Your New Allround Head Torch— Silva Trail Speed 5X

5 min readNov 11, 2021

Silva is a Swedish company established in 1933. Unfortunately, the company is not generally known outside the Nordics, but i am hoping that is about to change. Being situated far North, the Swedes knows a thing or two about operating in darkness. Silva made their first Head Torch already in 1935, making them one of the most experienced manufacturers in the world.

Silva named its first head torch Zeiler and the retail price was £0,8.

Despite a very early entry into the Head Torch market Silva is actually primarily know for their orienteering equipement — compasses in particular, where there are responsible for some of the most revolutionizing technology developments:

1933: Silva invents the first ever liquid filled compass with no restraints keeping the needle from swinging.
1939: Silva invents the first ever mirror sighting compass
1960: Silva invents the first ever wrist wearable compass
1982: Silva invents the first ever GPS with an integrated digital compass
2008: Intelligent Light Technology for the company’s head torches (more on that later)
2015: Flow Light Technology — seamless adjustment of light tuning based on headlamp tilt (more on this later as well)

When you are involved in the sport of orienteering industry in the Nordics, lighting quickly becomes a priority — creating the foundation for some of Silva’s head torch options. Below are my favorite versions of their head torches:

Trail Runner (400 lumen)

Notice how the cable is integrated into the headband

Cross Trail (600 lumen)

Trail Speed (1200 lumen)

Exceed (2000 lumen, 2300 on boost)

Which one to chose

Above you have my favorite headlamps in the Silva line up for activities with speeds over 10km/h or technical terrain. For lower speeds or easy terrain you can get away with less powerful head torches.

When choosing between these head torches there is one key tradeoff: Low weight and price vs high lighting output. The more powerful lamp you want the larger battery you generally need to carry (and the torch it self also becomes a bit heavier). Therefore your choice of head torch boils down to what you are going to use it for i.e. what speeds, and how technical is the terrain.

If you are only going to run in the dark on smooth surfaces (gravel or tarmac) then the lightest option is probably for you as 400 lumens should be sufficent. On the other end of the spectrum is offroad cycling in technical terrain. For this you will probably need the 2000 lumens offered by the Exceed.

The Silva Trail Speed 5X

If you are like me you are not only dedicated to one activity, you do some cycling, some running, some walking in a large variety of terrain. For running, the Exceed would be to heavy. The Trail Speed, however, is super lightweight when taking the long battery lifetime into consideration. Also, the Trail Speed (and most of Silva’s other head torches) comes in different variants based on the size of the battery pack. There you can basically choose the smallest battery that will be sufficient your needs. The Trail Speed 5X has the medium battery pack in the line of Trail Speed lights.

Long battery life of the Trail Speed 5x — note that Silva also takes the temperature into consideration — Great!

The weight of the battery of the Trail Speed 5x is not to heavy to carry on the head band. But if you prefer to carry it in you backpack or you are going to attach it to you helmet for biking, then you will find that extension cords and attachment options for helmets are included in the package.

The head torch is simply operated by a large button on the side of the head torch — and thank god — it can easily be operated using gloves.

What sets it apart from the competitors?

One word — build quality. If you are like me and get a good feeling from holding products that are built well of high quality materials, then i would recommend considering the Silva head torches, because this is a thing of beauty. Also the pricing is fairly good compared to other high end head torches like Lupine.

Also I promised to cover the Intelligent Light and Flow Light being some of Silva’s key innovations and also some of the headlamps key selling points

Intelligent Light

The technology behind Silva’s light sources is actually rather uncomplicated. Instead of just focusing on the technical aspect of light, we look through the human eye; aiming to create light beams that are adapted to how your eyes work in the dark. This will give you an optimized light for your activity. And this is what we call Silva Intelligent Light.

Silva Intelligent Light is a double light beam technology featured in all Silva headlamps. The unique combination of a long reach spotlight and a close flood-light results in less head movement, better control, improved balance, less fatigue and higher speed.

Flow Light

As Silva states itself, the Intelligent Light is rather uncomplicated (but still super important). When it comes to the Flow Light however, there is a bit more magic involved.

Silva Flow Light is an ingenious feature that gives you several versions of Silva Intelligent Light in the same headlamp. Developed for multi-activity users, and featured in all our multi-activity headlamps, it enable seamless tuning of the light image for different activities by simply tilting the light up or down. When pointed downwards, the light beam becomes wider and optimized for slower activities. Pointed forward, the light beam gets longer and optimized for faster activities.

You can se the flow light explained even better in video format here: Silva Flow Light on Vimeo

Summary

To summarize, the Silva Trail Speed 5X is simply a great little light punching way over its weight class (and battery time). Fantastic build quality and awesome light dynamics makes this one of the absolutely best headlamps in the space.