Friday, April 19, 2013

Gear Comparison - Ferei HL20 vs AyUp AllRounder Headlamp

I've had a lot of people recently asking me about the Ferei HL20 headlamp that I use in ultras and in night training. I thought with TNF100 and other events coming up where there will be elements of night running, I would give a bit of a comparison post between the Ferei and the other popular runner's unit on the market, the AyUp AllRounder headlamp.

All I am going to do is compare both features of the units, from my review of the Ferei HL20 that I featured on my blog, and Shona's review of the Ay-Up All Rounder Ultra Lite that was on her site, simply by quoting each other's reviews. Any information not found on each other's reviews was sought from the products' website itself (and stated here).

As a disclaimer, I am sponsored by Ferei, and Shona is likewise by AyUp

Full In Depth Reviews

My Ferei HL20 Review
Shona's Ay-Up All Rounder Ultra Lite Review

Weight

Ferei

  • Standard headlight unit (without standard 18650 battery): 150 grams 
  • Standard 18650 battery: 50 grams 
  • BP28 small external battery: 120 grams 
  • BP4836 large external battery pack: 240 grams 

AyUp

"The new Ay-Up that I weighed on my kitchen scales weighted only 198 grams with the 1/2 epic battery and 254 grams with the Epic battery."
"The 1/2 Epic weighs 87 grams on my kitchen scales."
"The Epic weighs 146 grams on my kitchen scales."
"The new head strap weighs 57 grams"

Settings

Ferei

There are three light settings on the unit, a high (100%) and a changeable secondary setting. There is also SOS/Strobe.

AyUp

"There is three settings on your Ay-Up, High, Low, Flashing. These settings are all controlled by the visible yellow button on the battery pack."

There is one important difference here between the Ferei and the AyUp, that I feel needs explaining a little more. The Ferei, unlike the AyUp, has an adjustable 'second' brightness (power) setting. In other words, this can be changed at any point while running, so you can set this level to how low or as high as you want. This is very beneficial in headlamp power management, as on firetrails etc you actually will want to lower the beam right down. The AyUp does not have this feature, only an unadjustable 'low' setting.

Power output (brightness)

Ferei

"The product specifics state that on high it outputs 10 watts of power delivering over 600 lumens of light."

AyUp

From website...
"Each lightset outputs over 500 Lumen in the standard package"

Battery Life

Ferei

  • Light time of standard 18650 battery on high: 90 minutes. 
  • Light time of standard 18650 battery on lowest setting: over 43 hours 
  • Light time of BP28 external battery on high: Up to 3 hours. 
  • Light time of BP28 external battery on lowest setting: Up to 100 hours 
  • Light time of BP4836 external battery on high: Up to 6 hours. 
  • Light time of BP4836 external battery on lowest setting: several hundred hours on lowest setting 
Other than high mode (100%) it is hard to give precise run times due to the variability of the secondary brightness setting. Roughly half full brightness will give at least double the runtime of high mode and the run time goes up exponentially with anything less than 50%

AyUp

"The 1/2 Epic Battery will give you 3-6 hours of battery life. I’ve tested the 1/2 Epic on high for 3 hours on a trail training run running and it was still going strong. It will give you 6 hours on low, and 12 hours plus on flashing."
"The Epic Battery last for 6 hours on high, 12 hours on low and days on flashing."

LED Lifespan

Ferei

"With burn time of the high intensity LED light around 50 000 hours"

AyUp

From website...
LED life - over 50,000 hours

Cost

Ferei

  • The standard HL20 package: $129.00
  • External batteries: BP28 is $39.00 and BP4826 is $79.00
  • Extension lead comes with purchase of either external battery.
Discount code: 20% off the Ferei HL20 using the RUNNERSCHOICE discount code.

AyUp

$242 for standard unit with half epic battery
$88 for epic battery
$7.70 for extension lead (for when using epic battery)

Function, Comfort etc

As this is totally a subjective thing, I think you have to read our reviews in entirety to get a feel of how the units perform out on the trails. We have both since used the units extensively as successfully. Myself in the GNW100 miler last year and also on many training runs and also Shona recently wore hers overnight at the Northburn100 miler and in many other race successes!

One important difference is that neither external Ferei battery can be worn on the head. These have to be used with the extension lead running to the battery in pack etc. On the AyUp it is possible to wear the larger Epic battery on the headset, although the website does state that :

"We recommend you purchase an Extension Lead with this battery as it is double the weight of the 72 gram Half Epic Battery and you do notice this on your head when running. All batteries have a flashing mode plus a fuel gauge so you can easily check how much power you have left."

The Ferei does not have a fuel gauge but it does 'blink' when it is running low as a warning signal.


Warranty, water resistance etc

Very similar to eachother but please do your own research about this to be sure from the manufacturers websites.

Available from

Ferei: http://www.ferei.com.au/ferei-hl20-rechargeable-led-headlamp.html
AyUp: http://www.ayup-lights.com/systems/lighting-systems/run-specific/

The Ferei HL20 with standard on board battery (in cylinder casing), recharger,
and the two different external batteries with extension lead.
The AyUp AllRounder Kit, with epic (black) on board the unit. The two
smaller half epic batteries are shown as is the Orange charger