load.

The sunshine has three brightness ranges of six, 100, and 500 lumens and each flood and combined beam settings. It’s operated with a single button under the LED gentle, which can be used to lock or unlock the sunshine.

The headlamp could be powered with its included 1,250-milliamp-hour Petzl CORE lithium-ion rechargeable battery or three AAA/LR03s batteries. It’s price noting that the sunshine features higher when operating off the Petzl CORE rechargeable battery than AAA batteries, particularly in that the utmost energy setting yields 500 lumens with the rechargeable battery and simply 350 lumens utilizing AAA batteries.

For storage, the headlamp can fold up into itself. Moreover, it may be configured with its storage pouch to function a lantern — not a function that’s tremendous practical for path operating, but it surely might come in useful at camp or on a fastpacking journey.

A entrance view of the Petzl Iko Core.

Petzl Iko Core Efficiency

Whereas it might not be the lightest headlamp accessible, at an precise weight of two.4 ounces, the Petzl Iko Core is loads light-weight for our path operating wants.

We discovered the silicone band, which is adjustable utilizing the orange elastic band, to be ridiculously comfy, and we might barely even really feel the LED gentle on the entrance. The band and general low profile, streamlined design are the perfect — and most modern — components of this headlamp, fingers down.

Whereas we recognize the bottom six-lumen brightness setting of the headlamp, path runners will most often use it at both its center 100-lumen setting or its brightest 500-lumen setting. Nonetheless, six lumens presents sufficient gentle to faff round in your automotive’s trunk earlier than or after a run, to gasoline up in an support station, or to make your approach round a fastpacking campsite.

We’re residing in a headlamp period the place firms are always attempting to make brighter headlamps, however we consider that extra shouldn’t be all the time higher. We’ve discovered that lengthy nights of operating with super-bright headlamps result in extra eye pressure than utilizing an applicable quantity of sunshine for the circumstances.

As such, we’ve discovered that 100 lumens is sufficient gentle for normal-speed path operating on a well-developed and marked path. Thus, the medium setting of the Petzl Iko Core offers you loads of gentle for typical evening path operating.

Nonetheless, there are occasions and locations the place extra lumens assist, comparable to when the path is technical, you’re searching for far-off course markings, or circumstances are poor. Extra gentle additionally helps whenever you’re seeking to run quick and wish to have an extended stretch of path illuminated in entrance of you. The five hundred-lumen setting of the headlamp presents greater than sufficient gentle for many tough conditions like this, however not for a prolonged time frame.

For those who’re seeking to run for greater than a pair hours with a very vivid headlamp, you’ll both wish to get adept at switching out the batteries on the Petzl Iko Core, otherwise you’ll have to search for a headlamp with a much bigger battery.

Our solely gripe with the system is that altering the batteries is awkward, particularly whereas sleepy, chilly, or in any other case experiencing the consequences of an extended evening on the path. If the batteries had been simpler to vary, we’d completely be utilizing this headlamp for full in a single day path missions.

The again battery pack of the Petzl Iko Core.

Petzl Iko Core General Impressions

We love the consolation, performance, and flexibility of the Petzl Iko Core, which is why we picked it as our favourite headlamp for path operating in our Greatest Working Headlamps information. Whereas we’d just like the battery change-out to be a bit simpler, we’re blown away by how comfy this headlamp is for on a regular basis path operating. Moreover, at 100-lumen and 500-lumen settings, it presents enough gentle to assist us see the path however shouldn’t be so vivid that it strains our eyes. We love how simply it folds up and stows when the solar comes up and that it might probably double as a lantern at camp. Lastly, we recognize the rechargeable battery, which makes the headlamp a straightforward alternative for path operating adventures that begin or finish at midnight.

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Name for Feedback

• What’s your favourite headlamp for path operating?
• Do you all the time use the identical gentle, or do you’ve gotten a each day headlamp and an ultrarunning-specific lighting system?

​[Editor’s Note: If you’re affiliated (i.e., an employee, ambassador, etc.) with a brand, please share your relation in each of your comments on this article. Thanks!]

iRunFar’s Meghan Hicks utilizing the Petzl Iko Core on a daybreak run. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi