Headlamp
Petzl NAO
$175, 7 oz.
petzl.com
Stepping outside my tent during a black night in Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness, I turned in the direction of our food stuff sacks hanging from a tree more than 300 feet away—and saw them lit up brightly in the beam of this headlamp. Then I swung my gaze back to the ground before me to watch where I was walking, and the Nao’s beam instantly switched over to wide-area mode, brightly illuminating a broad perimeter around me. And it did this without me touching the device.