Budget friendly results for a budget friendly item! - AGM Global Vision Asp-Micro 160x120 Short Range Thermal Imaging Monoculars

This thermal imaging monocular was exactly what I wanted: something that I could use for airsoft, and also just to have fun with!

So: let me tell you what It's really like in your hands.
First of all, it's pretty awesome! It's just fun to use and entertaining! Secondly, it is disorienting to use. The camera, when you think about it, is on the end of a tube. So if you are slightly tilting the monocular, it makes your vision in your brain feel weird. Every now and then, the frames per second (FPS) will freeze... and then resume again. It's also pretty grainy compared to a phone camera. But, I mean, it's thermal imaging! How cool is that?

It is 1X zoom, so that's pretty nice. However, the window that your looking through is about as wide as your hand at arms distance, if you stretch your thumb furthest to the left and the rest of your fingers to the right. So navigating a room by yourself in the dark when all you have is the monocular is pretty hard. Someone could be right next to the doorway and you miss them if you happen to not look that way.

HOWEVER: Here's a cool thing! Any itty bitty part of a person that the camera could possibly see, shows up super clearly! If you are trying to hide from this camera, it's really hard! Hide and seek is a ton of fun to play with this thing. If you are trying to spy on the "seeker" and peek around something to see where they are, they can see you clear as day! It's like your face is a flashlight. The only way to hide from this is to completely hide every part of your body behind a barrier! Hiding behind bushes is completely ineffective.
Another thing: This thing is super SUPER good at looking through foliage. Way better than night vision. Think about it: the thermal imaging monocular is using heat to look, whereas NV uses infrared lights to help the camera out. As a result, NV shines light on the leaves and brush, and it bounces back into the camera, making it hard to see through. The monocular, however, feels like you're cutting straight through it.

NOTES: Not good to use after it rains on a cold day. I took this on a hike, and when I looked around it was all just a big grey blur, because EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME TEMPERATURE!!! So no way I could tell a rock from a root from a tree: it was like the lens cap was on. (I had to frequently look at myself to make sure it was working right, which it was. It could see me, but not anything else.)

Your question: "Can you see everything? Is it impossible for anyone to sneak up on you? Are you like the ultimate ninja? Can you see people before they see you???"
Answer: Budget friendly monocular = budget friendly results. So not as much, sadly. :( Remember, you have to happen to be looking in a direction in order to see it, and as far as animals like deer, they smell you and hear you breathing from really far away. I've only ever spotted a creature that I wouldn't have been able to see otherwise once, and it was a bird. I was like, "I wonder if there's anything in that bush... oh look! A bird!"

Fun facts:
-Can't see through glass. Glass actually works like a mirror to it.
-Can see through bushes really well
-You can watch the clouds at night time, surprisingly!
-The camera has a regular sensor, but has a germanium lens, which is an element in the periodic table. The lens is metal, not glass.

For use in airsoft: I have not yet used this for airsoft, but I'm am very excited to!
TIP FOR AIRSOFT: you can make the sensor BB proof by taking some metal mesh from an airsoft face mask, cutting a 2" (ish) circle out of it and taping it on the edges, so that the screen is over the camera. The screen is so close to the sensor all it does it make the image barely blurry, but it protects your expensive monocular from the "Magic BB" that just so happens to be shot at the most unexpected time that so happens to hit it perfectly that so happens to hit it with enough force to break the camera. Be sure you test any items you're thinking of using with your airsoft gun to make sure that it can actually stop a BB. KillFlashes don't work: BBs just shred them. Use a mesh facemask!
-I'm thinking of NOT mounting this on my airsoft gun like a thought I was going to, but keeping it around my wrist or on a lanyard for an actual airsoft game. Mounting it onto the gun would be disorienting, weird to look through, and it can't see very far. Better to use the monocular to "find" someone and then shoot at them once you see them, I think.

Battery works great. Storage is great. No problem with either of those. Don't shine it at something super bright for a long period i.e. the sun, a campfire etc. I got some itty bitty spots on the monocular that I'm wondering might have resulted in damage from those. They don't show very much, though.

The zoom is digital zoom, so it gets grainier the more you zoom in. 2x zoom is basically the max as far as effectiveness.

Get it! Have a blast! Play with it! Show your friends! Lots of fun. No regrets for me.