Today we take a look back at last January and highlight some SHOT 2024 night vision related products that you might have missed. First up is Thales who was at SHOT Show Industry Range Day. I thought it was odd that Thales would be at Range Day even if they are sharing the booth. While Thales is like a French version of L3 Harris, what they had to show at Range Day was some SHOT 2024 night vision. This would make sense if Range Day had night time activities, but it does not. So I was unable to try their night vision goggle.s
Above is a black Bonie HP but what caught my attention the most was something I could try out at Range Day. Thales had their SOPHIE ULTIMA on a tripod for people to test out. The SOPHIE ULTIMA is a cooled thermal spotter. Similar to my Vectronix JIM LR, the Sophie Ultra is a cooled thermal spotter.
The SOPHIE ULTIMA is a 640 resolution MWIR thermal spotter. It was setup to look at a target 50 yards away. Thales was using active thermal targets that are electronically heated. The Sophie Ultima has a 20º WFOV and like the JIM LR, it has optical zoom which goes to 2º NFOV.
What really sets the SOPHIE ULTIMA apart from other thermal spotters that I have seen, is their glass day channel. The JIM LR and some other thermal spotters have a digital day channel, basically a digital camera. While the SOPHIE ULTIMA uses traditional glass like a spotting scope. It still projects all the onscreen display behind the day channel. It has a SWIR laser range finder and can record images as well as video. Since the display is digital to project the LRF and menus, it can also display images and videos from an outside source. They even have a fusion mode where thermal objects are highlighted in the day channel.
What's New From Nocturn, SHOT 2024 Night Vision
Nocturn has been busy making something the night vision industry has been lacking, a mount to rival the Wilcox G24. This prototype mount is a proof of concept of the direction Nocturn wants to go.
You can see it is minimalistic looking compared to other night vision mounts.
See the two holes in the dovetail shoe below? Nocturn plans to have integrated power contacts which will interface with contact points on the dovetail of their night vision housings. This will power your goggle through the use of their battery pack.
With regards to their night vision housings Nocturn will be making a version of their Tanto monocular that takes ANVIS objective lenses. Since it is based off the Tanto design, it can be bridged with their Daisho Bridge.
But what really caught my attention is their prototype injection molded UANVB Katana housing. Fully built with tubes, light weight RPO lenses and battery, the entire goggle only weighs 14 ounces and some change. That is just a little bit heavier than a single PVS-14!
Nocturn is finalizing the mold but look forward to unparalleled light weight goggles from Nocturn.
With regards to the Daisho Bridge, Nocturn will be making a pano bridge version of the Daisho. It is fixed angle bridge positioning the two Tanto monoculars to spread eagle, giving the user a wider FOV.
PTS IS Making a Licensed MAWL For Airsoft
My friends at PTS have been working on a licensed Airsoft MAWL replica since before COVID. They had a preproduction prototype at their booth. For SHOT 2024 night vision, this has gone under the radar. The preproduction prototype works but they need to finalize the output of the IR laser and illuminators.
You can see the laser diodes out of the front of the MAWL-PTS.
Photonis Boomslang 50º FOV Lenses
I had heard Photonis has a new 50º FOV lens set for PVS-14s which means it can be installed on any dual tube housing that uses PVS-14 lenses. I will admit this is one of the SHOT 2024 Night Vision products that caught me by surprise. I have used a variety of 50º FOV lenses and most of them have compromises so my expectations were low. Photonis had a dark room to test their Boomslang optics and they had their Vyper binocular setup with Boomslang on one pod and 40º Carson glass on the other so users can see the difference.
Inside the darkroom, Photonis had large chart on the wall so you can compare the the 40º FOV lenses to their Boomslang 50º FOV lenses.
Here is the Boomslang image.
To my surprise there was little to no distortion. I was also surprised how generous the eyebox was. Typical 50º FOV lenses have a very tight exit pupil causing distortion as soon as your eye off center axis to the lens. Not the case with the Boomslang eyepiece. I do see a little less contrast compared to the Carson lenses. In order to compare apples to apples I brought my Thales LUCIE. It has some of the best 50º FOV lenses I have seen in a night vision device. The image below was taken looking through the LUCIE.
Steele Industries New Nighthawk Housing
Coming soon to Steele Industries is their own housing called the Nighthawk. It will have manual gain, onboard illumination and remote battery pack Fischer ports. They are still tweaking the design to shave some weight.
AGM Global Bridge And Laser
For SHOT 2024 night vision AGM introduced a dual PVS-14 bridge soon to hit the market.
The bridge has IPD stops like typical dual tube housings. It has a power button similar to the Wilcox J-ARMs.
What sets the AGM bridge apart from other bridges, is the arms will shut power to the PVS-14s when you articulate them out.
AGM will also be coming out with an MFAL called WLAD. It is not VCSEL based but it has integrated white light. It will retail for $795 and is expected to come out in the second quarter of 2024.
Another product that AGM will be coming out with is their PVS-14E battery housing. There are no photos of it just yet but it will be an upgrade for PVS-14s. It will come out also in second quarter for $263 MAP.
The features of the PVS-14E are very exciting. It will be dual fuel, CR123 and AA. AGM claims it is polarity agnostic so it does not matter what direction the battery is inserted. Another great but underrated feature is the ability to switch back on after you have flipped up the PVS-14 using a Milspec J-arm. Power is shut off the PVS-14 but when you normally flip it back down, the PVS-14 does not turn back on. Not the case with the PVS-14E battery housing.
Syntec Thermal Dual Sensor LPVO Clip On
For SHOT 2024 night this is one of the most interesting products I saw. It is a dual sensor thermal clip on for LPVO.
It has a 55mm and 13mm objective lenses. The smaller 13mm is for a wider 20º FOV while the 55mm objective has a narrower 5º FOV. What makes this so intriguing is that both images are projected and overlap each other perfectly.
As you can see the thermal images are displayed via a prism.
The wider 20º FOV is supposed to occupy the outer zones of the image. While the narrower FOV is placed in the middle of the image produced by the scope.
You can see the dual thermal images below.
It has edge detection.
Low Light Innovations MH1
Low Light Innovations is making a CNC magnesium dual tube housing called the MH1. It is modular by design. They showed a different prototype at the East Coast Night Shoot last November. It had wires coming from the pod going into the bridge. They have moved away from that design so all the circuitry and wiring is all internal.
The pods are detachable.
At the time of SHOT 2024 the pods were modular with different threaded rings to accommodate different lenses like ANVIS and PVS-14 objectives.
Low Light Innovations has bigger plans for the MH1 ecosystem. See the diagrams below.
AMMJ Solutions Laser
Out of no where AMMJ Solutions comes swing for the fences with their new Penumbra laser. It has a VCSEL illuminator and is aimed to be around $1,500 but price is to be finalized.
The Penumbra has a slaved VIS and IR aiming laser with a VCSEL IR illuminator on the other side. It has RMR footprint machined into the top for mounting an optic.
AMMJ Solutions has Aimpoint T2 footprint machined into the bottom of the Penumbra housing. This way you can use any T1/T2 compatible mount of your choosing.
Final Thoughts Of SHOT 2024 Night Vision
There were a lot more night vision related products but these caught my attention. Hopefully these items come to fruition soon. I am looking forward to checking some of these out up