There are many excellent, high powered reviews in the CPF from contributors like Selfbuilt, so I thought an review for others like myself who are fairly new to headlamps and CPF might be of interest.
I frequently take care of a small child at night and wanted a headlamp for that purpose, since I need two hands free to give meds, etc. I originally purchased an Armytek Wizard 2014 model (probably v1.5) that came with a Nitecore NL183 2300mAH 18650 battery and charger. That model had 5 brightness settings; 1200 lm, 500 lm, 250, 50 lm, and 3 lm. Sadly, the lowest mode on this model, which I am not sure you could even call a firefly mode, was too bright and the kid kind of freaked out the 1st time I showed up wearing it. It was a bit too bright for reading at night and I also didn't care for the Cree XM-L2 cool white LED.
For these reasons, I returned it and ordered the Wizard Pro XM-L2 Warm v2 directly from Armytek. I cannot say I was impressed with their customer service. I ordered the product on 2/17/15 and didn't receive it until today (3/28/15), which is an excessively long time to wait for an item you did not buy in a pre-order sale situation. Customer service responses to questions were quick, professional, but perfunctory. For example, I was told, "If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me." But when I asked if there were production issues with a product I was considering (it was out of stock at the time), my question was ignored. If I had to sum up my experience in a single word, it would be "dismissive," which is surprising given that this is a high end product. The fact that the product is manufactured in China didn't endear me to them either. If I ever purchase another high end headlamp, I will seriously consider the ZL line even though the warranty is much less than Armytek.
The Wizard Pro v2 Silver (gold and black bezels were not available when I ordered) looks very similar to the previous model although it is slightly longer because of the magnet compartment. Unlike the previous model, which had two straps, this one has three – two for the head mount and a hand band. It also comes with a clip, lanyard, and 2 spare O rings. I believe the previous model had a grey background; this one has a black background with lettering on both sides. Since the product came without any instructions or manual, I searched online for one. Not finding one, I simply removed the top strap and connected the strapping system in the way indicated for the previous model, which works fine. Later I did find the proper manual but there were no instructions on using the hand band, which I was unfamiliar with since my previous headlamps did not have this.
The v2 has the following modes, including two firefly modes: 975 lm, 390 lm, 185 lm, 65 lm, 14 lm, 1.8 lm, 0.2, Strobe, Beacon. Compared to the previous version, it found the lighting more color realistic. The fact that the maximum lumens on v2 is speced at 975 OTF lumens (on some sites it specs as 1050 lm so that is confusing) and the previous version was 1200 lumens did not make much real world difference to my inexperienced eyes.
Compared to other, far cheaper, headlamps I found the Wizard Pro v2 strapping system to be more comfortable overall. The headlamp is a bit heavy for using it without the top strap, but acceptable. It would probably work better if I took out the magnet.
I didn't have a problem with the menu system, which seemed pretty intuitive to me. Of course, I don't own a ZL headlamp, which in my research had many positives specifically for ease of use. The magnet in the tail of the v2 is pretty strong – I couldn't find specs on the gauss strength and the magnet itself was not stamped with this information.
I was a little taken aback about the care and maintenance of the 18650 battery. Having always thought of batteries, even rechargeables, as benign, the idea that I had to babysit the 18650 while it was recharging on a non-flammable surface was an interesting twist to this adventure. I got a bag of marshmallows with roasting forks just in case the cell goes "terrorist."
I frequently take care of a small child at night and wanted a headlamp for that purpose, since I need two hands free to give meds, etc. I originally purchased an Armytek Wizard 2014 model (probably v1.5) that came with a Nitecore NL183 2300mAH 18650 battery and charger. That model had 5 brightness settings; 1200 lm, 500 lm, 250, 50 lm, and 3 lm. Sadly, the lowest mode on this model, which I am not sure you could even call a firefly mode, was too bright and the kid kind of freaked out the 1st time I showed up wearing it. It was a bit too bright for reading at night and I also didn't care for the Cree XM-L2 cool white LED.
For these reasons, I returned it and ordered the Wizard Pro XM-L2 Warm v2 directly from Armytek. I cannot say I was impressed with their customer service. I ordered the product on 2/17/15 and didn't receive it until today (3/28/15), which is an excessively long time to wait for an item you did not buy in a pre-order sale situation. Customer service responses to questions were quick, professional, but perfunctory. For example, I was told, "If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me." But when I asked if there were production issues with a product I was considering (it was out of stock at the time), my question was ignored. If I had to sum up my experience in a single word, it would be "dismissive," which is surprising given that this is a high end product. The fact that the product is manufactured in China didn't endear me to them either. If I ever purchase another high end headlamp, I will seriously consider the ZL line even though the warranty is much less than Armytek.
The Wizard Pro v2 Silver (gold and black bezels were not available when I ordered) looks very similar to the previous model although it is slightly longer because of the magnet compartment. Unlike the previous model, which had two straps, this one has three – two for the head mount and a hand band. It also comes with a clip, lanyard, and 2 spare O rings. I believe the previous model had a grey background; this one has a black background with lettering on both sides. Since the product came without any instructions or manual, I searched online for one. Not finding one, I simply removed the top strap and connected the strapping system in the way indicated for the previous model, which works fine. Later I did find the proper manual but there were no instructions on using the hand band, which I was unfamiliar with since my previous headlamps did not have this.
The v2 has the following modes, including two firefly modes: 975 lm, 390 lm, 185 lm, 65 lm, 14 lm, 1.8 lm, 0.2, Strobe, Beacon. Compared to the previous version, it found the lighting more color realistic. The fact that the maximum lumens on v2 is speced at 975 OTF lumens (on some sites it specs as 1050 lm so that is confusing) and the previous version was 1200 lumens did not make much real world difference to my inexperienced eyes.
Compared to other, far cheaper, headlamps I found the Wizard Pro v2 strapping system to be more comfortable overall. The headlamp is a bit heavy for using it without the top strap, but acceptable. It would probably work better if I took out the magnet.
I didn't have a problem with the menu system, which seemed pretty intuitive to me. Of course, I don't own a ZL headlamp, which in my research had many positives specifically for ease of use. The magnet in the tail of the v2 is pretty strong – I couldn't find specs on the gauss strength and the magnet itself was not stamped with this information.
I was a little taken aback about the care and maintenance of the 18650 battery. Having always thought of batteries, even rechargeables, as benign, the idea that I had to babysit the 18650 while it was recharging on a non-flammable surface was an interesting twist to this adventure. I got a bag of marshmallows with roasting forks just in case the cell goes "terrorist."
