NV8300 Head-mounted 4K Night Vision Goggles

See in the dark with both hands still free.

Something sets the dogs off at 2am. You go out with a torch in one hand, which leaves you one hand for the gate, the latch, the dog or the radio — and the torch tells everything within half a kilometre exactly where you are and where you are looking.

Put the torch down to get both hands on the job and you lose the light. Lose the light and you are picking your way over ground you cannot see: a star picket, an open trench, a washout in the track. That is how a two-minute look at the fenceline turns into a rolled ankle, a hole in the sump, or a night that ends with someone else coming out to find you.

These sit on an adjustable headband or clip to a helmet, and they leave both hands free. Understand what they are before you buy: this is a digital night vision unit — a camera sensor plus an infrared illuminator, feeding two small screens you look into. It is not the image-intensifier tube in a Gen 2 or Gen 3 set, and it is not thermal. It cannot detect heat, and in genuine darkness the infrared has to be switched on for it to see anything at all.

One more thing worth saying plainly, because nobody else in this category says it. The supplier calls these 4K. The sensor behind that badge is 2.0 megapixels. So the 4K video and the 36 megapixel stills are upscaled from a 1080p-class sensor rather than captured at those resolutions — bigger files, not more detail. They record perfectly usable footage. Just buy them knowing what is actually behind the number.

What It Does

• Both hands on the job: head or helmet mounted, so you can swing a gate, work a winch, carry a load or steady yourself on a bank without first finding somewhere to put your light down.
• Stock checks after dark: walk a paddock and pick up eye-shine and body shape at a couple of hundred metres without lighting the place up like a footy ground and shifting every animal in it.
• Finding out what is there: step out the back, look down the fenceline and work out whether it is a roo, a dog or a bloke, before you decide whether it matters.
• Putting it on file: it records video and stills to a memory card, so a gate left open or a vehicle parked where it should not be is evidence instead of something you reckon you saw.
• Nights in camp: wildlife spotting, keeping an eye on the kids and finding the track back to the tent without waking the whole camp with a head torch.

Key Features

• Head or helmet mount: supplied with an adjustable headband and a bracket that takes a helmet rail or shroud. Both are shown in use in our own photographs on this page, not just in supplier artwork.
• Twin barrels, twin screens: two 1.4 inch displays, one per eye, so you get a sense of depth instead of the flat single-eye picture a monocular gives you.
• Fits your face: the barrels hinge to set eye spacing between 60 mm and 72 mm, and each eyepiece has its own focus adjustment of ±3.5, so most people can run it without their glasses on.
• Seven infrared levels: a 3 W, 850 nm illuminator you can wind right back for close work and up for distance, rather than one fixed setting that blows out anything within ten metres.
• Four view modes: colour for daylight, plus black and white, moonlight green and film negative for use with the infrared switched on.
• Records and plays back: video and stills to a TF card, reviewed on the built-in screens or pulled off over USB to a computer.
• Charges off a power bank: built-in 3.7 V 2600 mAh lithium cell, charged over USB from a wall plug or the same power bank you already carry. No disposable cells to buy and lose.
• Rated for real weather: the supplier rates it for use between −20 °C and +50 °C.
• Travels in a hard case: zip case, neck strap and USB cable included, so the whole kit lives in one place in the ute or the crib bag.

Limits

This is the section that matters most on a product like this, because the marketing around cheap digital night vision is the worst in the outdoor trade. Here is what these will not do.

• The infrared is not invisible: the illuminator runs at 850 nm, which shows as a dull red glow at the front lens. A 940 nm emitter is the one sold as no-glow, and this is not that. Anyone else running night vision will see you from a long way off, and some animals will notice it too. Our own previous copy on this page called it no-glow. That was wrong, and it is the reason this line is here.
• 4K is upscaling, not capture: the sensor is 2.0 MP. Recording in the 4K mode gives you a 4K-sized file built from a 1080p-class image, and the 36 MP stills work the same way. Detail does not appear that was never collected.
• What you look at is small: live, you are looking at two screens of 390 × 390 pixels. Whatever the recording resolution says, that is the picture your eyes actually get while you are wearing it.
• The zoom is digital: up to 8×, and no optical zoom is stated. Digital zoom crops into the sensor, so by 8× you are looking at a small piece of a 2 MP frame, enlarged.
• The view is narrow: 10 degrees, which is roughly the width of your fist held at arm's length. You do not get peripheral vision through these. Stop and look, rather than walking along with them down over your eyes.
• It is not thermal: it detects reflected infrared light, not heat. It will not pick a warm animal out of cold scrub, and it will not see through smoke, fog, heavy dust or vegetation.
• It is not a sight: there is no reticle and no firearm mount. It is an observation device.
• We are not calling it waterproof: treat it as splash and dust resistant only. Two of the supplier's own product images show the unit sitting half under water. Do not do that. No ingress protection rating has been verified by us, and none is printed on the body.
• No certification sighted: no standard, test certificate or compliance mark has been sighted for this unit, and we are not going to imply one. It is consumer outdoor equipment, not rated safety or duty equipment.
• Two figures we could not settle: battery runtime is not stated anywhere by the supplier, and the weight is given as 363 g by one seller and 400 g by another. Both are listed honestly in the specs rather than picked to flatter.

Q & A

Is this the same as proper military night vision?

No, and it is worth being blunt about it. Genuine Gen 2 and Gen 3 sets use an image-intensifier tube that amplifies the small amount of light already there, with no illuminator, near-instant response and a wide field of view. Those cost many thousands of dollars. This is a digital camera and screen with an infrared torch on the front. It does a genuinely useful job for the money, but they are different technologies and it is not a substitute.

Will the infrared give my position away?

To anyone else with night vision, yes, plainly. At 850 nm you can also see a faint red glow at the front lens with the naked eye if you are looking straight at it in the dark. If staying unseen is the whole point of your night, this is not the right tool and we would rather say so now than after you have bought it.

How far can I actually see with it?

The supplier's own panel states 200 to 250 metres in full darkness; other sellers of the same model claim 250 to 300 metres. Nobody states the conditions those were measured under, so treat them as a best case. Infrared falls off fast with distance, so what you get on the night depends on the moon, the haze, the dust and whether your subject is pale or dark. Close in you will see plenty of detail; at the far end you are identifying shapes and movement, not faces.

Can I fit a bigger memory card?

The stated maximum is a 32 GB TF card, so no. Some sellers of this model list a 32 GB card as included, but it is not shown in the supplier's own accessory picture or on the retail box, so plan on supplying your own.

Can I wear these while driving?

No. A 10 degree field of view, a small screen and a fraction of a second of processing delay are all wrong for anything moving at speed, and it is not legal to drive on a public road wearing them. Stopped, in a paddock, on foot — that is what they are for.

How long does delivery take?

Allow 10 to 14 days from the day you order, and up to three weeks to regional and remote addresses. Shipping is free to Australia and New Zealand.

Specs