When something rustles near the chicken coop at night, an ordinary flashlight usually scares it away before you even manage to take a proper look. GTGUARD N3 is a small digital night vision device for one hand, which shines an invisible infrared light and, according to the manufacturer, lets you see up to 300 meters in complete darkness. Everything you see is also recorded as Full HD video or a photo to a memory card.
Night outings without waiting for a parcel from China
GTGUARD N3 is sold on AliExpress by the GT-Genuine Sales Store, which ships it from a European warehouse in France. Shipping is free, the package should arrive in about a week, and you don’t pay customs duty or fees added to shipments from China since November. In the box, besides the device, you’ll also get a memory card with a card reader, a USB-C cable, a protective pouch and a lens cloth—so you can use it right after unpacking.
GTGUARD N3 digital night vision
FR warehouse
TIPExpress delivery from the French warehouse with no customs duties or VAT.
This product will be delivered express from the local Spanish warehouse. Shipping from Spain usually takes 7-10 days and is handled by a courier. On delivery, you don’t pay any extra fees—no customs duty or VAT.
In complete darkness up to 300 meters
N3 isn’t a classic light-amplification device, but a digital camera sensitive to infrared light. On the front it has a 3 W infrared diode with a wavelength of 850 nm, which emits light that the human eye can hardly see, and the camera turns it into a black-and-white image on the display inside the eyepiece. The illumination has seven levels, so for a nearby deer in a meadow you can use a weaker setting, and at the edge of the forest you can turn it up fully.
The manufacturer states a range of up to 300 meters in complete darkness, but that’s a value for ideal conditions. In practice, you’ll reliably spot a fox, wild boar or a deer only at shorter distances, and at the three-hundred-meter mark you’ll mostly see an outline and movement. So count on N3 being a device for observing a garden, a cottage or the edge of a forest—not a replacement for professional hunting equipment. During the day and in twilight, you can also use it as a regular digital telescope that sharpens from three meters to infinity and shows a colored image.
Whatever you see is what you record
The biggest draw compared to cheap spotting scopes is recording. Video is saved in 1920 × 1080 at 30 frames per second, photos up to 12 Mpx, and it also has a microphone, so you’ll capture the sounds of the night too. The recording is saved to a microSD card up to 128 GB, and you can play it directly on the device or transfer it to a computer via USB-C. N3 can even connect to a computer as a webcam.
You watch the image on a 1.54-inch display inside the eyepiece, with a resolution of 240 × 240 pixels. You can zoom the distant animal in with a five-times digital zoom, but it only enlarges the image crop—so at maximum zoom the image is noticeably softer. The menu is available in twelve languages including English and German; however, it doesn’t have Slovak or Czech.
Eight hours in the daytime, four at night
Inside there’s a battery with a capacity of 2 000 mAh, which according to the manufacturer lasts up to 8 hours without infrared illumination and 4 hours with the illumination turned on—enough for one longer night outing with some reserve. It charges via USB-C in about three hours, and in a tent or at a campsite you can also top it up from a power bank.
On the bottom it has a tripod thread, and when you place it by a window or at a feeder, it can record without you having to hold it in your hand. The ABS plastic body measures approximately 10,6 × 4,8 × 6,5 cm and with the package weighs 325 grams, so it fits in a jacket pocket and, according to the seller, even holds up to rain thanks to IPX6. It works at temperatures from −20 to 65 °C, so you can take it for winter observation too.
What you need to get used to
With N3 you look through a small digital display with one eye, not through glass like with a classic spotting scope—so the first few minutes are unusual, and the night image is always black and white. Also, at full power the infrared diode glows faintly red, which some animals notice from close up, and in fog or rain the illumination reflects off droplets and the range drops significantly.
Thermal imaging that can spot someone by heat even in dense undergrowth costs several times more, and N3 won’t replace it. But if you finally want to find out who’s raiding your garden at night, or set up a nighttime “quest” for the kids by the campfire, you can get a device for a few dozen euros that truly sees in the dark—and does more too.
| - | GTGUARD N3 |
|---|---|
| Type | digital night vision (monocular) |
| Display | 1.54" TFT / 240 × 240 pixels |
| Lens | F1.4 / focal length 12 mm |
| Field of view | 22.8° × 17.2° |
| Zoom | 5× digital |
| Range | up to 300 m in the dark / from 3 m to infinity in the daytime |
| Infrared illuminator | 850 nm / 3 W / 7 levels |
| Video | 1920 × 1080 / 30 fps / microphone |
| Photos | up to 12 MPx (4032 × 3024) |
| Storage | microSD up to 128 GB |
| Interface | USB-C (charging / data transfer / webcam) |
| Battery | 2 000 mAh |
| Runtime | up to 8 h without illumination / up to 4 h with illumination |
| Charging | approx. 3 h |
| Durability | IPX6 (according to the seller) |
| Operating temperature | −20 to 65 °C |
| Dimensions | 105.8 × 48.2 × 65.3 mm |
| Weight | 325 g with packaging |
| In the box | memory card / card reader / USB-C cable / pouch / cloth |
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