Is solar red dot sight just a gimmick or is it something that has practical use?
To save you time reading this whole thing. A solar panel red dot sight is a little bit of a gimmick, and here is why.
- A solar panel supposed to provide charging capability instead of just collecting ambient light to power the sight in the case the battery runs out.
- Solar powered red dot doesn't have full reticle brightness control
- Solar powered red dot doesn't work in low light
In the practical use cases, if the battery dies. Most users will immediately swap out the battery instead of resorting to the solar panel. As much as we all love the good design, it's often not that useful.
After using multiple Holosun red dot sights with solar fail safe for more than 7 years, I have never run into any issue with the battery dying where I need to rely on the solar panel.
Holosun makes most red dot sights on the market with the added solar fail safe system that powers the sight if the battery dies. But none of them can actually recharge the CR2032 or CR1632 batteries until the Holosun SCS came to the market.
The Holosun SCS 320 are fully enclosed optics with the recharging capability. The footprint is made for the DeltaPoint Pro.
This 20,000-hour battery can potentially keep the sight operational indefinitely, especially if it's regularly exposed to bright light. This means you probably won't have to worry about changing batteries, which is a big plus for convenience and reliability.
However, this optic features automatic reticle brightness adjustment that sometimes makes the reticle too bright on a bright sunny day. So wearing sun glasses is the only way to fight against it.
