HikMicro Habrok HQ35L Multispectral LRF Binoculars

It was a long wait but the Habrok binoculars finally arrived alongside the highly anticipated Alpex LRF 4K day/night digiscope, which you’ll also find in this issue. The first job: charge up two of the four 18650 batteries that ship with the device.

The charge lights finally flipped to green and I was good to go. With the batteries popped into separate compartments below each barrel I powered up, started scanning the house and fiddled with the functions.

Indoors the thermal image was exceptional, with smooth gradients and sharp details.

After mastering the basics regarding the buttons and menus, I set up in the garden, scanning across the valley and tinkering with the settings. Oddly the thermal image was OK but not outstanding. The internal display is huge – had Hik simply overstretched the abilities of their 640 sensor? It was all a bit rough around edges and slightly flat.

I tinkered with colour modes, brightness and contrast, switched detection types, but ‘OK’ was as good as it got. And frankly mildly disappointing. This went on for about a week, so I called Mark Ripley who’d had a pair for a while. He was very happy with the image quality, stating that he thought it was, “up there with the very best”. Mark does like the higher contrast of the Hik and iRay thermals, whereas I generally lean more towards the balanced image of Pulsar thermals.

Personal preferences aside, this didn’t add up. Finally the penny dropped – or perhaps more importantly the weather improved. This has been (for me a least) the wettest winter in living memory. Wales is famously moist, but it’s been ridiculously wet. When the weather improved, so did the thermal image quality of the Habrok. Drier air transformed this device from OK to outstanding.

All thermals suffer in wet/damp conditions and the Habrok is no exception. However, very few offer the feature set, ease of use, affordability and functionality of this device. For most of us the thermal function is the primary feature, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg with this device, as daytime optical, LRF and IR modes are also available. However, before we get to the functionality let’s talk about the feel and ergonomics of the thing.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

To begin with, they’re a lot lighter than I initially expected. Even fully loaded with 18650s and weighing in at 780g, I didn’t have any issues with stiffness in the shoulders or any upper back pain, even after using them for several hours on end.

The six chunky buttons fall nicely to the fingers and their size means there’s no fumbling in the dark while trying to find a function. I won’t bore you with all the functions, but in short it has everything you would expect from a high-end thermal and a bit more besides.

There’s an impressive selection of colour modes, plus the option to switch off those you don’t like or seldom use. I defaulted to white hot, black hot and optical fairly quickly. The eye pieces are slidable to set the correct ocular distance and each eye is separately focusable.

At the end of each barrel are the focusing controls – left for the optical (IR/daytime) and right for the thermal. All are smooth and simple, and although there’s a lot of functionality to play with, all the various adjusters and buttons work well with key functions like zoom and LRF triggering falling directly under your forefingers. The left-hand buttons control the LRF, video/pics and power/standby, while the right handle zoom, main menu access and mode switching – daytime, IR and thermal.

There’s an excellent PIP function that allows you to mix thermal and IR/ optical on-screen simultaneously.

When combined with the zoom function this makes detecting and identifying in one hit very straightforward. You can easily toggle between which feed you prefer (thermal/IR or optical) in the main screen and the PIP window.

The LRF just about made the claimed 1000m after multiple pings, but it was very reliable up to the 850m mark. More importantly it was accurate when tested against my traditional LRF binos.
Switching modes is simple enough, with the top right button flipping between the selected thermal palettes and optical/IR. A long press toggles between the daytime/IR optical settings, split into day, twilight and full NV, with the final two triggering the built-in IR torch, which offers multiple power levels plus a smart mode. I simply left it on smart mode and it performed perfectly.

The daytime optical is obviously digital. It doesn’t offer the clarity of traditional binos but it’s more than sufficient for identifying quarry at extreme range and works really well in low light. I’d have no qualms employing it to sex deer or judge their condition at last light. That’s not something I could say for a traditional thermal spotter.

IN THE FIELD

Now we get to the crunch. How did it perform? At first I had a few problems with battery life. I was getting 2-2.5 hours until I realised that you need to turn off the IR manually. I was flipping between modes but not switching back into optical, which left the IR on permanently and hammered the batteries. After spotting that user error I was achieving 3.5 to 4 hours, and that was with near constant observation and mode switching while covering the lambing fields. In a typical daytime/evening/nighttime ‘walk and stalk’ scenario (using standby) that could easily be stretched to the six hours claimed in the marketing bumf and manual.

I can’t overstate the importance of having IR and thermal combined.

Throw LRF into the mix and you have an exceptional range of tools at your disposal. This device, and others like it, finally make a fully thermal scope and spotter combo a viable option.
You don’t need IR mode in most situations, but when you do, you really do! If an animal is moving it’s pretty easy to ID at typical ranges, but it you increase that range or spot ‘something’ in a field full of sheep it’s a very different story – and that’s where the IR option comes into its own.

A possible fox turned out to be a large farm cat mooching for mice at 280m. It was easy to spot using the thermal, but it was the IR that actually confirmed exactly what I was looking at.

The illuminator was surprisingly good, offering excellent image quality out to 150m, which remained perfectly usable out to 250/300m and maybe even further – even on smaller game.

During a full-moon I was easily identifying sheep at 540m. Obviously the IR wasn’t reaching that far but the combination of IR, moonlight and the Habrok’s exceptionally good IR sensor translates into 7x, 14x and a rather silly 28x as you apply the fixed zoom settings. A max mag of 16x or 20x would be better in my opinion.

THE BOTTOM LINE

These ‘issues’ are mildly annoying rather than deal breakers for me. This is an exceptional device. The combination of features, performance, ergonomics – and let’s not forget price – put it in a league of its own. The combination of thermal, IR, daytime optical and LRF are really well implemented overall.

Often these do-it-all devices leave something to be desired in one area or another, but not in this case. I would definitely recommend saving up the extra £600 for the 640 variant, as I’m pretty sure the huge display wouldn’t do a 384 sensor any favours. The Habrok is not perfect, but it’s pretty close and comes at a price that will reshape what we can expect to pay for this level of performance. Highly recommended.

TECH SPECS                       

640x512 12μ sensor
Sub-20mK NETD sensitivity
f1.0 35mm high-performance lens
Magnification 3-24x with Zoom Pro                                                     
Field of view – 12.5x10.1°
1000m laser rangefinder
1920x1080 HD display
Pictures, video recording with wi-fi
App connectivity
Optical camera
2560x1440pixel progressive scan CMOS image sensor
Optical magnification range 2.9-23.2x (with digital zoom)
Field of view 13.9x7.8°
Smart IR illuminator built in

www.scottcountry.co.uk