Choosing your night vision tube

All specification only show the minimal specifications manufacturers will at least meet. Often enough the real specifications of each tube are above those by far.

Photonis Commercial
Res: 30 lp/mm
SNR: 12
Sens: 270 uA/lm
Photonis cheapest IIT they still sell. Here is everything that does not meet at least XD-4 specifications. Tubes will have spots or some low specifications etc. Only thing Photonis guarantees is that they will light up.

Photonis ECHO
Res: 57 lp/mm
SNR: 24
Sens: N/A
FOM: min 1600 – max 2000
Photonis Echo tubes with wide spectrum bandwidth. They see what others do not see.  Echo tubes allow for more spots, but at a great value and performance.

Photonis ECHO+
Res: 57 lp/mm
SNR: 26
Sens: N/A
FOM: min 2000
Photonis Echo+ tubes with wide spectrum bandwidth. They see what others do not see. Echo+ tubes allow for more spots, but at a great value and performance. Compared to regular Echo tubes these have a min FOM.

Photonis 4G
Res: 64 lp/mm
SNR: 27 or 28
Sens: N/A
FOM: min 1800 and 2000
Wide spectrum image intensifier. Exceptionally high SNR and resolution. A much wider range of the light can be used with these tubes enabling them to beat Generation 3 in most environments.

Harder Gen 2+
Res: 64 lp/mm
SNR: 21
Sens: 700 uA/lm
Same price as the Photonis Supergen, but superior specifications. Great for rifle sights and other NVDs that are mounted on rifles. Also just a great option with a great value at a comparably low price.

Harder Gen 3 FOM1400
Res: 64 lp/mm
SNR: 23
Sens: 1800 uA/lm
Very good quality for an affordable price. Specifications are mostly close to the minimal specifications,  Around US Gen 3 OMNI5 from its performance/specifications.

Harder Gen 3 FOM1800
Res: 72 lp/mm
SNR: 25
Sens: 1800 uA/lm
Great specifications and sensitivity usually around 2200 uA/lm.  Mostly slightly above the minimal specifications. Around US Gen 3 OMNI 6-7 from its performance/specifications.

Harder Gen 3 FOM2100
Res: 70 lp/mm
SNR: 30
Sens: 1800 uA/lm
Ever heard of great OMNI7 or OMNI8 tubes? This is beyond that! Amazingly calm picture through high SNR and sensitivity usually above 2200 uA/lm. You want the best – there you go.

Harder (HD) Gen 3 FOM2400
Res: 72 lp/mm
SNR: 33
Sens: 2100 uA/lm
The best Harder manufactures. It simply doesn’t get better than these tubes. Extremely high light sensitivity, resolution and SNR.

Military / Law Enforcement restricted Image Intensifier Tubes available on request:

Photonis 4G min 2200FOM and 2300FOM
Harder Gen 3 min 2600FOM

Aviation Image Intensifier Tubes available on request:

Harder (HD) Gen 3 FOM1800 to 2400
All the best features of Harder tubes but with extra shielding for fixed and rotary wing use. These are ANVIS type Intensifier Assembly with EMI shielding meeting MIL-STD-461-E.

Photonis XR5 and 4G FOM1800-2100
Build to aviation specifications and fully suitable to bring the best of Photonis in the air.

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Pros and cons for ECHO when compared to high-end devices (Gen3 FOM 2100+, 4G etc)

Cons

ECHO is commercial grade, when 4G & higher FOM devices are considered to be mil-grade. What does that mean? Mil-grade requirements does not allow black-spots to be in the first nor second sector. Therefore, all tubes that have black-spots in those sectors, are pushed to commercial grade. As a result, rarely you can find an ECHO without blackspots, because otherwise that tube would classified as mil-grade tube.

How much does it affect you? The less light there is, the less visible black spots are. You will be able to see those tiny dots, but when game is on, those spots have never borthered me.

Pros

Similar performance - The Gen3 we had in comparison costs about 60% more, but delivers only slightly better performance than ECHO.
Faster auto-gated - as you can see from video, the halo-size (size of bright light) is smaller with Photonis tube. Thats due to much more efficient autogating. So, in high light conditions ECHO/4G tube will outperform Gen3 tubes.

Conclusion

One might say that ECHO was filmed from closer range (guys moved around when I changed devices). Still, we can say that both devices have pretty similar performance – both devices had noise due to low-light, but the noise on ECHO wasn’t worse compared to high-end / mil-grade Gen3.

When buying commercial grade night-vision like ECHO, you shouldn’t expect clean tubes. There will be black-spots. Otherwise, it would not be so cheap compared to mil-grade tubes.

If your life does not literally depend on it, buying ECHO will definitely save you some money while giving similar level of performance.

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Try Night Vision Simulator

Photonis night vision simulator helps you comparing each product from our portfolio with different situations, options and light conditions.