Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp Review

The Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp is a high-quality, rugged waterproof headlamp with two white lenses plus a red, green, or blue light mode. It’s a versatile 450-lumen headlamp.

For this in-depth review, Man Makes Fire gear reviewer Chris Maxcer took the Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp elk and deer hunting in Idaho, as well as camping to test its real-world performance. To help you determine if the Aria 2 RGB is right for you, here is what he learned and here are his buying recommendations:

Review: Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp

My first experience with Petzl started with a similar previous generation Petzl headlamp that had red, green and blue modes: The now discontinued Petzl Tactikka series. It was rugged and had outstanding light quality. The new Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp retains a rugged build quality and excellent light quality — but it now has a new design with greater lumen output.

With the Aria 2 RGB, you get 450 lumens. For backpacking, night hiking, and hunting, 450 lumens is plenty of light for most people, most of the time. In fact, if you the buy the Aria 2 RGB, you’ll likely spend most of your time using it at lower lumen levels.

 

Light Modes & Quality

Let’s start with a closer look at the light output. Petzl is French company that got its start making innovative mountain climbing gear. Its headlamps are known for producing quality light.

In fact, Petzl has some of the highest quality lenses I’ve ever seen on relatively inexpensive headlamps. With the Aria 2 turned off, if you look closely at the lens assembly, you’ll see a shiny precision to the cone. The result is a beam pattern that is crisp and clean. In contrast, cheaper headlamps and flashlight often have dead spots or flares.

When you use the Aria 2 RGB in its white modes, whatever you’re looking at is fully covered in light. Plus, the color fidelity is very good.

Two White Lens Options

The Aria 2 RGB has two white lenses that that give you three key lighting settings. With a single button push, the smaller close-proximity lens turns on to give you just 7 lumens of light output. It’s great for everything up close and personal, like managing gear inside of a tent or retrieving a drink from a cooler. The 7-lumen output seems low, but it helps save your battery life so you’re not wasting it on power you don’t need.

A second button push will activate the second lens, giving you light from two lenses. It’s still relatively low-lumens — just 100-lumens combined. However, because the light quality is so good, the Aria 2 RGB is more useful to me than some competing headlamps that produce technically more lumens.

The surprisingly low lumen first output option lets you use less energy, saving your battery life for when you need it most

A third button press will bump the output of both white lenses up to 450-lumens.

What’s nice about the two-lens configuration is that you retain excellent proximity light but you also get more distance. So if you’re navigating a trail at night, you can easily see sticks, rocks, and roots right in front of you without a bunch or shadows or stark beam edges. The extra power lets you also see far down the trail. Petzl’s reported beam distance is 100 meters when using three AAA batteries. (Tip: In my experience, maximum beam distance is usually technically true, but if you want to see something in great detail, real-world illumination useful to humans out in the deep dark woods is usually about half a manufacturer’s reported distance.)

 

The RGB Modes

The key feature that makes the Aria 2 RGB Headlamp one of our 10 Best Headlamps for Hunting is its inclusion of red, green, and blue light modes. Typically, a red-light mode is used to protect your night vision while using it. You get just enough light to see by — and even navigate trails and forests in the dark.

Red light modes also don’t spook big game animals, so you can hike into a hunting spot in the dark to get where you need to be at dawn.

Some people see better with green or blue light modes, so having those options can help you navigate and work in the dark. If you turn off the Aria 2 RGB while it’s in a RGB mode, when you first turn it back on again, it’ll turn on the color mode you left it in last. This is handy so you don’t have to cycle through modes to return to the mode you likely want.

Core Specs

Max Lumens: 450
Max Beam Distance: 100 meters
Color Modes: RGB
Waterproof: Yes, IP67
Run Time: 2 hrs on high; 10 hrs on medium; 100 hrs on low
Batteries: 3 AAA
Weight: 3.7 oz

More Detail on Runtimes

All LED headlamps get dimmer as you use them as the batteries start to deplete. Consequently, you only get full power for a short time compared to the total runtime. With headlamps, most good manufacturers try to balance more powerful output with longevity to ensure that you don’t run completely out of light in a dangerous situation outdoors. Testing lumen output requires some serious lab equipment, but there is an industry standard that the best headlamp manufacturers tend to follow when it comes to reporting lumens and runtimes: The ANSI FL-1 Standard. If you want to learn more about it, head over to my Hunting Headlamp FAQ for some easy-to-understand explanations. Meanwhile, Petzl’s reported runtimes match up pretty closely to my experience using the Aria 2 RGB in the field during the testing and review process:

• Low White Mode: 7 lumens for 100 hours
• Standard White Mode: 100 lumens for 7 hours
• Max White Mode: 450 lumens for 2 hours
• RGB Modes: 4 lumens for 50 hours
• Emergency Strobe: Visible at 700 meters for 300 hours

Rugged & Waterproof

The Aria 2 RGB Headlamp has an IK07 shock rating with a 2-meter drop rating. This is important because it means the internal lens and electronics will stay put if you drop the headlamp. Cheap competition can more easily fail — and if you’re in the woods alone in the dark, you don’t want your headlamp to fail.

Meanwhile, you also get a solid IP67 waterproof rating, which means the headlamp is submersible down to a meter for up to 30 minutes. Better yet, it means you can wear the Aria 2 RGB in the rain and not worry about it. I tested the Aria 2 RGB in the rain — and dunked it out of curiosity — and it works as expected. No water entry inside the battery compartment.

 

Hybrid Battery Power

The more I use and test headlamps, the more I appreciate rechargeable battery options. Here’s why: I don’t like to head outside on a backpacking, rafting, or camping trip with half-full alkaline batteries. Sure, they have plenty of life in them, but if I really need to use a headlamp for something important, I want to start with a mostly full battery.

With rechargeable systems, it’s easy to top off the battery before critical situations. On the other hand, it’s not always easy to charge headlamps. So having replaceable batteries is important, too. Consequently, I really appreciate headlamps that have two energy sources available to them.

Petzl solves this challenge by letting you use the Aria 2 RGB with 3 AAA batteries or Petzl’s optional CORE battery packs.

The CORE battery pack is a 1250 mAh lithium-ion battery. They’re pretty handy, but most importantly, they don’t require a separate charging device: Each CORE battery has a built-in micro-USB port that you can plug your charging cord into. Plus, it has a built-in charge indicator so you know how full it is. Pretty cool.

Comfort

Comfort is comparable to other RGB headlamps in the 450-lumen output range: Pretty good but not fantastic.

Once you start reaching 450-lumen outputs, the headlamps tend to be larger with an increased depth. This means that the weight on your forehead extends out from your forehead, requiring more tension in the headband to keep the headlamp in place.

I found the Aria 2 RGB to be comfortable for a couple of hours or so. If you want ultimate comfort for longer periods, you’ll want to go with a lighter, less powerful headlamp.

Shop the Aria 2 at BlackOvis and get FREE shipping on orders over $50!

Aria 2 RGB vs Aria 1 RGB

The key difference between the Aria 2 RGB and the Aria 1 RGB is the number of lenses and resulting lumen output. The Aria 2 RGB has two white lenses while the Aria 1 RGB has one white lens. The Aria 2 RGB has a 450-lumen max output while the Aria 1 RGB has a 350-lumen max output. Aside from the lens difference, the housing is the same — and the weight is nearly identical.

 

Competitive Alternatives & Options

The Aria 2 RGB is a powerful and versatile headlamp — and it’s one of our top hunting headlamps. If you’re interested in the Aria 2 RGB, check out our in-depth guide to the best hunting headlamps for more detail or consider these similar headlamp options and competitive alternatives:

Black Diamond Storm 450 — The Black Diamond Storm 450 competes very closely to the Petzl Aria 2 RGB. It delivers a similar 450-lumen max output with clean, crisp light and is waterproof. Like the Aria 2 RGB, the Storm 450 has a rechargeable battery option as an alternative to 3 AAA batteries. The only drawback to the Black Diamond Storm 450 is that you need a special Black Diamond charger to recharge the Dual-Fuel BD 1500 Rechargeable batteries. The biggest benefit of the Storm 450 over the Aria 2 RGB is that it weighs a bit less.

Princeton Tec Vizz 550 RGB Headlamp — The Princeton Tec Vizz 550 RGB headlamp is similar in price and quality compared to the Aria 2 RGB. The biggest benefit is that it delivers a more powerful 550-lumen white beam and has a more powerful dual-lens red night vision mode. The Princeton Tec Vizz 550 RGB is also Made in America!

Black Diamond Spot 400 Headlamp — The Black Diamond Spot 400 Headlamp isn’t quite as powerful as the Aria 2 RGB, but it weighs almost a full ounce less. I really like and recommend the Black Diamond Spot 400 Headlamp for backpacking. When you use the rechargeable BD 1500 Li-ion battery, which is a separate accessory, the weight drops down to a svelte 2.54 oz. The only drawback is that the red light mode isn’t as powerful if you need it to navigate through a forest in the dark (and it does not have green or blue modes at all).

The Verdict

All-in-all, the Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp is a rugged, waterproof, easy-to-use headlamp with great red, green or blue light mode options. With two white LED bulbs and lenses built in, you get very good white light coverage that’s clean and crisp. At full power, the 450-lumen output makes navigating difficult terrain in the dark much easier than lower-output headlamps. Very highly recommended.

Get the Gear:

• Petzl Aria 2 RGB Headlamp
• Petzl CORE Rechargeable Battery Pack

Check Buying Options, Shipping & Pricing:

Amazon | BlackOvis | Scheels

Our Gear Review and Tester’s Specific Related Experience:

Chris Maxcer has tested and reviewed dozens of headlamps for Man Makes Fire. He’s personally used headlamps while backpacking, camping, fishing, hiking, and hunting. The most important factor in choosing a good headlamp is the quality of light output. The best headlamps have high-quality LED bulbs and lens constructions that deliver clean, crisp unbroken light. To test headlamps, Maxcer wears them in actual outdoor situations to understand how easy they are to use, how well the batteries perform, and to experience their beam characteristics firsthand. Of course, Maxcer has also written hundreds of in-depth outdoor gear reviews, including independent, first-hand reviews of fly fishing gear, camping gear, hunting gear, backpacking gear, and beach and water play gear. He believes the best way to understand a product is to use it in the real world for the kind of activity it was designed for.

Man Makes Fire publishes independent gear reviews, unencumbered by any requirements from any gear brand or manufacturer.