ZAED - titanium

Way better than the Ohm.

My wife and myself (25kg difference in weight) have been using the Ohm for many years but have been hoping someone would create a better solution to the standing issues with the Ohm (rope drag when leading, hard catches, difficult to lower smoothly on moderate slab climbs, no adjustability for belay/climber weight differences, and the weight). The Zaed solves all of these issues.

The first time I used the Zaed on lead I couldn't believe how smooth the rope pull was to clip into pro. You know you are using an Ohm on lead as there is always some induced drag even with our smallish 9.2mm and 9.5mm ropes. There have been many times when I have tried to quickly pull up rope to make a stressful clip and the Ohm would prematurely lock up. The Zaed runs super smooth and those stressful, quick rope pull-to- clip are now super easy and frustration free. Lowering, regardless of the pitch of the route (mellow slab to overhangs) is very smooth and effortless. A huge issue for us when using the Ohm on moderate slab climbs, the Ohm would easily lock up when she would lower me off a route. My wife would have to force feed rope out of her belay device to attempt to disengage the Ohm. This always resulted in very slow and lurching lowers. No such issues with the Zaed!

When we did some initial fall and catch testing the device indoors, my wife could finally give me a soft catch using the Zaed. No matter how hard my wife tried to soft catch using the Ohm, invariably the Ohm would lock up quicker than we could like and bring me to an abrupt halt. Now with the Zaed, catches feel smooth and soft!

We love the adjustability and weight savings of the Zaed. My wife appreciates that ability to adjust the resistance based on different climber weight differences as she belays many of our friends when climbing. Having the Zaed TI version saved us 185 grams over the Ohm setup. Always nice to shed some weight on those long approaches!

The Zaed is now a permanent part of our climbing gear. Thanks Zaed for making a great piece of climbing equipment!

Excellent device no comparison to the Edelrid Ohm. My partner is 30 Kilos less than me and i can finally project routes without having the fall in mind and whether she will hurt her feet or whether I will drop too low. You can belay naturally, give soft catches like normal and it won’t block if the climber takes rope too quickly.
We tried it in caves and vertical routes up too 8a and there are no problems. It also reduces the climbers weight(for the belayer) when lowering after the climb.
The only drawback was the rubber band but from what I read this problem has been solved

The adjustable belay resistor allows my lightweight wife to belay me about 2o kg heavier). It allows her to belaying soft. It is very easy to use. But imo it is not for beginners in belaying because some experience in soft belaying is necessary.

I tried the Titanium version and like the light weight. So far, I like the ZAED the most compared to Ohm (due to dynamic arrest, non unwillingly blocking and adjustibility in 3 steps!) and Bauer 1 (to be fair, need to test the Zorro still). I'd advise a better visibility of the icons of belayer/hand on the device. The Website is really cool and one sees the efforts, you've put into it; especially the chart showing weight differences/absolute weights. Maybe a shematic "inside" view showing the functioning principle could improve it more. So, all in all-veery nice :-) keep on going^^