FLIR Scout Night Vision Monocular

Product Description

You can traverse rough terrain to scope out the “perfect spot” at dusk, before dawn and even when it’s pitch black outside. You can discover nocturnal animals, find wandering members of your party, locate lost livestock or spot downed game. You can use the Scout PS-Series to help see through light fog, smoke or trail dust. In addition, during day time wildlife spotters can locate animals standing in tall grass or hiding partly behind bushes or trees. Item can be shipped only within the U.S.

Top Reviews

Good device with one major drawback
by Reality Check (3 out of 5 stars)
November 11, 2013

This is a pretty nice little unit and a good entry level thermal device.

Pros:

It surprised me a couple of times by spotting deer near dusk when I wasn't aware they were there.

The eye piece is really comfortable

Battery life never seemed like an issue, held a charge well

Insta-alert option is a nice addition

Cons:

In a wooded environment seemed to pick up a lot of ambient heat objects (trees/rocks) even early in the AM.

Non-replaceable battery - this is a big one for me, you need to send the unit back when the internal battery no longer accepts a charge (2 years?). That seems like a real hassle for a fairly costly item. If this unit could have just used AA or even CR123 it would have been a big plus over this.
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Incredible!
by Dane (5 out of 5 stars)
September 21, 2012

I have no prior experience with IR viewing or night vision but I have to say this thing is incredible! I have only had it two days but have found a million uses for it so far. Initial charging took almost eight hours to achieve the green light and last night I had it on continuously for almost three hours and the battery indicator still showed a full charge. The large rubber eye cup seals well, making it easy to see the viewfinder when using the FLIR during the day. And, yes when you receive the unit you must do the obligatory test of putting your hand on a desk/table for a few seconds then pull it away and see your heat signature hand print. :)

I have not found much use for the different viewing modes and find the standard white/hot dark/cold to work best for me. The display brightness is easily adjustable and is remember when you turn the unit on/off. Power up takes less than 5 seconds and it will stay on for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes with no button pushes the screen displays "powering off in 30 seconds" and counts down. Pressing any button stops the automatic shutdown and that button push does nothing but stop the auto shutdown so you don't have to worry about accidentally turning it off or changing your settings.

Home inspection and maintenance:

I am able to see the studs in most interior and exterior walls through sheetrock and in some cases can even spot the seams & nails in the sheetrock. It also works very well to spot areas of heat loss making it easy to see where insulation is lacking or where there may be air leaks like around doors & windows. I also scanned my office, spotting a set of unused, powered computer speakers sitting in the corner collecting dust but glowing bright in the display meaning it was consuming a lot of power and wasting energy. I have played with it looking at circuit breaker panels and electrical outlets to spot temperature differences and possible overloads or poor connections.

I've also used it to spot a broken/disconnected section of duct work buried in the walls. Several registers in this house were not blowing air and the ducting is concealed between floors which might have required a lot of expensive demo & repair to locate the break. The tenant had been running the AC so I switched the unit over to heat and watched with the FLIR. Soon a hot spot in the middle of a ceiling appeared, revealing the location of the break. I could easily see and mark the floor joists. I cut open a small area to perform the repair. It turned a expensive wild goose chase into a much smaller surgical procedure.

Game watching & Hunting:

This thing is magic! And, I highly recommend getting the higher resolution PS32 model over the less expensive PS24. The higher resolution greatly extends the range at which you can identify game. By modern standards even the 32 is low resolution so at greater distances animals become blobs and the greater resolution helps you distinguish details at greater ranges. These are not maximum ranges but just some animals I saw last night. At 50+ yards a small fox was pretty identifiable though I could not tell the difference between red and gray species. I saw the tail flicking and antlers of a whitetail buck at about 130 yards.

The detail and sensitivity I think is quite good. We were in the high 70's and sunny yesterday and it quickly dropped into the low 60's and I was able to see pebbles, rocks and clumps of grass at my feet for walking at night. You do have a narrow field of view so it takes practice as you do have to move your head around to keep your bearings.

Looking up at trees at night is probably it's biggest weakness that I can tell. The auto gain feature works well but when you look up at a tree the massive amount of sky is driving the gain which can cause the tree to totally wash out. At ground level I find the gain to work pretty well and you can easily adjust it by aiming a bit higher or lower to include more or less sky so it sort of works like a hands free gain adjustment with no button pushing required. Unfortunately I could not find a work around when looking up into trees with a much cooler sky background.
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4/5 because the framerate is terrible. It has to be for legal reasons
by Dan (4 out of 5 stars)
January 11, 2017

4/5 because the framerate is terrible. It has to be for legal reasons, unfortunately, but that's really all that's getting in the way of this being a great device. As-is, you can spot small animals moving around at night from pretty far away, or check your house for drafts. Great for looking at things, but this is not for measuring temperature. FLIR has other products designed for that.
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many uses, sometimes to sensitive
by Promapper (4 out of 5 stars)
March 6, 2012

Finds warm electrical lines and breakers with ease indicating a potential overload.

Originally bought this for hunting at night and finding downed game such as deer after dark. The sensitivity is best when the outside temperature is cold. as the day warms rocks and trees become the same ambient temperature of items / game you are looking for making it difficult to seperate real targets from natural. When the temperature is cold +- 32 degrees you can identify something as small as a pile of manure freshly dropped by a cow. Amazingly it looks the same as a newborn calf at 150 yards.

A dead deer remains identifiable easily 12 hours after death . these targets show up behind branches and some green vegetation where you can't see them visually even in the daylight assuming the ambient temperature is different than your target.

Con: It appears this is an auto balance device which sets the sensitivity based on the average of the entire scene. having half of the scene you are viewing sky is not what works. additionally, switching to 2X magnification does not change the sensitivity as it apparently is still using the full view of the device and not just what you see at 2X.

All in all works as advertized.
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Amazing unit
by Guinness (5 out of 5 stars)
October 13, 2014

Amazing unit. I had some older Gen Night Vision binoculars which will not be used as long as I have this. It's like selling your Kidney to buy it but you only need one anyway.
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Well worth the money, unbelievable!
by Brian Dillard (5 out of 5 stars)
January 28, 2015

Unbelievable product, revolutionized my hunting. I have a night vision monocular but the FLIR is worlds apart from it. I went with the higher end PS32 to get the zoom feature and it's well worth it, I use it all the time. White Tail deer can't hide from this, I can scan my fields before I head out to the stand in the morning and after dark at night and see exactly whats out there and make last minute adjustments to hunting strategy for the day. Night time coyote hunting? Wow, just put the game call out and scan the fields with the therm, nothing to it. I can easily pick out a deer or coyote from 350-400 yards away, probably farther than that if needed. In deep woods I can make out a raccoon or opossum walking around from 100-150 yards. I wish I had bought this product years ago.
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Pretty awesome scope!
by Syst3m7 (5 out of 5 stars)
March 25, 2013

Battery Life has been really great! So many uses for this, I've had so much enjoyment with it. I was amazed when I noticed that I could see a moth flying about 30ft away. I can also see the heat from an underground power cable that is about 4ft deep. (both at night)
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This is a nice scope. I use it to hunt for my ...
by Oldandcranky (5 out of 5 stars)
July 10, 2015

This is a nice scope. I use it to hunt for my cats after dark and it picks them right out. lol
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... got our flir a couple of months ago- and LOVE it! We can see anything the size of ...
by jean poythress (5 out of 5 stars)
May 23, 2015

We got our flir a couple of months ago- and LOVE it! We can see anything the size of a rabbit or larger for at least 4 or 5 hundred yards. Will even pick up life driving along a highway at 50 or 60 mph.
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Quality handheald thermal imaging
by Robert Bowers (5 out of 5 stars)
April 27, 2015

Been looking at thermal imaging products for a while now, and finally decided to take the plunge and get one of these. This is a quality unit, does a fine job. We have used it to find "hot" wires in a breaker box that had loose terminations, windows that were drafty and letting the heat out in the winter, and stray animals roaming around in the night. It will have many uses. Well-made, should last a long time.
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Amazing unit
by OhioGuy (5 out of 5 stars)
October 13, 2014

Amazing unit. I had some older Gen Night Vision binoculars which will not be used as long as I have this. It's like selling your Kidney to buy it but you only need one anyway.

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