I’ve now had the Petzl Neox for about two weeks and have been able to form some opinions and test it in applications I’m most interested in. The most recent day I spent at the cliff with it was focused on seeing how it performed as a progress capture in an improvised hauling system and in a rope ascension system. Both these uses are important to me for assisting a seconding climber or rescuing an injured lead climber, and places where I would traditionally be using a Petzl GriGri. Here is some raw footage of this round of testing and some of my thoughts.

I assumed the Petzl Neox would work great for progress capture in this systems due to the spinning internal cog wheel and it definitely felt efficient in both the hauling scenario and the rope climbing scenario. I will be doing another round of comparisons with a more realistic full body weight load on the system but the fact the wheel still spun in my rope ascension test leads me to think it will still spin with a full load in a hauling system. This took me a little while to wrap my head around because you can seen when the device sees a full load while single strand rappelling the cam rotates, the wheel stops spinning, and you control your descent with the friction of the rope moving through the created bend. Why wouldn’t the wheel rotate and lock like that while using it as a progress capture?

The answer comes down to physics and while not having anything close to a degree in physics I can see how the device isn’t getting the full load in these scenarios. The full load is on the “tractor”, or friction hitch, or the Petzl Tibloc. When you go to pull slack through the Petzl Neox at that part of the cycle there is almost no weight on the device so the cam does not engage and the wheel spins freely reducing effort in hauling and ascending. When you relax during the hauling process all the load goes back to the Petzl Neox and the cam engages. Same with ascending, when you transfer your weight from your foot loop back to your harness the necessary threshold is exceeded and the cam engages. When you put your weight into your foot loop to progress the weight comes off the device and it is easier to pull the slack through the device then the Petzl GriGri.

Summary

It is still early in our broader exposure to this new belay device but the videos have been pouring out from influencers, highly certified guides, and rock star YouTuber’s. My opinion will likely evolve over the course of the summer as I put more days on the device, and expose more beginner climbers to it. For now I will re-iterate that I really like how easy it is to pull slack while belaying from above, and the more I think about it I do think this device may be in someways safer for a newer belayer as the instructions basically encourage you to not tough the device while paying out slack. This device may help prevent the holding open of the cam at risky moments which was likely part of the motivation of the anti-panic feature that came with the Petzl GriGri+.

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See you in the mountains!

I hope this information is helpful for your to make an informed decision. While Petzl supplied me with a Neox to review this is not a sponsored post. Affiliate links above help me continue to spend time creating these videos and posts and I thank you for your support!