Edelrid Novalite Headtorch | Review - Outdoors Magic

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Edelrid Novalite Headtorch | Review

Edlerid's Novalite lightweight headtorch is powered by a single AA battery and mixes spot and wider beams for surprisingly useful light output.

‘Lightweight, no-nonsense, get-you-home headtorch – the Novalite is powered by a single AA battery and has a choice of high and low-power LEDs depending on your needs. Cool beans.’

Outdoors Magic: Choice of beams, reasonably light, IPX6 water resistant, single AA battery convenience, reasonable burn times.

Outdoors Tragic: Limited light output, no switch lock-out.

Outdoors Grabbit? It’s not the brightest or the lightest light option out there, but the Novalite boasts the enviable simplicity of being powered by a single, easily swappable AA battery.  It also gets a single main spot LED and two lower-powered flood LEDs and has decent burn-times as well. It makes a great get-you-home or general bumbling about outdoor light and works as a back-up option if you already have a super bright überlight for pre-planning nocturnal fast-moving missions. Not ostentatious, but surprisingly useful and nicely made too.

 

Full Specification

Single Power LED with 3 brightness levels and SOS strobe mode / 2 white Eco LEDs with strobe mode / adjustable light head angle / IPX6 water protection / elastic headband /

Full Review Below

Main beam has reasonable penetration, but is quite spotty. Fortunately there are also lower-powered peripheral LEDs for general work - Photo: Lukasz Warzecha (lwimages.co.uk)
Signature Edelrid green colour choice meets silver chrome finish. Note the side LEDs- Photo: Lukasz Warzecha (lwimages.co.uk)
The light is powered by an easy to swap AA battery. No need for USB charging or multiple AAAs - Photo: Lukasz Warzecha (lwimages.co.uk)

Edelrid Novalite Headtorch | Performance

Edelrid’s best known for climbing hardware, but it also sells a small range of headtorches including the compact Novalite. Complete with the single AA battery, it weighs in at 70 grammes, which isn’t super light, but certainly won’t slow you down.

The light has a single central LED with a claimed 134 lumen spot beam plus a pair of peripheral lower-powered bulbs churning out 31 lumens for close-up work around camp and so on. Otherwise there are few frills: a simple light head with secure angle adjustment, a top-mounted switch that cycles through high, middle, ‘eco’ and SOS modes on the main beam and a simple but functional elasticated headband.

Get Me Home!

We found it worked best as a get-you-home stand-by torch and for pottering about camp. The main beam’s quite spotty, which limits its use for running off road at least and the lower-powered LEDs aren’t really up to fast movement and are best saved for cooking and reading.

What is super convenient is its use of just a single AA battery, which means it’s easy to carry spares and easy to buy new batteries in most areas if necessary. All of which makes it a great back-up torch rather than a prime mover in our book. To be fair, the central switch works well with gloves.

Super easy adjustability - it'll fit a climbing helmet too - Photo: Lukasz Warzecha (lwimages.co.uk)
Simple design with neat and comfortable enough elasticated headband- Photo: Lukasz Warzecha (lwimages.co.uk)
Lighted pivots and stays reliably in place - Photo: Lukasz Warzecha (lwimages.co.uk)

Edelrid Novalite Headtorch | Verdict

The one thing that marks the Novalite out from other lightweight headtorches is its super convenient use of a single AA battery rather than the classic combination of AAAs. That makes it a great stand-by option and gives it an obvious point of difference to Black Diamond’s excellent, lightweight Iota headtorch with its rechargeable battery.

Otherwise it’s an easy to use torch which puts out a decently powerful, but slightly over-focussed main beam combined with a lower-powered localised spread for the two side LEDs. The IPX6 water resistance is welcome too.

More Information

See edelrid.de

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