I have gone through a lot of headlamps in my time. As a multi-day river guide for over a decade, I spent huge parts of my seasons working by headlamp. Whether I was filling buckets of river water for dishes or rowing the last couple of miles to camp in the dark on dead-heads, I can appreciate the features of a headlamp that matter. I also have disdain for the fluff of nonsense when it comes to equipment that I use often. The storm has some things I really love, and some things I really dislike. My gear bag, along with my storm headlamp, was stolen while travelling. When I got home, I bought the same headlamp. There are a few reasons why.

The most important quality, besides brightness in this headlamp, is the recharging capability. I HATE throwing away a bunch of bullshit AAA batteries all season long as my headlamp slowly dies. Like a frog in water, you didn’t realize you were groping around in near darkness until you put a new set of batteries in, only to blind everyone around you. The old batteries get lost or mixed up with good batteries in your drybag, then go in the landfill eventually. Nobody is ever on top of it enough to collect ALL of their batteries and take them to the special battery recycling place, except for that one annoying friend that makes you feel bad about yourself for not being a better human….long story short….I like the easy-to-find charging chord that lets me plug this sucker in before I leave the house, or use a small power bank while out on long trips, or simply plug into the truck on my way to trailhead. You can blind all your friends or coworkers all season long without needing to buy batteries. It’s like having a fresh set of batteries anytime you want w/o the guilt!

The STORM boasts a super bright MAX setting of 500lumens, 250 on Medium, and 6 on the lowest setting. There are brighter headlamps out there, but the clunkiness goes up and so does the weight.

I think that the brightness of this headlamp is totally sufficient for anything I’ve been doing in the depths of the night, especially when considering the weight ratio. It never feels too cumbersome, even when I’m bouncing up and down, like on a run. I have tracked, skinned and packed elk out in the middle of the night for upwards of 5 hours with this headlamp. I have trail run in the winter months after work. I’ve spotted a cougar that was stalking me from a long ways off during a spring kayaking trip while hiking back from a hot-spring with this headlamp. I continued to make its eyes out from well over a hundred yards up the hill as it stalked away…contemplating how to come back and eat me. I’ve mountain biked to work early in the morning on singletrack with this headlamp. The point is, I have never felt like I need more lumens. Most of the time I am on Medium and low settings because the high setting seems so intense some times.

BD claims you can get 7 hours of burn time out of the highest setting, 19hours on medium and 350 hours on low. I have not tested that specifically, but I can say that I have never run out of battery for all the time I have spent using this headlamp. I have gone for week long kayaking and rafting trips w/o dropping 2/3rds of the battery.

The Storm comes with a battery gauge in the form of 3 lights that blink momentarily when turning it off and on. It’s also annoying. More on this later. The storm also has a ‘Lock’ mode on it, which feels absolutely mandatory now-a-days. I still have a backup 1st aid kit headlamp w/ batteries that I flip the batteries inside of in order to prevent it from accidently turning on and being dead when I need it in an emergency. The lock takes a little getting used to but it’s not bad. No ‘lock mode’ is a nonstarter otherwise.

The storm also has a pretty bright red light for navigating the beach back to your tent, and it turns down quite low for when you are trying to sneak back into the tent but not wake up your spouse or 18 month old baby sleeping next to them when crawling in. Yeah there is a green and blue light, but does anyone use those? Honestly? Same friend who always recycles their batteries?

Recap.

• It’s bright, like plenty bright.
• The battery can go the distance and is easy to recharge on the go.
• The red light has nice settings on both ends of the spectrum
• The lumen/weight ratio is great
• The recharging factor keeps me from going through so many batteries.
• The headstrap is comfy but it does a nice job of securing the torch, even when running sprints at night.
• It has a battery gauge to let you know how much charge is left.
• Lock Button
• Water Proof at 3ft for 30 minutes

Let’s get into the FLUFF, i.e the things that suck about this headlamp.

First off, BD is trying to do TOO MUCH with this whole ‘PowerTap’ technology. They took the desk lamps that you would accidentally bump and turn on as a kid, and integrated it into a headlamp. The headlamp will toggle between a casual ‘dishes-in-the-dark’ setting and a “SOS I’M DOWN HERE HELICOPTER!!!!” setting with just a slight brush of your hand that will leave everyone blinded for 3 minutes. It was nice in the mountain lion moment however. The Tap thing is also redundant since just holding the main button down, toggles between bright and dim settings. It does takes a whole 2.5 seconds to do it that way though….

Next rub? The ‘charge indicator LEDs’ stay on for what feels like an eternity after you turn the light off. This wouldn’t be an issue if the LEDS weren’t excessively bright and mounted on the bottom side of the headlamp i.e one inch from your eyeballs. There is a blue glow in your eyes for 5 seconds every time you turn the headlamp off. Not a dealbreaker, but still annoying over time. I keep telling myself that I’m going to place some tape over both the LEDs and the ‘PowerTap’ button and see if that improves the situation. Instead, I just keep bit#hing about it.

Last up, you have to hold down both buttons to lock and unlock the light. This honestly isn’t a rub to me, considering I want to make sure the battery isn’t dead when I need it. I did however watch my spouse, exhausted from chasing a toddler for 5 days on a river trip, walk off into the darkness rather than bother with the unlock mechanism because it was just mentally taxing to deal with it after I scratched my forehead and blinded her.

Rub Recap

• TapTechnology on a headlamp with buttons your literally tap already…is nonsense.
• The LEDs for the charge indicator shine directly in your eyes for an eternity….5 or so seconds.
• Some less “technically inclined” folks may find the ‘lock mode’ cumbersome.

This headlamp is great for most folks that are playing in the woods, on overnight trips, camping, trail running, night skiing back to the yurt or working on the plumbing under the sink. It is a great do it all headlamp w/ recharging capabilities that is also quite good when it comes to durability and water resistance. I would like it to have a universal chord that the industry seems to be going towards. It can roll around in your gearbag all season and you don’t have to worry about it. If it falls in the creek for a bit or you get caught out in the nuking rain, its going to do just fine. If you are sick of buying/throwing away batteries, this is a great option. If you like being able to toggle between cougar spotting and sneaking into the tent, it’s a great option. If you find yourself standing in front of a wall of headlamps for your next trip, don’t hesitate to grab this one up unless you have hyper specific specs or you are considering giving it to a child…in that case…everyone will be blinded all trip. Give them something like the BD WizKid or better yet, the petzl TIKKID, which does not have a strobe option, only goes to 20 lumens, and shuts off after 1-hour automatically. Deep dive in a future review.