Lifeguard

a lot of rope twisting can be avoid by keeping the rope path in one plane. all grigri style belay devices i know apply this improvement except for the grigri itself for unknown reasons. they are the edelrid pinch, the camp matik, the mad rock lifeguard, and the beal birdie.

I’ve tried them all. My favorite is the regular grigri for the gym and the mad rock lifeguard for outdoors trad and sport. (The mad rock is smaller, so less weight to carry.)

The Giga Jul is certainly more versatile and is the same price at REI with the sale right now, so it’s def a good choice. In my personal opinion though i’m not a huge fan of it, it’s definitely got a learning curve to use and I think that the guide mode has more friction than for an atc. Nowadays on

Grigri for assisted braking. There are some devices that are like 10% better than a grigri in certain aspects but for all-around versatility, safety, and quality control they're the standard for a reason. With that said, ABD's from reputable manufacturers are good and safe too (e.g. Trango Vergo, Be

I'll refer you to two websites for curring and historic climbing devices. Probably not a exhaustive list, but: https://weighmyrack.com/belay-device http://www.verticalmuseum.com/VerticalDevicesPage/Belayers.php It would be nice to take a depth look into the history and current belay devices about th