Customer Reviews

Night Owl 3.1x Discovery Night Vision Monocular w/I/R Illuminator

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this from Amazon and am thoroughly impressed. The field of view is fine, and you can see a ton of detail within a reasonable range. I turned out the lights in my room, looked out the window with it at my pool (20 feet away) and saw ripples in the water. I aimed it up at the sky, and saw a line of incoming airline traffic that I couldn't see otherwise. I took it down to the basement -- pitch black -- used the infrared illuminator and could read the text off boxes. Taking it outside, I could see clearly the houses across the street, cars, dogs outside -- just a ton of stuff. Remove the gear from my eye and I can see little to nothing. The thing's a beaut.

My only concerns are about how long it will last and hold up. Light damages this type of technology if handled improperly, and I'm hoping that generally careful use and no abuse will keep this thing purring for a long time. The power source is convenient too --- two double AA's are all you need.

I bought this item over a year ago, and it has never served for anything. Once I spotted a deer and turned on the "IR" illuminator, and the deer ran away - not too surprising, it is actually a red light and totally visible for most animals. Better use a flashlight. This is a first-generation nightscope, and has a very small range of utility: If there is a little light, the adapted human eye sees better, and if there is almost no light the device does not see either. 100 bucks is not too much of a waste, but if you are serious about nightvision you should spend about 10 times as much.

The field of vision is too small for any useful viewing. If you already know where your object is in the dark, then you can point this device towards the object and view it in dark. But if you are searching for an object in the dark, the small field of vision makes the search useless.

Also, there is too much "noise" in the image, thus making it very difficult to recognize the object that you are viewing.

The IR makes the field of vision even smaller.

Overall I did not find this device useful even for ordinary pleasure viewing.

By the way, if you own a camcorder with night-view, you already know how how the objects look in the dark. You can use your camcorder's night view feature instead of buying this expensive device

I got one of this and I really love, its not the best one, you know, but for the price, I paid $91.00 used one. But it works very good out side, in closed area the bright light can really be unpleasant for your eyes. but you really can see in complete darkness so that is the point of the IR. I can see a clock against wall in my living room im complete darkness at 24 four feet. And the diopter has very good focus, very clear picture.This one is better than Yukon NVMT 4x50mm gen 1st (Mfr#24027) because I bought both and returned the Yukon.

Not bad, on the whole, for watching wildlife in the dark. Good illumination and nice balance between magnification, field of view, and use w/o a tripod. Sharpness falls off at the edges of the viewing area. I could recommend this to wildlife watchers who might be considering their first night-vision device. Since this was my first, I have no comparative information on whether there might be better ones out there.

The Night Owl Optics monocular had a major flaw as soon as I started using it. The system uses high voltage derived from 2-AA bateries. Occationally the unit would create a large snap(arcing noise) and emit a bright flash of light from the eyepiece. If one is using the instrument, the light actually hurts the eye. I have returned the monocular to Night Owl for repairs. I do not know the result of the repairs as it is still in transit. They told me to ship it at my expense.
Another strange requirement of the instrument is that the batteries are recommended to be removed if not used for 24 hours.
Other than the above, the monocular has performed well.
epilogue-Night Owl Optics did repair the unit and returned it.

thes item is gretes item i used befoer for these prise!! yes is true is very clear optics , you can see in total darknes about 350 m it's agood rand , price and qulity .

Hello, I'm glad with this product, I haven't try it yet outside my house but in a really dark condition it works pretty well, I need to turn on the IR button and clearly I can read even a sign on a bottle in total darkness. this thing really works

well this item is amazing...in m y opinion every body should buy one of them if you are looking for night vision monocular.

This is another good scope by a well known brand - Night owl, and should work well for most. I prefer it to the Cyclops as well - it has a much nicer shape.