a cheap way to watch nighttime activities

I bought these for my husband for Christmas. The biggest drawback is that it uses 8 AA batteries. However, the clarity of the pictures are really good. My husband can zoom in and see things pretty far away when it is pitch black outside. He is not a high tech person, so he likes that it does not have fancy additions like menus and cameras/videos. His motto is "keep it simple". Very good product for the price. Highly recommend.

Paid $116. Bucks for this unit. It is a great way to experience seeing things at night , for a cheap price. Unit uses infrared light(works like invisible flashlight) that is built in to unit as "illuminator". The light source is invisible to our eyes, but unit sees it and displays the view through viewer or eyepiece.
If your expecting military grade night vision, your not going to find it for $116. Period. You can see at night with this using the illuminator only. Without it being turned on, you will not see anything at night. It isn't true "night vision". Yes, using illuminator you can use this unit to see at night. To simplify things, it's somewhat a pair of binoculars with a built in light source. Mine works pretty well, focuses pretty well, overall I'm happy with it, I can use it and not worry about breaking a $3500. Dollar true night vision viewer. I can see in total darkness( using illuminator) and it's fun and easy to use. Play with all the settings, backlight and infrared settings and get your best view, overall it's really decent and a good value for the dollar.

Main problem is like all other complaints, it uses batteries like crazy. I went through a new set of alkaline batteries, using full backlight and full IR setting in 10 minutes. It may be worth investing in the model that has lithium built in power pack. I'm going to play with mine a little more and look into keeping a set of rechargeable batteries on standby when prepared to use. I just bought to play with camping and for the price vs what I got, I'm fairly satisfied. This is a long review but I saw where so many people were disappointed, and just hoped to help someone out with what your getting.
Thanks

Cool item for the price!

Not as sharp as I expected.