As a rule of thumb, the faster you're going, the more powerful your head torch needs to be. An 80m beam might be plenty long enough if you're night hiking, but you're going to hit the end of it a lot faster if you're on a bike or a pair of skis. Fortunately, the headlamps in Silva's FREE range offer next-level illumination for the most demanding nocturnal adventures. The FREE is a modular head torch with a separate lamp and battery pack, and the power cord is integrated in the headband to keep it out of your way. This modular design means you can switch in different lamps or batteries from the Silva FREE range depending on how much light/power you need – and you can also get different mounts for bikes, helmets etc. Lamps this powerful have a tendency to overheat, and Silva have got around this by employing a specially designed aluminium and plastic cooling system that uses wind and convection. This version is the FREE 1200 XS (ie. 1200 lumen lamp + small battery) – a lighter weight lamp best suited for running or ski touring. It offers three different brightness levels and a maximum beam of 1200 lumens (150m). The 14.4 Wh USB-C rechargeable battery is lighter than the other lamps in the FREE range, but you can still get up to 15 hours of burn time if you're careful.
| Attribute | Metric |
|---|---|
| Light distance max | 150 m |
| Light distance med | 100 m |
| Light distance min | 45 m |
| Light modes | max, med, min |
| Lumen max | 1200 |
| Lumen med | 500 |
| Lumen min | 80 |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Weight battery | 116 g |
| Weight excl. battery | 114 g |
| Weight incl. battery | 230 g |
It’s a bit of a cliché to say, ‘this brand needs no introduction…’, but sometimes it really doesn’t. If you ever did scouts, guides or cadets, got epic blisters on a D of E expedition or went on an outward bounds residential, chances are you did it with a Silva compass in the pocket of your boil-in-the-bag cagoule.
Like so many world-changing inventions, the Silva compass began as a problem that needed solving. Back in the day, your standard compass wobbled all over the shop, making it tricky and time-consuming to get a decent reading. That is, until 1933, when four Swedes invented a liquid-filled compass. The resistance from the fluid slowed and stabilised the needle, meaning you could nail a reliable bearing in seconds. Navigation was never the same again.
But iconic as the compasses are, they’re only one part of the Silva story. They were one of the first companies to make reliable electric head torches for the outdoors, and they’ve also branched out into optics, trekking kit and other navigational gear. Tried and tested for the better part of a century, Silva’s precision instruments have literally been the difference between life and death for generations of outdoor adventurers – and as brand pedigree goes, that’s pretty much impossible to beat.
-Fabien, Verified Buyer
