The Best Avalanche Transceivers of 2025
With ever-cleverer options and improving tech, which potentially life-saving ski avalanche transceiver should you invest in?
BCA TRACKER 4
£350
The super-speedy, easy-to-use BCA Tracker 4 functions similarly to its predecessor, the Tracker 3, but comes with a durable rubberised over-moulded case and a larger LED screen, making it ideal for use on bright sunny days and for users wearing polarised lenses. All the latest features for a ski transceiver are here, including Signal Suppression and Big Picture modes for no-nonsense multiple-victim searching, multiple burial and close-proximity indicators, and a motion-sensing auto revert-to-transmit mode. It also comes with a mini USB port for software updates. Simple, slick and efficient, and most importantly – FAST.
Visit: backcountryaccess.com
BLACK DIAMOND GUIDE BLUETOOTH
£385
The feature-laden Guide BT is a pro-level ski transceiver with a 60m circular search range, and Bluetooth connectivity to manage updates, settings and to use the superb training mode. Training is the key to efficient transceiver use in stressful situations, so this feature proves exceedingly useful. The app you connect to is by Pieps, Black Diamond’s sister brand, and it’s easy to use. Features of the Guide BT include a mark and scan function for multiple-burial situations, digital signal processing to pick up beacons transmitting with drifting signals, continuous carrier mode for use with older analogue units, and an integrated inclinometer to check your slope angle. There’s more, but this is the stuff that really counts. It comes with a slim, comfortable harness.
Visit: blackdiamondequipment.com
MAMMUT BARRYVOX
£290
Simple, durable and intuitive, the regular Barryvox remains one of the best ski avalanche transceivers out there. With a 70m search strip width, large and easy-to-read display, acoustic search guidance, multiple-burial function, reverse direction alert, auto revert to transmit after four minutes, and an accessible price tag, it’s hard to look beyond it for the majority of backcountry users. They’re bringing out a new style for this season, called Barryvox 2, but we’ve not tested it yet. It will cost £330.
Visit: mammut.com
ORTOVOX DIRACT VOICE
£340
Bringing ski transceiver features into the 21st century, the Diract Voice uses voice guidance to alert you to any mistakes and keep you on track in the fine search phase. From self-check to group, to send mode and beyond, the Diract Voice tells you what to do and how to do it. Voice guidance aside, there are heaps of other impressive new features, including a super-rapid processing speed, in-built rechargeable low-temperature battery, a protected on/off button that prevents accidental switches between search/send modes, Bluetooth connection to your ski transceiver for updates and training, via the app, and a slim and intuitive harness. Also available in the less-chatty Diract without voice navigation (£300).
Visit: ortovox.com
PIEPS PRO IPS
£450
IPS stands for ‘Interference Protection System’ and electronic interference for transceivers is a thing – believe it. This is not the first device to recognise this, but it is currently the best in class for managing and mitigating the effects. It’s so easy to use, with intuitive controls. The length of the flip-up aerial ensures you get at least 10m more range, when compared to other devices in standard tests. The clever software also copes with interference when sending, so you can still be found. There’s excellent feedback when searching, telling you if interference means you need to reduce your search strip widths. This is best-in-class for keeping up as you sprint to find the burial. Add this to a host of great features and you have a supremely capable device.
Visit: pieps.com
GUIDE TO Your next ski avalanche transceiver
In a world of updates and latest models, it amazes us that folks will spend a fortune on the latest phone; yet trust their lives to cheap outdated tech. Time to upgrade your transceiver? Here are the golden rules:
1. The Rule of Three
Anything other than a modern three-aerial digital device is now defunct. End of!
2. Latest and Greatest ski avalanche transceiver
The latest devices work faster, as well as better. While processing speed is invisible, the performance and results are all too obvious, so do your research and buy the latest model. Get the best you can afford; some bits of kit are not worth skimping on.
3. Interference is a Thing
Now we know it, make sure you buy a device that can handle it; or develop a plan to space out your tech and mitigate against it.
4. Buy What You Need
You might not need all those amazing ‘pro features’. For many of us, the simpler models are more appropriate, cheaper and can be less complicated to use than the top-of-the-range, tech-laden versions. You’ve also got to carry this with you when skiing, so bulk and weight are areas where brands have improved things a lot in recent seasons.
5. Find a Brand That Suits You
Try before you buy if you can, as every brand has a philosophy in terms of priority and interface. Be honest; are you a disciplined team, needing to prioritise speedy single burials? Or if you may blunder into a group multi-burial event, check out the flagging functions. Have you done your training and want quick and simple feedback – or do you need all the help you can get?
6. Signal Range fro your
This is where the wild claims of the manufacturer and our experience (of many skiers, with all sorts of devices) vary massively. Make sure you read reviews where the testers have actually tried them out. If in doubt, the Mammut Barryvox devices consistently win this one, in my experience, although the new Pieps IPS looks to be promising.
7. Follow Up
Make sure you register your purchase with the manufacturer and know the service intervals (and follow up on them). It needs to work all the time, every time. Some brands use Bluetooth and apps to enable performance checks, software updates and even tutorials, via your phone.
