ATN X-Sight

[TEXASLAWMAN]

Ah, but ATN will continue to sell units and strangely people will continue to buy them, even folks who know that things are not working right and that the units have unresolved issues. The American public is amazing. Of course, folks in Britain are doing the same thing, so it isn't just us.

People want it to work at this price point so bad that they are overriding their own logic. I have the latest firmware installed, Ive successfully recorded video, and I have mounted it on my suppressed savage mark II. Tomorrow I will sight it in.

So far this is what I have noticed even with the illuminator and backyard flood lights on a black smoker at 50 yards was hard to make out. IR illumination most likely will be necessary at all times. The day mode looks very good I can see some good day hunting videos coming from this unit.

 

[dax2323]

ATN ceo posted a long rambling "explanation" (apology) on their facebook page. The comments were just as annoying as the scope was. People were thanking him for explaining what was going on... I posted "Apologies are great, selling unfinished junk is not". I'll never buy from ATN again, customer service is sub par and seems as some of the products are too (not all, but enough to make me shy away from them). one more week till shot and booth 228 here I come.

 

[DaveABQ]

I've easily illuminated targets that would be shootable at 200 yards. Remember a couple things, I paid $620, it is a digital sight, it isn't meant to be high end night vision, it is a combination day and night scope they is geared at those wanting something that is usable for both with limitations and in a price range they can afford.

I'm I batting for atn, hell no, but a sight that does both day and night, records internally in high resolution, has gps, wifi, color day, a phone app, is well built, has a compass, Goetagging, altitude, velocity, gyroscope, etc for a retail if $629/$749, well, there isn't anything like it it at that price. The main thing is features and the price point.

It isn't a Gen 3 night vision, it isn't a thermal scope, it isn't meant to be. They shouldn't have released it when they did, it is usable now with the latest changes with limitations.

They never said it was supposed to shoot hogs at 200 yards, but it is easy to shoot them at the normal distances we shoot hogs 0-100 yards.

My thoughts, if they get rid if the flicker in night mode, I'm good to go. However I will get the 3x once the manual focus is added, the 5x is too much magnification, because it is really closer to ~7x or thereabouts.

 

[pruhdlr]

you hit the nail on the head with ........."there isn't anything like it at that price". Ever wonder why ???? --- pruhdlr

 

[FrankT]

I still remember ATN berating people and lying between Shot last year when it was announced and the 9 mos it took to roll out a defective product..They should apologize and refund $$

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

I don't know I've spent a lot of money trying to record hunts in my humble opinion even if it just works in the day it's about the price of a consumer camcorder. I know everyone has different things they spend their hard earned dollars on but I've spent more on tripods than this scope.

I do think ATN messed up but honestly all the GPS, wifi, speedometer, ect are gadgets that most hunters will never use and should be turned off to conserve batteries.

It looks like it will have very limited use for nighttime use Illuminators scare the pigs they can see them. But for someone with a limited budget this would be great to sit and watch a feeder from the stand and record your hunt.

 

[Brian Shaffer]

you hit the nail on the head with ........."there isn't anything like it at that price". Ever wonder why ????

A big part of the reason is that manufacturers will often sell items at levels that the market will bear, not based on their actual costs. So the end up making considerable profits on the items being sold, even if they don't sell as many of them. So that there hasn't been a product like this previously isn't because it can't be done, necessarily, but because they can sell items at higher prices.

ATN's concept here was genius, but they screwed up implementation. This is a product that should have been introduced this year at the Shot Show, not last year. Last year, it didn't even have the capability for night vision, LOL, at least not that they would demonstrate. So what ATN is doing is capturing a huge share of the potential night vision market, sucking in potential night vision purchasers, many of whom have thought about night vision but never thought it in their price range. Not only that, but the scope is also a day scope. It does double duty. Even better, it is in color in the daytime.

The X-sight is what is called a "loss leader" priced produced. Loss leader pricing is an aggressive pricing strategy used to draw in more customers to a given store or to capture a greater share of the market. Loss leader items often generate little or no profit themselves and some are actually priced at below cost. By doing this, ATN is securing market share and establishing broader market name recognition.

Despite the crap they have put out so far with the X-sight as a product, if they can make it work, they will have a LOT of happy customers who will sing their praises for innovation. They already have a buttload of folks singing their praises already for a product that only partially works as claimed.

 

[Curly Shuffle]

I hope the only things they are working on is, recording, focus and being able to use at night/day. Those are they only 3 things that need to work and the recording is just an extra a good one at that. The others are useless in my opinion (to put it bluntly). From what I have read the 3X is not that far off. BANG BANG!!

 

[FrankT]

Curly all I can tell you is all the features you do not need like WIFI and GPS eat your batteries very quickly and most turn them off , I cannot imagine using them without an external power supply, the scope is a battery hog. The weight on the 5x was over 4lbs, heading towards 5 with an IR light and batteries, it will make a great stand scope but not so much for spot and stalk. OH and the Gyro never worked on any of mine to stabilize the recordings

 

[Brian Shaffer]

Is the gyro automatic or something you can turn on and off?

 

[DaveABQ]

you hit the nail on the head with ........."there isn't anything like it at that price". Ever wonder why ???? --- pruhdlr

go ahead, tell us?

 

[DaveABQ]

Is the gyro automatic or something you can turn on and off?

auto from what I see

 

[DaveABQ]

I hope the only things they are working on is, recording, focus and being able to use at night/day. Those are they only 3 things that need to work and the recording is just an extra a good one at that. The others are useless in my opinion (to put it bluntly). From what I have read the 3X is not that far off. BANG BANG!!

all that is working other than a flicker in night mode, which is my biggest complaint, I really need that working, some people said theirs is working in version 200 of the firmware, mine isn't, I really want that fixed first

The 3x and 5x run the same firmware, no difference in either operationally, the 3x is being retrofitted with a manual focus, most of the 1st production run were out of focus from what I could tell in the video's posted by users.

It is a digital scope, a good IR Illuminator is needed at night, the one that comes with it has been used out to certain distances, I have not tried mine.

 

[FrankT]

They are still working on getting the reticle in the recording and a range finder added. What is really needed is a port for an external battery pack.

 

[DaveABQ]

They are still working on getting the reticle in the recording and a range finder added. What is really needed is a port for an external battery pack.

its already there Frank, there are two ports, a mini-usb and micro-usb, if we can get ATN to give us the pinout, I can build battery packs, that's why the one guy on facebook was able to build one, I can probably figure it out by placing a cable on there with the end cut off and the wires bare and stick a meter on it, I know what ground is for the cables normally, once I go across the wires I probably can find the power since the guy said that it wouldn't work with the batteries installed in the unit, that is the same way my zeus is .....

 

[FrankT]

That is not what I call there as it is not available and unless fixed one port did not work. Besides how is it to be used? With the cap off to allow rain and trash in the ports and SD card slot? till an unfinished product.

 

[DaveABQ]

I can put a rubber cap on the slot, cable will interface through it. Its a marketing thing possibly, who knows, but I bet we will see products come out for it. No different than other manufacturers do. We'll see, we know most vendors aren't upfront, and we know ATN blew smoke up our butts for a long time on the X-Sight, I'm sure they were going by what the Chinese were saying, but still poor communication. I never wait for others to do stuff, maybe its the engineer in me, and I usually can solve stuff or come up with alternatives, I don't wait lol.

 

[wigwamitus]

I looked thru the 5x model at Todd's and it is a decent day viewer. I already have my MKIEB, but they don't do 5x. But in the dark it is maybe a good gen01 device, call it gen01+ I could barely see items 50yds away with the illuminator. It is very heavy compared to the apollo, which has a similar size and shape. The diopter ring on the "X" is huge and heavy. Why would one need a giant heavy diopter ring? It looks like it was designed by people who have no idea what it would be used for. It is heavy enough to make a barely useable club, but for that use case, it should be a bit longer. I'm not impressed with what I saw and feel like this is a hopeless device. I wouldn't be holding my breath for them to "fix it". Something like this is probably do-able for $1,500 where it would be gen02 equivalent, then it would be much more useful.

 

[DaveABQ]

not sure what you were looking at, I can easily see past 50 yards at night, but put it in perspective, you gave your opinion, but it costs less than $700, I paid $620. I can't say I like ATN much as company, but what do you want for $620, this isn't a Gen 3, it isn't a thermal, it isn't any of those and isn't meant to be, don't compare it against one, its a digisight, with a bunch of features, color day, and usable night to certain distances, if you can barely see past 50 yards, send it back, because I can see similar to dfw's video:

 

[FrankT]

there are 3 intensity settings on the IR, low med and high..I got maybe 100yds on high, longer just to observe, lots of complicated scope settings will improve your view, contrast and such.