The Skylotec Sirius is a relatively new descender and probably the first to give the Petzl I’D proper competition. Not only is it smaller than the I’D so it fits perfectly in your hand, but it’s lighter, which is remarkable considering it’s made completely of metal.

It is compact, tough with a very smooth action combined with an impressive feature set that offers increased capability and safety.

It incorporates an anti-panic feature that stops descent if the handle is pulled back too far – however the sweet spot is really easy to hit and maintain – this avoids the jerkiness that can frustrate use with other devices.

The handle auto-locks when released and so avoids the need to deliberately lock off the descender. The handle has a safety latch that stops accidental release and a hole at its tip that will take a cord - this in combination with a carabiner in the top becket allows the Sirius to be towed down the rope in a rescue situation.

Rope insertion is very intuitive and the design of the locking cam means that it resists the rope being inserted incorrectly – you have to try to deliberately override the cam to do so.

The route of the rope through the device prevents rope twisting and kinking. This also makes the descender very smooth to use and pulling rope through (i.e. if using as part of an ascending system) is really easy.

The rope can be loaded without removing the device from the harness.

The descender is certified to 250kg under EN 12481-2006 C for rescue loads and 141kg for single operators.