Can You Remote Mount Thermal Binoculars

Right now we’re going to talk about using binoculars or monoculars for remote mounting.

Can you use binoculars? You can. But they tend to be better remote mounted directly to a handle than they are mounted to a spotlight. We don’t recommend mounting your binoculars to a spotlight — binos tend to be a lot heavier and bulkier than the standard monocular, which is what most people use for most mountings. Now technically, you could mount some of the smaller binos on top of your spotlight as well, much like how we mount monoculars. But ultimately they tend to be too big and bulky, and not ideal for that use case.

So binoculars are better suited to be mounted directly to a remote handle. They also work with the majority of remote-controlled robots on the market, like the Spiderbots, so you could get an all-in-one device with that.

If you would like to use them as a dedicated remote-mounted device, that is quite possible. You just have to get a few points correct to ensure you have a good remote mounting experience.

There are three of them. First, the device you buy has to have dual-band wireless, 5 and 2.4 gigahertz. Second, you need a proven and tested tablet — one that’s passed all our reliability testing for remote mounting. That is a key point. Third, the company behind the device has to have an actively maintained mobile app with good connection management, so the thermal itself has good, reliable software for managing that signal. If you get those three things right, then your wireless experience will be superb.

What binoculars give you

If you’re going directly to the handle, we do have the option for multispectral. Devices like the HikMicro Habrok have night vision, day vision and thermal. You could combine all that into one universal unit to mount to your roof, and do away with the spotlight altogether. It’s all in one device, all the same size as a monocular, just mounted directly to the handle, which is wonderful. That gives you sort of the best of both worlds if you’re not mounting it to a spotlight.

With the multispectral devices, that allows you to use the thermal to find the animal and your night vision to identify it. Much better when you get closer, especially if you’re in the cheaper end of the market — your night vision image quality is going to be a lot more telling on your ability to identify an animal than the thermal spectrum is.

The downside

A lot of binoculars don’t have very good IR torches built into them, so you can’t see as far as you might like. The night vision and the multispectral tend to not be as great without an additional IR Torch, and it tends to be limited in range and not give you the best image quality. So sometimes you’ve got to combine that with an additional IR torch, which could end up being mounted with the binoculars in some way.

Hardwiring

There are also some binos and monoculars you can hardwire, either to a tablet or to a monitor. This is model-specific, and we do have articles and videos on that point.

Where that leaves you

Overall, binoculars are not my first recommendation when you’re considering a remote-mounted device. Both options are plausible, but one is better than the other for this job, and for most people mounting to a spotlight that’s the monocular.

Though if you do intend to use binoculars by hand significantly, and you want that double-eyed experience while on foot or stalking, but you also don’t want to buy two devices — then you can still use it remote mounted back to your tablet. Just make sure you’ve got a tablet that’s passed all our reliability testing, and that the device itself has the dual band wireless and the app behind it.

What’s mentioned in this article

Thermal binoculars — the two-eyed units, including the multispectral models.

Spydabot — remote-controlled robots you can run an all-in-one device on.

IR torches and lights — for adding reach where a binocular’s built-in illuminator falls short.

Remote mounting — handles, tablets and mounts, cables, and wireless and wired kits.