Fixe recently came out with the newest rendition of the Alien cam, the Revolution (not to be confused with the 2015 Evolution model). It seems the idea behind the redesign of the updated cam was to address a few of the flaws or issues that they’d been experiencing. Namely the trigger wires fraying and the trigger sleeve detaching. A more detailed description and some photos of these issues can be seen here on a past review.
So what are the main changes (improvements) between from the Alien Evolution and the new Revolution?
First, the woven trigger wires/cables have been replaced with solid wires. Much more durable and will eliminate the fraying issue.
Second, the plastic trigger and trigger bar are now aluminum. I’m assuming that this return to the original design is to address the issue of the trigger sleeve detaching from the either the trigger or the trigger bar. I haven’t had any issues with my new Alien yet but time will tell.
Lastly, the trigger sleeve is no longer color coded to the cam size but the trigger bar is. A nice change in that it makes the Revolution and Evolution models easy to differentiate.
I was curious and so checked the weight of the yellow (3/4”) size cams and found that the Revolution is 1g lighter than the Evolution. So basically they still weigh the same.
Summary:
Not a huge change but rather a finessing of the new design. But after all the warranty issues with the Evolution I can understand why Fixe wanted to rebrand.
Pros: Light with a very flexible stem, they work exceptionally well in thin cracks and pins scars.
Cons: The new Revolution model has yet to be proven, at the time of this post anyway, but is on the right track. There are no cam stops so the lobes can flip in soft rock.
Overall: This redesign seems to address all the issues experienced by its predecessor while maintaining the features that made it popular in the first place. If granite or basalt trad climbing is your thing the Alien is hard to beat.
I wrote a number of other articles on the Alien cam if you want some more information about the new design and the issues experienced:
June 16 2015: Field Tested – Alien Evolution Cams
