09/23/2026
We have used a variety of clip ranging from $100k+ to just a few thousand, but the technology comes down to a few key principles on which ones you should leverage.
Are you looking for something or someone?
Night vision tubes give a great amount of detail with relatively low weight and power requirements. But they often need additional Illumination to leverage their full picture.
Even NV tubes of higher quality struggle with targetry beyond about 1000 yards without additional illumination.
Night vision is extremely capable under the right circumstances, and is relatively low cost when compared to MWIR thermals.
Thermals can provide a ton of information as well, just not in the way you expect night vision to. But literally, it’s black and white, night and day difference. Target detection is vastly increased whereas target identification and recognition can be slightly decreased.
In other words, you can quickly find targets, but you may not be able to discern targets.
If targets are occluded, they quickly are found. But if targets look alike, you won’t know unless you get closer to resolve the contrasting differences.
They also can be fused with night vision to provide overlays to the image. Our Durable D.O.P.E.™️ glow cards are extremely popular with night time train ups in SOCOM.
Thermal can also be flexible across magnification ranges if they are designed properly.
The MWIR HISS units provide an exceptional amount of detail that feels similar to looking through night vision units with the amount of detail, but are for more expensive and power consuming. For observations with auxiliary power sources or from extreme distances, MWIR can be very powerful. The sensor has dark current (noise) removed from the resulting image due to the internal cooling system.
Long range observation devices leverage MWIR because of their ability to produce consistent images regardless of visible light and despite various conditions in humidity or temperature.
INODs have been leveraged for years because of their consistent capabilities in reconnaissance and incredible performance for target engagements.
However, LWIR and NV fused together like in a FLIR ADUNS-S can provide
