NeoOptics HH1 : A Budget Holographic Sight
When you think of holographic sights, everyone jumps to think of Eotech. Indeed, for years eotech has had the market cornered on holographic sights. Eotechs are stupid expensive however. So when a budget friendly alternative, the Neo Optics HH1, was recently released we were incredibly excited. Neo optics is a company based out of Nevada who set out to develop a holographic sight that would give the eotech a little bit of competition in the civilian market. Neo optics sent us this sight for free to review, although we don’t have any relationship with them. We will post our amazon affiliate link, but we don’t have a direct affiliate relationship with neo optics.
So the question is, is this the eotech killer for the everyday citizen? Today we’re going to go through our first impressions of this optic.
NeoOptics HH1 Holographic Sight
An excellent, budget friendly alternative to the Eotech EXPS-3. A true Holographic Sight that magnifies well and performs great under night vision.
What Comes in the Box?
The HH1 comes in some nice packaging. It comes in a pelican style hard case that I would compare to the harbor freight apache cases in terms of quality.
The sight itself is pretty sturdy and lightweight. Made from 6061 aluminum, the optic weighs only 7.5 ounces. It is powered by a standard CR-123 battery, and it has a battery life of over 750 hours running on lower settings. If that seems short, it isn’t for holographic sights, and it’s probably because you’re coming from the world of red dots.
The NeoOptics HH1 is a true Holographic Sight
Holographic sights differ from red dots in that they use an actual laser with a series of mirrors internally to project the reticle on the glass. Red dots by comparison use a simple LED. For this reason, red dots can have insane battery life while holographic sights need to have the batteries changed a bit more frequently. Eotechs have around the same battery life duration given that they operate on the same principles.
The NeoOptics HH1 is great under a Magnifier
However, that tradeoff is offset by a major advantage. The laser from a holographic sight is very precise if you have good eyesight, which I do not, but we’ll get to that towards the end of the review. The center dot is 1MOA, but in reality because the laser is so precise, it is actually microns in diameter. Thus, when you put it behind a 3X magnifier, it is still very close to an actual 1MOA, whether magnified or not.
By contrast, a typical 2MOA red dot magnified by 3x will appear to be 6MOA in size, since an LED emitter has a much wider throw. So holographic sights are much easier to use with magnification. The HH1 is incredibly sharp magnified.
These factors help holographic sights like the HH1 or Eotechs to be a little bit more usable for long distance shooting than your typical red dots. It’s difficult to see on camera, but because holographic sights are projected from a series of reflectors to a holographic grating, the reticle looks like it is made up of a series of hundreds of tiny dots. You really have to see one in person to really understand the difference.
The Difference between Red Dots and Holographic Sights like the HH1
Oftentimes LED emitter red dots attempt to copy that signature circle dot reticle, but you’ll see a big difference between the two if you compare them side by side. The HH1 is is a true holographic sight, it isn’t an direct LED emitted reticle.
A proper holographic sight should have nearly no parallax issues, that is, if you can see the reticle from any angle, it shouldn’t move much while over target. This is a big draw of Eotechs, and it was my biggest skepticism when testing the HH1. I’m really glad to announce, this is also true on the HH1 in my testing. Mind you, I was limited in terms of shooting distance by my indoor range, but as you can see from this range footage, no matter where I move the camera, the HH1 stays on target generally speaking with minimal shift. That means that if your glass was broken partially or cracked, you could still use the optic with any part of intact glass.
At close ranges, holographic sights like the HH1 are practically speaking parallax free. No optic is truly parallax free, but holographic sights have minimal shift even at longer distances.
NeoOptics HH1 Holographic Sight
An excellent, budget friendly alternative to the Eotech EXPS-3. A true Holographic Sight that magnifies well and performs great under night vision.
The NeoOptics HH1 has a similar reticle to Eotech
With a 1MOA center dot and a 65MOA outer ring, the reticle is almost identical to that of the Eotech’s 1MOA inner dot and 68MOA outer ring. That means generally speaking you can use the same holds that you would use on an Eotech with a 50 yard zero.
The NeoOptics HH1 is priced a lot lower than an Eotech
The HH1 retails for $499, but it is often on sale for quite a bit less than that. At the time of filming, this model was selling on sale on G-sight’s website for $329.99. Eotech’s EXPS-2 comes in at $579, and their EXPS-3 model comes in at $699. So the HH1 is definitely cheaper. That makes this a very attractive price point.
Does the price differential really make a difference here though when you take quality into account?
The Neo Optics HH1 Night Vision mode has great performance
I would say the main reason you’d consider buying the more budget Neo Optics HH1 is because of its night vision mode. The EXPS-2 technically does not have a dedicated night vision setting, although it is usable for passive aiming on its lowest brightness settings. By contrast, by holding down the HH1’s brightness setting, the HH1 reticle can be reduced down so that it is just barely visible to the naked eye, but quite visible under night vision. A quick button press will take it out of night vision mode instantly. Being able to quickly flip from night vision mode to daylight bright setting is a huge advantage of the HH1.
And the night vision mode works well. This is the main draw of the optic for me. As you can see from this dryfire footage taken with my sionix opsin, passive aiming with the HH1 is possible. In a sense, this will fill a hole as a niche optic for night vision guys.
The window clearance on the HH1 without a riser just barely clears a PEQ-15 clone on my build. I added a knock off unity fast riser, which makes shooting passively with a night vision device a lot easier. So just note you will probably need to run this with a riser if you’re running a laser aiming module on the grip, but you probably would need one anyways if shooting with NODs.
Now obviously the Eotech EXPS-3 has these night vision advantages as well, but the EXPS-3 also costs over twice as much. With the EXPS-2 lacking night vision settings, you are getting a lot of value for a very low price tag.
NeoOptics HH1 Holographic Sight
An excellent, budget friendly alternative to the Eotech EXPS-3. A true Holographic Sight that magnifies well and performs great under night vision.
Is the Neo Optics HH1 to good to be true? A few minor drawbacks
So is the HH1 too good to be true? No, but it does have some drawbacks, drawbacks that are offset by it’s low price tag. In this sense it fits squarely as a good value in this niche market.
You should know, the optic is made in China, even though Neo Optics is an American company. This is true universally for almost all budget optics on the market, so just keep that in mind. If American made is important to you, you’re going to pay 2-3 times more for it.
While the optic itself does seem to have sturdy construction, the mounting hardware leaves a bit to be desired. This is the biggest drawback of the optic. The mounting system is a single screw that bolts to fitting to grip a standard picatinny rail. You will definitely need to blue loctite this screw down. Will the mount hold up for range use? I’m sure it will, and it has so far for my needs. Will it hold up for long term use or for duty usage? Only time will tell. I have it torqued down to somewhere between 15-20 inch lbs and its holding securely. But I haven’t put it through much abuse.
Another minor thing that I didn’t really like was noticeable discoloration with tinting of the glass. There is definitely a noticeable tint and the glass isn’t as clear as other optics I’ve used. It isn’t bad, but that is a factor.
Next are the turrets. This aspect really isn’t a big deal likely, but the eotech has recessed windage and elevation turrets whereas the turrets on the HH1 protrude out of the optic body. The disadvantage here is the possibility that the windage and elevation could shift as it bounces around on your gear. The turrets themselves do have detents, but the detents aren’t very strong. There isn’t a snappy “click” when you dial them, the click is a little mushy. That said, it was easy to get the HH1 zeroed, and it held zero through my range session.
My initial impressions with the NeoSight HH1
Again I don’t have a high round count on this yet, so whether the optic holds zero over a high round count is too early to tell. I only have 60 rounds on it. But its important to note that Neo Optics has a 10 year warranty, which instills confidence as it exceeds the industry standards for warranties on most budget friendly optics
That said, for range and competition use, which are the main use cases for most civilian gun owners, this optic may work well for you. It is working well for me so far. I’m going to be running this in some night shooting in November up north, where I’ll be doing a direct comparison of this against an Eotech optic, so stay tuned for that.
Challenge using holographic sights with my Astigmatism
This last piece of feedback is probably specific to me. My eyes had a little trouble picking up the center dot on the HH1, but I have an astigmatism and struggle a lot with various optics. The center dot being so precise, I really struggled to find it at times, unless brightness was turned up quite a bit. I don’t think this was a problem with the HH1, so much as it is with my eyes and holographic optics in general. In the past I’ve had this problem with an older Eotech 512. Experience with astigmatisms is incredibly subjective, and i’ll be sure to test this more when im outdoors with the eotech in a future video, but be aware if you have an astigmatism, you may run into a similar problem with any holographic optic. Yet on the other hand, others with astigmatisms swear by holographic optics, so your mileage here absolutely will vary, so I would not hold this against the HH1 but it was worth mentioning.
NeoOptics HH1 Holographic Sight
An excellent, budget friendly alternative to the Eotech EXPS-3. A true Holographic Sight that magnifies well and performs great under night vision.
Conclusion
Overall my first impressions of this optic were quite positive, especially with the night vision performance. This is definitely an affordable way to get into night vision. I’m going to keep running this on my 300 blackout for the forseeable future, and to be honest, I don’t see any reason to upgrade it for my purposes. I think for range guns, or in my case, I primarily I want to use it as nighttime hog hunting gun, the HH1 is an attractive choice and is worth having a look at if you’re on a budget. Being brand new, it lacks the long track record of Eotech, so for MIL or LEO usage, so the verdict is still out. That said, its great to see budget options coming out that will hopefully put some pressure on expensive brands like eotech. The neo optics HH1 fills a gaping hole in the niche market of night vision compatible holographic optics, and for that I think this is one to keep an eye on.
