PIEPS
Lebring, Austria — avalanche beacons with roots to 1972, a Black Diamond parent, and a recall story every buyer deserves to read before trusting one.
PIEPS is the Austrian avalanche-safety house — transceivers, probes, shovels — owned by Black Diamond since 2012, with roots its parent dates to 1972. This page exists for a harder reason than most: the DSP transceiver recall of April 2021, which followed reports that a beacon's switch could leave send mode when it mattered most, and which arrived, in critics' view, slower than it should have. Our About page promises that a recall response tells you more about a company than the product page ever will. Here is that promise kept, in full, and then the current products on their own merits.
- 2012Black Diamond acquires PIEPS from the SEIDEL Group
- 66,100US units in the April 2021 DSP transceiver recall, per CPSC
- 2013–2020Manufacturing window of the affected DSP models
What we'd reach for
- Pro IPSThe current top transceiver line — the modern interface generation, designed after the DSP era's lessons.
- Powder BTThe mainstream three-antenna beacon with Bluetooth for firmware and checks.
- Micro BTThe compact line — verify current catalog status before relying on it.
- Probe Carbon 240The probe is not an accessory; it is how a signal becomes a shovel site. Carbon for the counting-grams crowd, aluminum for everyone.
- Shovel lineHardened blades sized to move avalanche debris, which behaves like concrete, not powder.
- JetForce packsThe airbag side, co-branded with Black Diamond — check the current catalog for what lives under which logo.
Our About page makes a promise: the recall response tells you more about a company than the product page ever will. PIEPS is where this site keeps that promise in full, because if you are trusting your burial to a beacon, you deserve the whole story before the spec sheet.
The DSP recall, plainly
On April 12, 2021, the CPSC announced the recall of the PIEPS DSP Pro, DSP Pro Ice and DSP Sport avalanche transceivers — about 66,100 units in the US and 12,500 in Canada, manufactured between 2013 and 2020 in Austria.
The hazard was the one an avalanche beacon exists to never have: the mode switch could move out of send unexpectedly if not locked or properly secured — meaning a buried skier’s beacon could be transmitting nothing while their partners searched. The CPSC notice records 65 incident reports, one death, and one injury report. The remedy was to stop using the beacon and obtain a replacement hardcase carrying system that keeps the switch locked in send.
Two more things belong in the record. PIEPS maintained that its testing showed the devices complied with the applicable standards — and issued the corrective action anyway. And the loudest criticism, from within the backcountry community, was not that a defect can exist, but that the response came too slowly after earlier accident reports had raised the alarm. Both statements are true at once, and a buyer weighing this brand should hold both.
That is the story. We won’t sand it down, and we won’t pretend the current catalog is disqualified by it either. What a recall like this buys, at terrible cost, is a company — and an industry — redesigning around the failure: the current generations lock differently, and the carrying-system thinking changed across the category.
Who PIEPS is now
PIEPS is Austrian avalanche safety with roots its parent dates to 1972 — the name itself is onomatopoeia for a beacon’s chirp — restructured in 2006 and acquired by Black Diamond in 2012. That makes it corporate family with a roster brand: Black Diamond and PIEPS share the Clarus parent, and the strategic review Clarus opened in May 2026 hangs over both — the same ownership watch we keep on half this site.
The current line is the Pro IPS at the top, the Powder BT mainstream three-antenna beacon, probes in carbon and aluminum, and shovels with blades sized for debris that sets like concrete. The direct competitor is Mammut’s Barryvox — and if the recall history has cost PIEPS your trust, that is the honest place we’d send you. Beacon buyers compare trust before features, and they are right to.
The kit is three things, trained
A transceiver alone digs no one out. The purchase is beacon, probe and shovel, and the skill is practiced together — a signal search that ends without a probe strike and fast shoveling is a eulogy with electronics. Whatever brand’s beacon is on your chest, the practice sessions are the actual life-safety equipment.
Where PIEPS fits
Backcountry skiers and riders assembling the three-piece kit, eyes open, comparing against Barryvox on interface and group-check behavior as much as price.
Not for: anyone who wants the least complicated trust story in the category — that buyer goes to Mammut, and this page just told them so. Not for resort skiers who will never cross a boundary rope; the money belongs in lessons first.
Why we rate them — carefully
The current products compete on merit. The Pro IPS generation is a modern beacon family, designed after the hardest possible lesson.
The category is better for the scrutiny. The DSP episode changed how the whole industry thinks about switch security, and PIEPS absorbed that change rather than exiting.
And the caveat stands in full. One death is in the record. This page led with it, because a safety brand’s history is part of its specification — and because a site that promised to read recall responses owes you this one unabridged.
When a buyer has read all of the above and still chooses PIEPS, they’ve chosen it the only way this site endorses: informed.