Night-vision and thermal units are expanding steadily within the tactical marketplace. No longer are these two technologies only for night hunters. Today, both night vision and thermal are in demand by law enforcement, search-and-rescue teams, ranchers, farmers and security conscious people.

But the technologies are actually quite different, with various capabilities and uses. Knowing those differences is key to offering and selling these units — and making some solid profits.

NV v. Thermal

Far too often, “night vision” and “thermal” are interchangeably used to describe units that can help people “see” in low- to no-light conditions.

In reality, thermal optics are not even “optics” in the traditional sense. Essentially digital cameras, thermals identify electromagnetic radiation, what most of us would call “heat.” The front lens of a thermal unit detects this heat, and that information runs through a digital sensor or core, which projects an image to the rear or ocular lens.

Night-vision units, however, intensify the available light using image intensifier tubes (analog) or the new digital sensors. That light can be from the stars or moon, streetlights, or other sources like infrared illumination.

Given these requirements, night vision doesn’t work in complete and utter darkness. It needs some sort of light or infrared help. Traditional night vision also can’t be used during daylight hours, either, as daylight can damage the intensifier tubes. 

Thermal can operate during the day. But certain environmental conditions, like high humidity and very dusty air, can degrade the images seen through a unit and reduce detection range.

LE and NV 

Armasight manufactures and sells a wide range of both night-vision and thermal units. Steve Lemenov is the Senior Director of Marketing for the Ecentria Enterprise Group, the corporate parent of Armasight, and he’s worked in the night-vision and thermal industries for nearly two decades. 

Lemenov noted that the law enforcement (LE) market for night vision has grown substantially in recent years.

“For LE, typically when doing surveillance or needing to engage a suspect or active shooter, they want to use night-vision devices like our BNVD40 Night Vision Goggle or PVS14 Night Vision Monocular,” Lemenov said. “In surveillance scenarios, they can also use magnifier lenses attached to a PVS14, and they can even connect to a DSLR camera to record the activity.”

Night vision is increasingly relied upon in high-risk tactical situations, too. Lemenov pointed out that some SWAT sniper teams on night missions are employing night-vision clip-ons that attach to the front of a day scope. 

“Law enforcement departments need to have positive ID of suspects or active shooters before being able to engage those targets,” Lemenov explained. “Also, for surveillance purposes, the LE team needs to have a positive ID of a suspect, or the arrest would not be held up in court. With thermal, you don’t get the recognizable detail needed while presenting evidence in court.”

Clip-ons quickly detach, too, for use as handheld units.

Metro Night Vision 

Wilshire Gun, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, started carrying night-vision and thermal products at the end of 2020. 

“We identified a market not very well represented in the Oklahoma City metro area,” said Jake Gaden, Wilshire’s assistant general manager. “So, we brought in a mix of analog and digital night-vision and several thermal offerings.”

Gaden and Wilshire staff soon discovered that thermal was popular, but most of it was sold to hunters.

“The vast majority [of the non-hunters] looked towards our night-vision offerings, and about 85% of them end up on the analog path,” Gaden noted. “This is almost exclusively because of the performance difference between analog and digital. The technology for digital is improving every year, but in its current state, it’s not able to perform at the user satisfaction requirement that analog does.”

Translation: analog night vision produces superior images versus digital builds.

Night-vision monoculars and goggles are the top sellers here, and customers for these products include law enforcement and other first responders. Property owners and others on the lookout for possible trespassers (or worse) are another market.  

Aware Citizens

Thermal units have many uses within the tactical market, too. In general, thermal imaging offers much better detection capabilities over night vision.  

“There is strong growth in what I call the ‘aware citizens’ category, individuals, mostly in rural or suburban areas, who see the value in thermal observation tools for keeping an eye on the ranch or the homestead,” said Pliny Gale, Marketing and Communications Manager for InfiRay Outdoor. “These buyers don’t always need all the features of hunting or LE products, but they value convenience and ease of use. Some of these buyers relate more to the overland or hiking community than to the firearms community.” 

InfiRay Outdoor thermals are currently sold in more than 90 nations, and in this country, they are distributed by iRAY USA.

Gale continued, “Search and rescue, ski patrol, game recovery/trackers, and other professional ‘hide and seek’ winners are increasingly buying and using thermal optics, too. Like the ‘aware citizen’ products, these are typically compact and rugged handheld units, but occasionally also vehicle-mounted units.” 

The advantage here is that while these units may not provide facial identification of the kind night vision can provide, thermal heat-detecting capabilities can quickly spot a fleeing suspect or the trespasser hiding behind brush. Not that the thermal will see through the brush, but the heat signatures will show up in any gaps.

Plus, thermal detection ranges are in the many hundreds of yards, distances where night vision usually isn’t up to the task.

Top InfiRay Outdoor units for these consumers include the RH25V2, a versatile clip-on. This high-resolution optic can work mounted on a helmet or attached in front of a prism sight or LPVO, and as a hand-held monocular. Pliny noted that private security groups and tactical teams are using these units, as well as standard LE officers. 

Recently, Gale has also noted an uptick in interest for high-resolution thermal handhelds with more magnification (4x) than the models most popular with hog and coyote hunters (usually 2-3X). The Nocpix Vista H50R, offered by InfiRay Outdoor, is one unit in this category that is moving quite well.

“Used by game wardens and private investigators, these larger-lens handhelds allow officers to observe or investigate activities from a safe distance,” Gale said. “These are also great for mountain search-and-rescue teams.” 

Legal Constraints 

Before they invest in night vision or thermal, it’s very necessary for retailers to educate themselves with state and local laws and regulations concerning these technologies.

Consider the State of Iowa, and the experience of McCunn Specialty Firearms, located in Massena, Iowa. Levi Morris is McCunn’s sales manager, and he admits there is a good deal of interest in night vision among his customer base. At the same time, there are not many night vision sales. What gives?

“In Iowa, you can’t use night vision (outside) during any active deer-hunting season,” Morris explained. “That means you can’t use night vision from the youth deer hunt in September until the extra antlerless season ends almost three weeks into January. That’s essentially four months your night-vision unit would have to sit on the shelf!”

Given the relative expense of such units, most customers, Morris noted, will buy a thermal unit which they can use year round. He added that the night-vision restriction was created years ago over fears of deer poachers using the technology to take big bucks.   

So, it’s thermal for Morris’ non-hunting customers who want to see in the night, and his number one seller is the afore-mentioned InfiRay Outdoor RH25. 

“For the price and performance, the RH25 units are really hard to beat,” Morris said. “And they can fulfill so many applications.”

He’s sold the units to law enforcement officers who use them for search and rescue as well as for running down bad guys on foot. Likewise, the RH25’s provide a quick and easy way to find potential trespassers.

While it isn’t exactly for tactical purposes, farmers are also a top group for purchasing thermals from McCunn. Morris noted that thermals help these farmers quickly locate calves and escaped livestock. The thermals are also used to make sure the wheel bearings on heavy-duty vehicles and other expensive machinery are not overheating.

A Newer Thermal Platform  

Platforms like the Dark30 Defiance 640 PTZ Thermal Camera, a vehicle-mounted thermal from Dark30, are becoming more popular, too. 

Mounted atop a vehicle, the Dark30 Defiance provides a thermal scanning option for traditional LE, game wardens, and ranchers. The unit will pan, tilt and zoom while vehicle occupants view the thermal imaging from a 10.1-inch LCD screen secured inside the vehicle. The Dark30 Defiance can be mounted atop the vehicle temporarily using the provided suction cups or bolted in place for permanence. 

A Double Play

Night vision and thermal combinations exist, too. 

On a recent hunt, I used a helmet-mounted system with an Armasight Sidekick 320 thermal positioned over my left eye and an Armasight PVS-14 night vision over the right one. When walking through brush and over fields at night or driving with lights out over ranch roads, the night vision illuminated my surroundings very well, allowing me to walk and drive safely.  

Plus, I easily switched over to the thermal unit to spot the heat signatures of hogs and other animals, like ranch livestock — the latter, of course, very much off bounds for shooting!

This same kind of double play is at work in Pulsar’s newest combined technology unit, the Merger NXP50 Multispectral Binocular. The NXP50 combines thermal and digital channels to provide exceptional detection, recognition and identification capabilities for day and night observation.

The thermal channel ensures extreme thermal sensitivity, making it very useful for detection and observation in changing weather conditions, like fog and rain, and at distances out to 1,969 yards, with 3 to 24X magnification capabilities. 

The full-HD resolution ultra-low-light night vision reveals intricate details and features of those observed objects.

The NPX50’s even feature a picture-in-picture function. This allows images from both optical channels to be displayed simultaneously, prioritizing the thermal or digital image as the situation demands.

More to Come

Stay tuned. Many manufacturers keep refining both of these technologies, increasing both unit capabilities and features, with new night-vision and thermal units seemingly hitting the market every week or two!

Pricey but Popular 

Many retailers are understandably hesitant to stock night-vision and thermal products given the substantial price tags of these units. 

At McCunn Specialty Firearms, sales manager Levi Morros admitted that he and staff had some initial hesitation in stocking units that often started at $2,500 and could easily cost twice that.

However, “We discovered that the thermal units were actually much easier to sell than you might think,” Morris said. “There are so many companies today making thermal, and that’s driven down prices, even as the technology keeps improving.”

He noted a comparable thermal priced at $2,000 today could easily cost $7,000 a decade ago. 

“And let’s face it,” he added, “thermal is kind of in its fad phase right now. There are many people who just have to have a thermal!”

 Yet, these high-tech products won’t simply sell themselves, warned Pliny Gale, Marketing and Communications Manager for InfiRay Outdoor. To move these bigger ticket items, Pliny said sales staff must be very knowledgeable about how to use the units and must be able to share this knowledge with customers. 

“In my opinion, it is not the price or technology that holds dealers back,” Gale said. “It is the sales, marketing and product knowledge. Geek out on the product, learn it, and you can sell it very effectively.”