The unit itself has rubber armour on the sides and underneath, there’s a tripod mount. The ocular lens housing has a dioptre adjustment and attached soft rubber eye cup. The colour palette has the usual white hot and black hot settings as well as Marine Red and InstAlert.

The top of the unit has four buttons: a power button, viewfinder brightness, colour palette and zoom. The Scout has a familiar feel and can be operated easily with one hand. The old TH models had a refresh rate of 9Hz and this took its toll on your eyes when using them for longer periods. The resolution is now up to 640 x 480 and the refresh rate is 30Hz. With the Scout III 640, FLIR has taken the housing from the older Raymarine/FLIR 24/32 and given the internals a major upgrade. My findings back then were that both units gave the night hunter a real advantage so, what’s changed with FLIR in the past four years?įor this review, NZ FLIR agents – the New Zealand Ammunition Company – sent us two TI units to review the first was the Scout III 640, and the second was the Breach. In 2105, we reviewed the FLIR TH24 and 32 handheld units.

Now, four years later, hunters talk about TI gear in a similar vein to buying a new scope it’s not some expensive bleeding-edge technology – it’s becoming mainstream. When I first reviewed handheld thermal imagers back in 2015, I’d used some top-end thermal imaging (TI) gear for hunting and was keen to see how the affordable technology stacked up the simple answer was that it worked. Kids love to use the term ‘hot right now’, and I think that description might just apply to thermal imaging! Everyone who’s hunted at night has no doubt wished for just a bit more information than the trusty spotlight can provide.

Flir breach