When I heard Petzl introduced the Neox, a new belay device that looked like a Grigri, but wasn’t a Grigri, I was skeptical. In fact, I made a joke by congratulating Petzl for joining every other gear company in now knowing what it means to try but fail to make a belay device that’s better than the Grigri.
Having spent some time testing out the Neox, I’m going to have to eat those words a little bit. The Petzl Neox isn’t quite a Grigri killer, but it’s close. And for what it does well—lead belaying single-pitch sport climbing—it’s my new go-to.
But I’m still hanging onto my Grigri. In fact, I keep both devices in my pack.
What makes the Petzl Neox different?
At first glance, the Grigri and Neox appear similar, with only a few cosmetic differences on their external plates. However, the real difference lies within: the Neox features a spinning wheel that facilitates smooth rope feeding. When sufficient force is applied, such as when the climber falls or hangs, the wheel stops spinning and then the Neox essentially transforms into a Grigri. The frictional forces exerted by the rope on the central wheel/cam push it into a block, pinching the brake side of the rope and preventing further slippage.
Before using the Neox, I had one concern: would it perform as effectively as the Grigri in “auto-locking” falls and holding a hanging climber? I wondered if the warnings on the Neox device itself and in the marketing materials, which advised against taking the brake hand off the rope, implied that the Neox might be somehow less reliable in this area compared to the Grigri.
But having tested it over the past month, I’ve let those anxieties go. And I feel pretty confident in saying that the Neox is just as reliable at catching falls and holding hanging climbers as the Grigri.
Using the Neox
The only significant and noteworthy advantage of the Neox over the Grigri is evident when feeding slack to a lead climber. Subjectively, I would say that the Neox feeds slack roughly twice as effectively as the Grigri. It simply flows out of the device, and in fact, you can release slack so quickly that you could almost lose your brake hand’s grip on the rope if you’re not careful.
With the Neox, I’ve never encountered the unfortunate situation of the device accidentally locking up, which can sometimes happen with the Grigri, especially if you’re not skilled in the right belay technique.
Using the Neox, I thought about climbing with my friend Joe Kinder. Like many high-end climbers, he both climbs and clips really fast. Over the years, I feel as if I’ve definitely shorted him on a clip or two and I realized that this device is the one I’d want to use when belaying climbers like him.
Still, I was reticent to abandon the over 20 years of trust that I have invested in my Grigri. I kept the Neox in my pack, thinking I’d only break it out when I’m climbing with people like Joe, deploying it for those crucial redpoint belays when you don’t want to short-rope your climber.
But upon switching back to the Grigri, I found myself … annoyed. Once you get used to how smooth the Neox’s feed is, going back to the Grigri kinda sucks. It’s like turning off the pedal assist on an electric bike.
Beyond delivering slack to a leader, the Neox more or less performed exactly the same as a Grigri. Catching falls and lowering climbers—no notable differences at all.
There’s a difference, however, when you winch up on the rope to help a fallen climber regain their high point. With the Neox, you’ll hear a click-click-click sound when you pull up on the brake side of the rope to take up slack. This clicking sound is simply the wheel spinning in the opposite direction: the little ridges on the wheel rub against the block during the winching motion. It seems like this sound surprises some climbers, possibly even making them worried that something might be wrong with the device, but it’s not. It’s normal and not a big deal. Beyond the noise itself, there’s no performance difference with the Grigri.
Belay technique
Because the Grigri can make it hard to quickly deliver slack to a leader, Petzl developed a recommended belay technique with the device, in which you keep the brake side of the rope in the crease of your brake hand, hook your pointer finger under the ridge of the lowering plate, and use your thumb to gently depress the cam/lever to stop it from engaging, allowing the rope to pull out of the device freely.
The Grigri is going to work every time unless you somehow prevent it from doing so, which means touching the device. Every Grigri accident that has happened over the years has been the result of a climber somehow preventing the cam from engaging. If you grip the device in your hand and use all four fingers to hold down the cam / lever, you actually have enough leverage to prevent the device from locking up.
The tendency toward this particular form of user error has given the Grigri an unfortunate reputation. For some reason, the subtleties of the hand positions while using the device have been hard to convey, and people routinely screw this up, even if they get away with it. Indeed, I still see many accomplished climbers holding down the Grigri’s cam / lever while belaying leaders throughout the entire belay.
The Neox seems to be an attempt to solve this issue by creating a device that is so easy to pay out slack that you never actually need to touch the device. Even though I, a confident Grigri user, feel as though the Neox is solving a problem that isn’t exactly relevant to me, I think this is a huge step forward. It’s an improvement that will benefit climbing at the population level, going a long way toward reducing the kind of user-error accidents that we’ve seen with the Grigri.
If you’re an ATC user, who hasn’t upgraded to a Grigri yet, just get the Neox and use your normal belay technique. If you’re a Grigri user, however, you’ll need to unlearn the so-called “approved Grigri technique” that I described above, and use the Neox as if it’s an ATC. This transition shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s worth mentioning.
Where the Grigri reigns
The Grigri still has a place. It performs better for top-rope belaying and rappelling—but only marginally so. The Petzl site describes the 4cm of slippage that can occur when pulling up slack due to the wheel spinning one click before it locks down. Is this a deal breaker for top-rope belaying? In my opinion, no—but still, the Grigri is technically better here.
The Grigri is also noticeably lighter and slightly cheaper, if those things are important. (REI has the Neox on sale until May 26th—affiliate link).
For rappelling, I like the smoother action of the Grigri more than the Neox. And if you’re using a device alongside an ascender to go up a rope, the Grigri is also better here because it doesn’t have the slippage / clicking issue that you get with the Neox.
Essentially, I’ll always choose to bring a Grigri up a multi-pitch or big wall before the Neox. (Check out this article for information about belaying a second climber using either a Neox or Grigri.)
I’m interested to see whether dirt and grime end up affecting the Neox wheel’s performance over the long term, requiring periodic maintenance and cleaning. I am also waiting to see what kind of accidents might happen with this device as climbers reliably find new and creative ways to misuse their gear. But so far, a year into the Neox, I haven’t heard of one yet.
Kudos to Petzl for coming up with a piece of gear that won me over, and has become my new go-to for single-pitch sport climbing.
Petzl Neox
- Integrated wheel makes slack payout fast and fluid, especially useful when lead belaying through clips.
- Lowering is smooth and controlled, thanks to an ergonomic handle and a 3:1 mechanical advantage that reduces effort across rope diameters.
- Compatible with 8.5–11 mm single ropes (optimized for 8.9–10.5 mm), with easy rope installation and eco-designed components made from recycled nylon.
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