Petzl Tikka RXP Headlamp Customized Settings from Software?

I just bought the Tikka RXP and downloaded Petzl's customized software. First of all...what a bad ass headlamp! I have the Black Diamond Storm and I thought that was bright until I just did a route with a partner with the Tikka RXP. He was able to outshine my headlamp beam from 20-30 meters above me while we were rappelling throughout the night.

This will predominately be used for alpine climbing, so battery life is rather important. I bought an extra rechargeable battery pack as well as a AAA pack.

Has anyone played around with the custom settings and designed a series of settings they find more useful for alpine climbing than the preset modes? I don't necessarily see a reason to change it, but if people have opinions on other modes, I'd like to hear them!

I've had mine for a few months and have been meaning to set the lowest "dumb" mode to the minimum brightness for around camp. The smart mode is a pain when there are reflective objects or other headlamps.

One option to avoid buying the $30 battery pack (too late for you I guess) is to instead carry one of the portable battery packs for recharging your cellphone. The Petzl battery is 1,800 mAh, and those packs are around 5-10,000 mAh for $10-30. Not as useful for super long alpine push, but pretty convenient for a multi-day camping trip.

I set mine up to have a single level of bright reactive lighting which I use when hiking or climbing. I then have three levels of constant lighting for around camp.

The UI of this headlamp absolutely sucks and as much as I love the reactive lighting and rechargeable battery, I cannot recommend it and would not buy it again.

Josh Janes wrote:The UI of this headlamp absolutely sucks and as much as I love the reactive lighting and rechargeable battery, I cannot recommend it and would not buy it again.

Sadly I have to agree.. I thought it was just a stiff learning curve at first, but now I realize it's just bad.
It's nearly impossible to to figure out what setting it's on at any given time, especially when switching between reactive settings.
The "burst" mode of max brightness is useless because it turns itself off after like 10 seconds.
There's no lock and the light has turned on in my pack more than once.

All that said, it's pretty bright, USB charging is great, and reactive lighting is great a lot of the time. (except in camp) So I still use it.

To "lock" the light simply put a piece of paper between the bat and the lamp .... If in wet conditions wax paper or plastic works

Flip the bat out a bit and pull the paper when u want to use it

heres the settings i use for climbing ... roughly 20, 8 and 2 hour duration on reactive (spot) and flood

when doing technical rock climbing flood is quite useful as it allows you to see yr footholds well ... i find that on reactive there isnt enough flood unless its on the highest setting

the lowest reactive setting is quite useful as its enough for simple approaches and last ~20 hours



as to the UI ... theres simply no easy way around it ... its something you learn or you dont

im fine with it personally, but for night climbing these days i use my 18650 fenix because of the increased runtime and output for a small weight gain .... and because the UI is so stupidly simple that i can give it to any climbing partner and theyll figure it out in a few seconds

the biggest issue with the RXP is the small buttons ... its a biatch with gloves

;)