|
Working with Bangood's Eachine brand, Skyzone have release a new range of box goggles; The Cobra S and Cobra X which differ only in resolution (800 x 480 and 1280 x 720 respectively). In this review I take a close look at the Eachine Skyzone Cobra X goggles and show you why I think they are head and shoulders above any other current box goggle  Let's get the Eachine thing out of the way first. This is simply a Banggood House Brand - they are just marketing and nothing to do with the manufacture. Manufacture is 100% up to Skyzone. Their brand is also on the line here and they won't release a rubbish product to mar the excellent name they have at present off the back of their excellent SKY03O goggles (reviewed here) and their stunning new SKY04X goggles. Box goggles have traditionally been the realm of the beginner - Big and bulky with frankly ugly designs that were awkward to transport but they did have an advantage in that they had one massive screen. My first goggle were the Hobbyking Quanam Cyclops V1. They were a pain to carry, were heavy, looked ridiculous and were fairly uncomfortable but not since I have started using the DJI FPV goggles have I had such an immersive experience thanks the the large screen. The other benefit is that you can often wear prescription glasses with box goggles.
Given the benefit of the huge singe screen (which is cheaper to make than 2 small high res screens in binocular goggles) I'm surprised a premium box goggle hasn't been released sooner. In fact the 4+ year old Eachine EV800D is still considered to be the best option even though user interface, reliability and receiver performance are badly dated. This is where the Skyzone Eachine Cobra S and X come in - a premium box goggle with all of the features that are usually reserved for much more expensive binocular goggles. Enough preamble, let's crack in to it.
6 Comments
The ORT dual shield pro 5.8GHz antenna is unique take on goggle diversity antennas that allow for maximum portability and have surprisingly good performance. It consistents of two circular polarised patch antennas on a 3d printed mount that allows the antennas to attach directly to your goggles. They are available fairly widely but I bought from Banggood here because of their free and reliable international shipping since I don't live in the US. Although none of the components are ground breaking the way it all comes together is an awesome solution for getting up and flying quickly with little to no compromise. They are available in both left and right hand circular polarisation. Read on for more...  Absolute convenience Most of the flying I do these days, for one reason or another is a quick 3-4 batteries, flying out of a grab bag that contains my small x-lite transmitter (review), Skyzone Sky03O goggles (review), batteries and only the very most essential field tools. This means my gear is always ready to go and I can fly new spots with just the smallest bit of spare time. When I get to a spot I can turn on my transmitter, strap on and plug in my battery but then I need to choose two antenna and screw them in place in the correct alignment (and repeat in reverse at the end of the session). Although this seems like a pointless moan it takes up valuable time I could be in the air and puts strain and wear on SMA connectors attached to my goggles.
 The Skyzone SKY03O is a new premium FPV goggle with built in diversity from Skyzone, a revision of their 3rd generation of goggles. Perhaps their biggest point of difference is the large OLED screens which are being recognised as the best currently available. In this review I'll look at what's included, the specs, a brief setup and what they are actually like to use. Then I will finish with a summary and recommendations.
 If you follow my facebook feeds you may have seen I've treated myself to some new goggles, namely the Fatshark Attitude V5 that I bought from Banggood on pre-order. These are part of the slew of new mid-range binocular goggles from several manufacturers as below:
 The Aomway Commander V1s is a new binocular FPV goggle released by Aomway, a follow up to the very successful V1. Below I look at how these two compare and what the new V1s is like in it's own right. Introduction As much as we spend time looking at our quadcopter builds, it's the goggles that link us visually to a quadcopter (or anything FPV for that matter) and so are commonly the spot where we spend the most. Aomway released the Commander V1 in 2017 and they have been my firm favourite since then and I wrote about my experience in my review. Many similar looking binocular goggles have been released since then in a similar price bracket but there have been more misses than hits with goggles like the topsky being firmly in the 'miss' column. Even Aomway itself released a version 2 that had a larger field of view and better antennas but unfortunately had poor lenses and a high price tag meaning it never reached the same level of success as the V1. In fact it is no longer available for sale... In this time the Commander V1 has steadily gone about its business and racked up sales and has many happy customers and so Aomway have updated the V1 to the V1s rather than basing development off the V2 What has changed compared to the V1? Very little has changed! The Aomway Commander V1s is a very minor upgrade to the V1 and for the purposes of comparison here are the difference of the between the 2 as quoted in an email from Sean @ Aomway: 
 Same accessories (battery cable from the V1 is present but not in shot Not mentioned here is also the fact that the number of channels that can be received has been expanded from 48 to 64, This is not a whole lot of use because the extra 24 channels are largely illegal to transmit on in most countries. There is talk that the received may have also been "improved" but this is not the case. There were also rumours that DVR has been improved to 60fps (which would have been an awesome feature) but this is also not the case. Speaking of case, the case is larger than the V1 - now you can fit the goggles, battery and antennas rather than just the goggle unit themselves
Quite simply if you are looking to upgrade your Aomway Commander V1 to these, don't. These new 'features' are so minor as to say there is no difference at all. If however you are looking at upgrading from something else or purchasing these as your first pair then read on - even with no real upgrades they are a compelling buy, especially if you can get on discount. Review of the Aomway Commander V1s
Since they are so similar to the V1 I'll base my review on these since I have been using them several times a week for nearly 2 years and I feel I am in an extremely strong position to be able to talk all the benefits and challenges.
After quite a bit of teasing on their site, Banggood have released the Eachine VRD3 goggles for sale. These are a well-specced low cost 5.8GHz Goggle with DVR aimed at beginners or as a backup pair. On to discussion of the specifications below and what it included
 This is not a typical review, there are plenty of those around. Bruce from RCModelsReview and Seth from RCAddict both do a good review on these as do many others. The aim of this review is to detail my experience moving from box goggles to a set of crap binocular goggles to a set of good binocular goggles.  The Quanam Cyclops is a good basic starter FPV goggle set When I first jumped in to FPV quadcopters in March 2017, box goggles were all that fitted into my budget and at the time the Quanam Cyclops V2 from HobbyKing was one of the better models going. I've really enjoyed my time with these - an immersive 5 inch screen, useful OSD and pretty good reception for a non-diversity receiver. The only downside for me in practicality was the large size that was difficult to stuff into a backpack and to a lesser extent the reception for short-mid range flight. Looking dorky doesn't really matter to me, I have kids so a large set of box goggles doesn't even register on the shame scale.  The Eachine EV100 is not a good set of binocular FPV goggles My first move into binocular goggles was unsuccessful. Like thousands of others I jumped on the Eachine EV100 preorder from banggood. They felt and looked good at an excellent price, the lens adjustment was great and I so wanted them to be good but they just weren't. They failed on the most important feature of all - the viewing experience. Possibly because of the innovative lens system but more likely due to cheaper optics, the field of view was tiny. There was a lot of hyperbole around the lovers and the haters but it was just too hard to see the small screen, *especially* coming from box goggles. I really hope that Banggood/Eachine get this right, there is a lot of potential to take the market away from Fatshark in particular who offer great customer service but have offered little innovation in the last few years.  The Aomway Commanders were the binocuar FPV goggles I was looking for Naturally I was therefore hesitant with the Aomway Commander V1, even with the glowing reviews around. The hesitation was short lived though. After speding sometime to figure out the menu options I found the field of view to be good, even after transferring from the quanam goggles which have some of the biggest fields of view on the market. The most important measure for me was that I could fly just as well (no worse anyway!) than with the box goggles - a completely different experience from the EV100 goggles. By now, these goggles have been well reviewed but I'll cover of the points that were important to me as succinctly as possible:
Thanks to Gearbest for providing the sample for me to review and use. A link for the most up to date (revision 2) of the Aomway Commander V1 goggle is below, currently available for around $300. Check out my coupons and discounts for the latest flash sale or coupon for these. https://www.gearbest.com/fpv-system/pp_602969.html  |
