Bushnell Equinox Z Digital Night Vision Monocular

P N Burrows: Better than expected for the price, there are three levels of IR illumination which you can use depending on how far away you are looking. The manual focus is a faff, but for the price is to be expected. Field of view is narrow, but what you see is clear enough. Our major gripe with this product the brightness of the screen in the viewfinder, it is VERY bright meaning you would not want to look at it for long periods, imagine holding a torch to your eye! We started holding it further away from our faces, to avoid eye strain, There is a "Brightness" button, but this is actually a frame-rate adjustment which then also alters the brightness a little. There is a TV out which we have not tried yet.

United Kingdom on Mar 22, 2022

John: A decent budget scope from a trusted manufacturer. 1st night vision I have owned that is displayed on a lcd screen and not through gen1/2 Optics. It works pretty well decent imaging in the dark with a large IR light attached. Certainly enough to watch the badger marauding through the petunias. The daytime colour function is pretty good but picture gets a little blocky on full zoom. A big bonus compared to traditional night vision is the ability to record pics and videos direct onto a sd card.
Downsides: field of view is pretty narrow, it does feel like you are looking down a tunnel, you will need a pocket of batteries if out for a while, it is not really up to using while walking (you are not ghost squad)

United Kingdom on Mar 11, 2021

Rob: I've never handled anything like this before but within a few minutes I had everything figured out. Out-of-the-box the fine adjustment (objective lens) for focusing was way off; I had to turn it a lot, like probably several full rotations. This makes sense because it's really sensitive but you don't seem to have to touch it much after finding the optimal position. The button layout is intuitive and very simple giving you quick and easy control over the many viewing options. I ran around turning off all the lights in my apartment and then flipped through the different IR (infrared LED illumination settings) via the "IR" button. Wow. Images are processed through a digital CMOS sensor module and then transferred to a micro LCD which are then magnified; you have +/- zoom buttons which work amazingly well, very smooth. The quality of this device has blown my mind. I never would have thought I'd be able to afford something that gives me the ability to see in total darkness with perfect clarity. You can add a micro SD card up to 32GB (no internal memory) for recording purposes. Camping, stargazing, security surveillance, fishing/hunting--possibilities are limited only by the imagination....

Canada on Mar 21, 2020

Pecosdu95: Avant de passer a la vision nocturne numérique j'ai longtemps hésité car je possédais un monoculaire 1gen et bien franchement je suis bluffé par le résultat et la qualité de l'image qui fait passer mon 1 gen pour un jouet !
La portée de l'IR est vraiment excellente et on voit comme en plein jour avec en revanche point négatif pour moi et j'aurais souhaité le savoir avant l'achat c'est que la torche infrarouge est visible quand elle est allumée ... si on fixe un objectif et que la torche est pointée dessus vous êtes repéré direct ! Et donc pour la surveillance discrète ce n'est pas génial ... je l'ai testé avec une bonne lune ca permet quand même d'avoir une super visibilité sans l'IR donc bon ...
Le monoculaire ne permet pas de se déplacer avec comme une vision nocturne classique ce qui est due au zoom minimum d'environ 2m en dessous c'est flou et le champs de près qui est très très réduit mais ce n'est pas fait pour les déplacements mais l'observation.
Sinon déjà abordé un paquet de fois mais pensez a investir dans des piles rechargeables ou devenez actionnaire chez duracell !
En gros pour le prix je recommande a 200% ce monoculaire !

France on Nov 23, 2018

Thomas fr: Sur l'annonce il est indiqué un zoom numérique de x1 a x3; hors après test et vérification sur le site de Bushnell, la jvn zoom déjà de x3 et peu encore zoomer de x1 a x3, et donne donc un zoom maximum de x9 mais permanent de x3 :/
Ce qui empêche tout déplacement avec... C'est très problématique car quand on a besoin d'un tel produit c'est évidement pour se déplacer avec...
Il serait bien que le vendeur modifie son annonce pour éviter ce genre de déconvenues.

En dehors de ce gros problème, c'est un très bon produit, facile d'utilisation, elle possède 3 mode sur la lampe ir ce qui peut être très pratique selon que vous regardiez de près ou de loin, car la lampe infrarouge est très puissante et permet une vue a facilement 200m.
La qualité bushnell a petit prix...

Attention toutes fois il s'agit ici d'un capteur cmos, c'est a dire une caméra qui voit de nuit et non un tube qui amplifie la lumière. c'est un avantage car nullement besoin de licence militaire ou autre pour la posséder et l'utiliser; mais cela implique un nombre d'image par seconde qui varie suivant les modes d'utilisation.
Grâce a ce capteur cmos vous pouvez voir de...

France on Jun 28, 2016

FastEarleFastEarle: I've read the reviews and researched the different types and all the brands and yada yada. After much debate, I elected to go digital versus conventional. In that department, these seemed to fit the bill better than most of the others.

Pro's

Very tough, Nice picture (Once focused-more on that), Ability to take photos and video. Ability to turn off the IR, Ability to see more than 50 yards(It does), Ability to rifle mount(It does with mount available through bushnell, Not that I would, but), Above all, it actually works at night. (It does and it does it very well.

Cons

Its a battery hog. (They all are)
A little heavy (Not really an issue)
Magnification is quite high so field of view can become an issue if you aren't prepared. (Prevalent in all of them unless you want to spend thousands) You might ask why I didn't get the 3X? Because you cant take pictures or video with it.

That's about it. On to the focus. First, there are many ways to adjust brightness in this unit, so don't let the other reviews that complain talk you out of it. It does exactly what its supposed to. You need to follow the directions on how to focus this and the other...

United States on Jan 30, 2016

Jones: Good product, good price, quick delivery.
Live in the forest, works well in full darkness with IR, but for covert use I bought a separate 940 nm IR light that I hook up to the rail included on the unit. The IR built into the unit does show up as a fairly bright red light even at several hundred feet. I used a small Pulsar PL79076 940 IR Night Vision Flashlight I also got on Amazon, and it works well for us.
Do not need the IR if the moon is out, as it works pretty well as a starlight scope.
Hooked it up to our security camera DVR, worked fine, but can not use it for any thing but short term as it times out and shuts down to quickly to be of any use. Wish their was a way to over ride the auto timeout shut off.
Also wish it had a jack to hook up a external power supply for long term use about the home. If it did it could double as a security camera, and could also leave it out to catch the elk when they make their night time raids on the fruit trees.
I use rechargeable batteries and have a extra set with me when I go out to use it, as the battery life is not all that long, and is nice to have something to get back on the bear or whatever if the batteries go south on...

United States on Jan 04, 2015

Michael Ogle: i had been wanting to get some kind of night vision and had looked at all that was on the market when i found this one i was sceptical about buying not being sure until i purchased it, i figured i would give it a try and so far i like it real well, i like that you can use it during the day and it takes pictures and video how great is that? Very good addition, It takes a little bit to get used to but i like it.It is a little bulky but for my use it works well for seeing what is out in the fields before crossing them when going hunting, so many times before i got this i would start across an area before light and could hear the deer take off from the field edge, now i can scan the field and take a different route if the deer are out and i keep from scaring them off before i get to hunt them. I also use it around the house after dark if the dog goes to barking without turning on the light and i can see what is outside without scaring off by turning on the lights. It is a great product!

United States on Nov 10, 2014

Christopher: I've been intrigued by night vision devices for some time now but have resisted purchasing anything until now due to the almost universally poor reviews of traditional Gen 1 devices (as well as the early digital devices). But with the release of the new Equinox Z, I decided to take a chance.

Bushnell offers 3 monoculars in its Equinox Z lineup, 3x, 4.5x, and 6x magnification. I chose 3x because I wanted less magnification and a larger field of view for greater peripheral awareness. The 3x device partially delivers on that--the problem is that focusing is slow and laborious, so don't think you can use this while moving around. It's much better suited to stationary use. It should also be noted that the 3x device lacks the video recording feature of its bigger brothers, but 640x480 video wasn't that appealing to me anyway and it's ~$40 cheaper than the 4.5x scope.

Other items of note, which are applicable across the entire Equiniox Z lineup:
1. This device was much larger than expected. It's not exactly pocketable. The included wrist strap isn't that useful...maybe a full-on neck strap would have been better. On the other hand, the lens cap is conveniently attached...

United States on Jun 27, 2014