Friday, July 21, 2017

The new PETZL caving lights are coming in 2018


Finally, the upgrade for Ultra Vario caving helmet and also DUO are coming.
Their new names are: DUO S for Li-Io version and DUO Z2 for battery version.



In recent years the actual DUO (14 led) has been forgotten, eclipsed by the ULTRA, Scurion, ESPELEO or alike. How can anyone buy a 67 lm headlamp for caving in 2017 ? The design was a
refference but the technology inside it is more than 10 years old.








The new lights are a substitude for both Ultra Vario / Rush and DUO.
So, there will be no future Ultra line, but the new DUO instead.


Till now only positive things:

- same Accu 2 as Ultra (released in the 2010), Ultra Wide (released in the 2011), Ultra Rush (released in 2014) and Ultra Vario (realesed in 2014). A logic movement. So you can use your "old" Accu 2
- smaller, on a PIXA 3 like chasis.
- more powerfull (forget about marketing 1100 lm on boost) at 700 lumens (compared with 520 lm of Ultra Vario).
- longer burning time due to new LED technology improvement.
- same helmet mouting system so  you can just clip the new DUO S on your "old" Spelios, Trios or whatever other helmet you chose that have the Ultra mounting kit on it.

On the Z2 side, also only good news:
- it will run on normal AA (4 of them) battery that you can get anywhere. A big plus.
- 220 lm is a HUGE improvement over the existing 67 lm of the DUO.




The only question now is what price range. Normally the DUO Z2 should be in DUO price range (100 euros) while DUO S should be in the Ultra Vario price range (300 euros). Hopefully not more.

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Bine ai venit. Ia o gura de OXiGEN !