Amazing device. bad battery. - Pulsar Helion XP50 2.5-20x42mm Thermal Imaging Monocular

First, I gotta say, this unit is absolutely astounding, and brilliant in clarity identification and detection. It was way better than I hoped, and I can’t put enough praise on it. I live off the grid in remote wilderness of rural North Idaho. I’ve used gen 3 night vision as a police officer, and I own night vision equipment. Which is why I decided to add in thermal. Now, my NVG is just a dust collector. If I have a reason to pull out optics at night, it’s thermals that come out. Screw the NVGs. I can count the hairs on a coyote in thick underbrush at twenty yards, or I can see a person in a ghillie suit hidden in a tree line at 100 yards like they are in a neon suit. This thing is amazing. I used the internal video camera to record a field mouse in a pasture at 80 yards in total darkness. It was so bright, I was shocked I was literally watching a mouse from 80 yards away in total darkness in dense grasses. So yeah, if I’m trying to see what’s out there, I only go for the thermal now. I highly recommend this unit. Now, the downside, and I can’t say if it’s normal or not (I doubt it is) but the unit I got from OpticsPlanet has a battery that won’t hold a charge for long. From day 1, even fully charged, it loses its charge quickly. I’m guessing it’s an internal short or something causing self discharge. I think I just got a bad battery, because I did NOT see this complaint from other owners when researching the unit prior to purchase. I wish I could just get a functioning battery, but OpticsPlanet requires the whole thing be returned, and I don’t want to give up the unit itself just because of the stupid battery. I love this thing. So my stopgap to deal with the battery issue was to buy a external power bank for a cellphone, with a USB port, and I velcroed it to the side of the unit. So I run my Helion off a velcroed cell phone usb battery powerbank, because the battery that came with it didn’t work right out of the box. Ridiculous redneck fix for a unit with a $4,000 price tag. But OpticsPlanet returns require the whole unit. So here I am. Again, don’t let my experience dissuade you from purchasing though. I’m the only person I’ve seen in hundreds of reviews that has had this problem.