Sionyx Opsin vs APNV G14SE

Important notes: The breaks in the G14 video were added during editing, to compensate for an issue where the Opsin was occasionally freezing up and dropping frames, causing a desync. The G14 video was originally continuous. Also note that the compression on the G14SE video removes some of the detail - the live image is clearer and more detailed by about 10-20%.

This is a comparison between the Sionyx Opsin and the new ADNV G14SE. The G14SE is the low end of a new line of digital night vision products - it has an older brother the G14P2 that's similar, but has a larger sensor. The G14SE attracted me because of the price point, which is well south of $2k, even with the extra recording device (the R2). For the record APNV is a Chinese company based in Beijing.

Conditions were about 70F ambient, humid, no clouds, and no moon. These are poor night vision conditions and the dark areas of the trail were extremely dark.

As you can see in the video, the Sionyx has more features and a larger video size and display. However, the G14 has one major advantage: it is a better night vision device, I would say on par with a cheaper Gen 3 analog tube. Even in the worst conditions it was able to produce a usable image. It also has better behavior versus bright lights and in strong light/dark contrast situations, with an output that is quite a bit closer to an analog tube than the Opsin.

I encountered two significant issues with the G14SE. The first was that the video recording did not always work. If you stopped recording and then restarted it, it would stop on its own after a while and the recording icon would go orange. I also did not realize that the R2 recording box has its own battery that needs to be charged, so it took several tries to get a complete G14SE video.

The second issue is that the G14SE output tends to wash out and flicker when looking past bright light, especially if the light is intermittent (i.e. walking past trees). This does not affect the user's ability to see and navigate, much, but it is quite annoying.