HIK Micro at The British Shooting Show

HIK Micro treats thermal imaging technology as its core, with visible light imaging and ultrasonic technology as additional areas, providing products and solutions to the world. HIK Micro's products are widely used in the outdoor, industrial, security and safety industries and consumer electronics, etc., serving customers in over 100 countries and regions. We managed to set up an interview with their Business Development Manager for UK and Ireland, Paul Hodson.

Q: What are you excited about for the British Shooting Show 2024?

A: I always get excited about being in the British Shooting Show. It’s our key event that we like to attend. We do other events as well but this is really a hub where everything comes together and the whole shooting community comes to the NEC. It's like a big family. I can't walk around here for five minutes without somebody stopping me shaking hands and saying how are you doing. So, it's really, really great for that.  the British shoot show is just one of those events that you put in the calendar every year because it's just an amazing get-together. People come and try products. Touch. Feel. if you're spending £3,000 on something you wanna try it and look through it. So, it's a good way of doing that and at the NEC, the centre of the country, great communication links, the motorways, the railways. All fantastic!

Q: There’s definitely a big sense of community here. What is it that you love most about this community? 

A: It's that whole atmosphere at the British Shooting Show. We are quite an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life, but when you come together it doesn't matter whether you're an air gun shooter, a pheasant shooter, a deer stalker, or somebody who shoots rats, we all come together and you can feel the atmosphere around here. It's just electric and people agree to meet with other people here and just enjoy the day. So it's an amazing time!

Q: What are you excited to showcase this year?

A: We’re really excited! This year we've got four amazing new products that we want to highlight. We've got the Habroks which are our thermal binocular. It does everything; it's daytime, nighttime, thermal image. It's got a laser range of 500,000 metres. It's unparallelled in quality. It’s got sub 20mK sensor GPS tracking on it. So, you can ping things wherever you shoot them at 100, 500, 600 yards, ping the GPS, go and get your Argo, go drive to whatever you shot, whether it be a deer or a fox. Amazing value for money, 3 year guarantee on all of our products. You get 10 year warranty on the sensor. We’ve got a repair and maintenance centre in the UK as well, in Lutterworth, that concentrates on us. The new innovative thing that we've done this year is that we're cutting out the middlemen. If you have an issue with any of our products you send it straight back to us. In the old days, you used to take it to the shop. The shop there then sends it to the distributor. The distributor then sends it to us to repair. We've cut out all of that so it's now directly to us, and we send it directly to the customer.

We’ve also got the Lynx 2.0. Again, all of our products now Thermal wiser, sub 20mK, so it's got that amazing sensitivity in any conditions, whether it's fog, whether it's rain, whether it's snow, whether it's cold or whether it's warm. With the sub 20mK sensor, it just gives you that clarity of image. Alpex 4K laser rangefinder. So we got a new screen in there. 4K high definition screen. It's got a thousand metre laser range finder. It's now got an external 18650 battery as well as the internal one. So, you get an extra 11 hours with the internal, and an extra two hours with the external. You can now also start the unit up on the battery only. So, that is really taking everybody by storm and amazing value for money, because you’re getting all that for £849. 

At the far end, we've got the Stellar 2.0. The button function and how it works has been completely redesigned. Everybody will get to know all of our products and how the menu system works, whether it's the Lynx or whether it's the high end thermal rifle scopes or the Habroks, the menus are all very very similar. So once you know how to navigate one menu, you can navigate them all. That's sub 20mK. The picture clarity on the Stellar 2.0? Phenomenal. Best scope that I've ever looked through. It is mind blowing. I mean I thought the Alpex was good. The Stellar 2.0, if you want thermal scope, is next level. It really is fantastic. 

So, there are four new products that we really wanna emphasise at the British Shooting Show. We’re really excited about all of them.

The Habroks have been entered into an award for Innovative Product of The Year. We've also got the Condor, which is New Product of The Year, that's in the awards. Last year, the original Alpex won Product of The Year. So, we're keeping our fingers crossed that we win something again this year. So, that's our point, and the other thing, with all of our new projects, we want to explore. That's our new catchphrase; We want to explore and see in a different way. So, that's the emphasis of us being here at The British Shooting Show.

Q: It sounds like quality and people are at the core of your business.

A: I get people to come up to me who have never shot before and they want to go into an entry level, and the enthusiasm that they generate, when they start looking through our products, is phenomenal, and you can have that you can have it for somebody like myself

who's been shooting for 50 years, you know. I get excited when I get a parcel from headquarters and they go, “Paul, test this!”. I’m like a kid at Christmas! “What we got now?”, and it never ceases to amaze me how they improve.

Q: What else does 2024 hold?

A: I can't go to too much detail, but we got exciting products leading up through the rest of the year. We’re looking forward to going around the country. We’ve got a demonstration van that does tours around the UK and I'll be there. We do that at dealers, so if dealers wanna have a chat with me and give me a call, then I can come and do an event there. I'm really excited about 2024, because I was excited about 2023. What happened in 2023 blew me away, so what's 2024 got in store? It's gonna be mind blowing!