Sure as hell beats searching for the right button to turn the sight on when you need it like, right now.

Optic always on/always ready, no dicking around. Forget shaking or punching buttons/spinning dials.

Keep in mind pricing and quality don't always correlate 100%.  IIRC the Romeo 5 says "assembled in China".  That's a little different from "Made in China."  Quality components assembled in an environment with extremely low labor cost could very well mean it's a high quality optic, just not put together by union members with high salaries.  Also, currency exchange rates can contribute to an item's final sale price.

My point is that Aimpoint may be the gold standard, but there may be other reasons besides quality that contribute to its high price.

With regard to quality, Aimpoints are mostly rated for night vision and seal at water depth.

If the most comparable optic in that realm is the Trijicon MRO, then why is the Aimpoint still approximately double the price?

This gets back to price not always correlating 100% with quality.

I'm betting that as long as your SIG Romeo isn't used in an environment where it's going to be dropped in rivers or be in proximity of exploding shells, it's probably for all practical civilian purposes "good enough" in quality compared to the Aimpoint.

There are torture tests on YouTube showing how tough the Romeo is.  The only "unknown" is how durable and long-lasting the electronics are, and that's going to take years of use to find out.

But if a $140 Romeo 5 only lasts ten years and the Aimpoint twenty years, is that such a bad thing?  In ten years both optics will probably be so obsolete that people laugh at  you for still carrying red dots.  So buy the $140 Romeo and keep a spare just in case.  But don't get all worked up that just because it's much lower in price than the Aimpoint that it necessarily must be unacceptable.  Inferior in features like night vision compatibility and submersion resistance--maybe--but not in the basic function and durability.

Just my two cents, and I might not have believed it myself except for the YouTube abuse tests.

Not to stear off topic, but is the Sig Romeo presumed to be made by Holosun or is that a fact?

It's my understanding that the early Romeos were made by Holosun but I believe Sig has publicly stated that's no longer the case.

I think I heard something similar to that. Thanks.

How exactly do you do this with your magnified optics?  Weekly battery changes?

Really like the Leupold implementation of motion activation. Much more sensitive than the China version. The slightest movement activates the optic. Very robust and repeatable. Not a point of failure.

I don't, I spin the dial on my Accupower. I would not consider a gun with a magnified optic as an at the ready/defensive tool.

Honestly, ~30 hours battery life on a magnified optic will do everything that I require. A RDS is another story.

A shake awake feature on an optic with 30-50k hrs is redundant IMO and adds yet another possibility of failure.

What are you basing this on?

What was the approximate cutoff date?  Anybody know?

You know exactly what hes basing it on. Wild speculations and assumption that Leupold does it better because made in USA.

So far I’ve been very impressed with my 403R. It seems to be built like a tank and supposedly has aimpoint like battery life.

Shake awake seems to be mature technology. I think it is an advantage in terms of LPVO and prismatic optics, which use more power to illuminate their generally larger reticles. It was a huge selling point in my decision to sell off a PA Cyclops and replace it with a PA GLX2-2X.

It would be nice if an ARFCOM electrical engineer could provide some insight in how that (micro)circuitry works. A cursory google search turned up nothing.

Electronic inertial sensors, probably something you'd see in an exercise watch. Even cheaper than what is in a cell phone as the resolution requirements for a sight are very loose. I would guess one of these:

http://www.jewellinstruments.com/how-does-a-mems-sensor-work/

I bet if Eotech added shake-awake they would dominate the market.

Been monitoring this thread. No I'm not an electrical engineer, but I work with a guy... so I emailed him and asked for some details.

So, the following information is true for Swampfox Optics "Shake 'N Wake" products including Blade 1x prism, Trihawk 3x prism, Liberty and Justice RMR footprint dot sights and Sentinel, the RMSc footprint dot sight. All of these optics use the same MEMS type "tilt switch" tech.

1. One reason tilt switch tech is better than an accelerometer because it doesn't draw much power at at all to power itself. Another reason is because it's much smaller than an accelerometer, as you might guess from the link @Marquar posted above. Very small and easy to incorporate into a simple PCBS board that can fit into even tiny optics like the RMSc footprint Sentinel.

2. As you might guess, all these scope optics companies aren't developing their own tilt-switch tech. There are a couple of vendors who are happy to sell to anyone (including us) for the right price. The tech is pretty much a known quantity now and not risky, there are thousands of units out there operating in all sorts of environments and these switches aren't really the weak link in any application they are put into. Also there are a ton of industrial applications that these switches are used in, they weren't invented for firearm optics but were adapted to them after the tech was already proven.

3. The tech is very responsive. My every day carry gun usually sits on my workdesk next to my second monitor. I don't turn off its prototype Liberty scope manually because I'm proving out battery life, and I've noticed that if I'm typing away on my keyboard, that movement is enough to keep an optic sitting on the same desk "awake".

4. Liberty, Justice, and Sentinel are all rated to 1500 G of shock regarding recoil acceleration force. In other words you could use them as backup sights on a Barrett .50 BMG with no issues, and of all the things we would worry about breaking due to shock or recoil or drop tests, the motion sensor isn't anywhere near the top of that list.

In my opinion, most of the "problems" that you read about online aren't caused by a mechanical failure, but by over-complicated electronics in some units and user confusion about how the technology works. This extends to use case-- Shake 'N Wake is great for home defense situations, where you want to save battery life when the gun is sitting absolutely still for weeks or even months, and want it to be ready immediately when you grab the gun, without needing any button to be pressed. For concealed carry, users need to keep in mind that if it's on your body, that sucker is on, even your breathing is enough to keep it awake. There's no scope yet that can tell the difference between you walking around and you pulling the gun out of the holster. Same thing with the law enforcement application-- if the optic is going to be riding around in the patrol vehicle, with Shake N Wake active it's going to be burning battery life anytime the engine is on. I think it's better to train officers to ignore Shake 'N Wake and to manually activate and set brightness level for their environment as part of deploying with the rifle. I would say something similar about optics with very long battery life and no motion sensor at all-- it's probably better for officers to double check and adjust optic brightness even on an Aimpoint-- they offer multiple brightness levels for a reason, there is no setting that is "always right" for every situation!

Maybe. I like the tech, never had a problem, but it's not a deal breaker to not have it on the EOTech, IMO. No idea what the current stuff does, but my 552 in Iraq had an 8hr sleep time - I just went Up/Down on the buttons, every day at lunch - never a problem. It kind of becomes a "multiple times a day" thing anyway, needed or not

It's always been a deal-breaker for me with EOTechs, and if I were king for a day there you can bet I would make them put it into every sight they make. As the ones with the worst battery life of any of these products they should be first in line to shake awake everything. This is basic strategy, shore up your weakest point especially when it costs next to nothing.

Newer Eotechs can auto-off after 4 or 8 hours. What's the friggin' problemo?

Did you even read what he wrote? He clearly wants to have the optic on when he picks it up. Since Eotech has a short battery life he thinks they should be the 1st ones implementing the shake awake.

This is what I'd buy.

And no, shake awake is probably the best compromise for an optic that needs to hold up a corner most of its life but needs to be ready asap without notice or time to fiddle with buttons or knobs.

Use. Moving them. What else would I base it on?  I have owned a Holosun with shake awake. It takes a bunch more movement. The Holosun takes a bit of movement to activate but aleays activated. I got rid of for reasons other than the shake awake. You can actually move it just a bit and have it stay off but pick it up and its always on. The Leupold Deltapoint Pro and Firedot scopes are stupid sensitive. I think the Deltapoint might even be slightly more sensitive than Firedot. If you touch it and dont even try to move it, it turns on. Perhaps it is just the low weight that makes it so sensitive.

The Firedot is the only magnified scope illumination system I think is a good choice for a patrol rifle or ready defensive carbine because of the brightness, battery life, dot crispness, and its motion activation. Idike to see more of it in PA magnified scopes.

Why would you think this is my viewpoint? What have I said in the past 20+ years on this forum that would have you disparage my integrity so readily? My viewpoints and opinions may not match yours but I dont base any of my ideas on wild speculation. I have purchased several Primary Arms optics for officers at my dept despite being China made because some cops are poor. I also prefer Leupold button lock turrets to PA GL turrets but the GL turrets are 95% of the Leupold at a fraction of the price. I must feel that way because merica though, right?

Interesting. This hasn't been my experience. I currently have four Holosuns with the shake awake feature and it seems like they wake up if you look at them funny.

Very good info, and I concur that shake awake is great for the HD gun that sits in the closet until needed.  If you are on the front lines, an Aimpoint with a gazillion years of battery life is better because you must leave it on all the time.

Also if you are on the front lines and running a red dot, you should stash a spare battery or two somewhere in your kit anyway. Premature battery failure is definitely a thing. Also, that's a situation where I think it's worth it to have back up co-witness iron sights, a QD mount if possible. But yeah, if you're in a place where you can be attacked at any time, you need an optic that's ready to go at all times--unless Murphy shoes up. Then you gotta go to plan B which stands for "oh shit, seriously?"

But, that's not every user, nor every rifle. I have rifles that have back up iron sights, and I have rifles that don't, depending on what I'm doing with that rifle, because I'm fortunate enough to have more than one of these things and different roles for different rifles.

This also suggests that for SHTF or front line application, a reflex sight that doesn't need batteries might be the ne plus ultra.  I have both red dots and reflex sights and use both.  I really love red dots but I'm not sure if I were laying in a ditch with little hope of reliable resupply that I'd want it over a non-battery powered optic.

Here’s one thing that I don’t recall coming up....

Everyone here sleeps.  So even if you carry a pistol or rifle with an optic with shake awake, that firearm is going to be stationary while you sleep at the very least, if not plenty of other times during the day.  

So at the very least if you sleep 8 hours a night the optic will be shut off 2,920 hours a year which is 121 days worth of time where the optic can conserve battery when it not being used.  Even my carry pistol sits around 90% of the time when I’m home.  I’m sure the same goes for cops....   They don’t hand their pistol off to someone on the next shift do they?  So I still don’t see the downside to saving battery life.  Even the what Mike posted from someone who seems to speak with knowledge on the subject.  The shake awake component is not the weakest link in optics.

Prismatics with shake awake ftw!
Attached File

That’s my thoughts as well.

Look at it this way, it’d be the most robust, reliable, part of their sight lol.

I can definitely verify this. If you are very slow and steady you can move the Holosun (at least the five I own) and they won’t come on. But they’ve always come on when I actually pick the gun up like I’m going to use it.

Doesn’t bother me to be honest.

Put battery in, turn it on, and replace it in 50,000 hours is easier. Even better technology and it's trickling down to cheap RDS options like the Sig MSR.

Anybody know what gun this is?

Phased Plasma Rifle, 40W.

The red dots that have shake awake have the same battery life numbers...  

Another thing with those numbers is they’re for medium brightness.  None of my red dots stay on a medium setting.  Most of mine stay on the second to the highest setting.  

So again where is the downside to the red dot turning itself off every night at the very least?

That is the most operator as fuck post I've seen today.

Excellent work.

Not that I'm an operator, but I have to agree the wise person stays current with irons as much as practicable.

My dad's eyesight got to where he required an optic.  I try to stay in practice with irons hoping my eyes won't suffer a similar fate.

I believe no rifle/carbine is complete without irons.  However, my eyes aren't what they were when I was in my 20's/30's so if my red dot sight goes down in low light I will probably not be able to properly aim my gun...

@Impactite, that's a CZ Scorpion Evo 3 S2 Micro with a fake Osprey suppressor.

The downside is if/when it comes time for shake and no wake. Possibly at the worst time.

Doubtful. Shake-awake is a fairly well proven technology.

Several threads here in the past 2 yrs of individuals having issues.

But of the thousands of units out there, how many is "several?"  Every product is going to have some failures.

Granted, the failures may be inherent to the optics/price point rather than the technology.


As for a count? Enough to steer me away, for certain. To each their own.

Even Aimpoints fail.  And Trijicons.

I don't know if it was on ARFcom or somewhere else, but I remember pics from the sandbox of a bin full of bad Aimpoints, and maybe another bin full of busted ACOGS if I remember correctly.

Of course those saw abuse that most people won't mete out, but the point is that anything can fail no matter its reputation.

Everything can fail.

When there is a pattern/common trait I take notice. As with all things man made, some are more prone to failure than others.

Did you miss the post from Mike with a response from some sort of engineer stating the shake awake sensor was the least to worry about in the optic?

No.

Nor have I missed the multiple threads by guys with shake awake optics that went tits up. Some with replacement optics suffering the same fate.