Come On, Optrel. You're Better Than This!
October 28, 2020
This review is from a professional engineer and technical writer with 30+ years experience. Just a quickly written opinion, nothing more.
It's a 5-star helmet with 2-star documentation and manual. The Helmet works great. It is very comfortable, lightweight and well designed. However, substandard documentation and website degrade the initial value, and may prevent users from getting the most from this helmet.
This helmet lives up the hype. It's very comfortable, easily adjustable, and of high quality. The headband/headgear is incredible, and easily one of best available. The helmet provides an extremely clear view and the auto-shade feature is a great benefit. Colors are great, the view is large without eye strain, and the puddle is easy to see. As a professional, I recommend this helmet based on performance and engineering, but only with a caution regarding Customer Support doubts, inadequate owners manual, and a poorly designed web site.
I have doubts regarding their customer service support should it be required. This is due to the amateurish documentation that came with the thing. Likewise, their website is substandard relative to their competition.
For this price point, they should have done a better job with documentation and owners manual. The "manual" is mostly drawings with substandard minimal explanations, or none at all. It is black and white, printed on copy paper, and folded in half with a couple staples down the middle to make a binding of sorts. The printed/typed part of the manual is mediocre with little more than a bunch of warnings/safety stuff. Explanations are minimal and in SMALL print, but easier to read with magnification and bright light.
The list of countries on their registration dropdown menu is not alphabetized, so it's a hunt. It almost seems they intentionally made it more difficult for Americans and her millions of welders/fabricators/farmers/mechanics & etc.. Perhaps Optrel doesn't consider us worthy of the effort? Still a good helmet regardless.
