Sirius Support

Your Sirius ships with the thermal monocular, a replaceable 18650 battery, a USB-C cable, a hand strap, a lens cloth and a quick start guide. It's a handheld spotter — there's a standard tripod thread on the base if you want to mount it for long observation, but it isn't designed to be fitted to a firearm.

The Sirius comes in five models across two sensor tiers. On the 640×512 sensor: the Standard (S650), a single 50 mm optic; the LRF (S650LRF), the same optic plus a built-in 1,000 m laser rangefinder; and the Zoom (S650D), a dual 25/50 mm field-of-view model for fast scanning. On the higher-resolution 1280×1024 HD sensor: the HD (SA50), a single 50 mm optic; and the HD Zoom (SA70D), a dual 35/70 mm model that reaches the longest detection in the range at 3,600 m. Every model shares the same ≤18 mK sensitivity, FHD OLED, six palettes, 64 GB storage and Wi-Fi app.

The Sirius runs a replaceable, rechargeable 18650 cell. Charge over the supplied USB-C cable: red means charging, green means fully charged. Keep the battery in a sensible temperature range while charging, use genuine 18650 cells only, and carry a charged spare for long sessions since the cell swaps out in the field.

The Sirius starts up from its power button (the crystal breathing button on the body). The menu controls give you a brief menu for the things you change often — palette, brightness, contrast, sharpness — and a main menu for setup and system options. Your quick start guide has the exact button map for your model; the essentials (power, menu, zoom, capture) are marked on the unit.

The Sirius streams its live view over Wi-Fi to the Pixfra Outdoor app, so a mate can watch along on a phone or you can review footage later. Enable Wi-Fi on the unit, join its hotspot from your phone (the network is named for the model and serial number, with a password you set on first use), then open the app and add the device.

Focus the Sirius on its objective focus ring until the scene is sharp for your target distance. On top of the optical magnification you have digital step zoom at 1×, 2×, 4× and 8× for a closer look once you've picked something up — remember digital zoom enlarges the existing thermal pixels, so the finest detail is at the lower steps.

The Sirius has six palettes — White Hot, Black Hot, Iron Red, Alarm, Emerald and Amber — on its 1920×1080 FHD OLED. White Hot and Black Hot are the everyday workhorses; the colour palettes make hot targets pop for fast detection. Flick through them in the brief menu and run what your eye reads fastest for the ground and the light.

Three field features earn their keep: an on-board digital compass for bearings, a microphone for adding voice notes to your recordings, and hot-spot tracking that flags the warmest object in the frame so your eye is drawn straight to it while you scan.

A dual-FOV lens gives you two magnifications you can switch between without refocusing. The Zoom (S650D) pairs a wide 25 mm view to sweep ground fast with a 50 mm view to confirm what you've found. The HD Zoom (SA70D) pairs a 35 mm view (detection 1,800 m) with a 70 mm view (detection 3,600 m) on the HD sensor. Both let you go from sweeping a paddock to studying a single animal in an instant.

That's FFC (flat-field calibration) keeping the image clean and even — normal and expected. The sensor briefly re-baselines so the picture stays uniform. If an automatic calibration ever fires at a bad moment, you can trigger one manually when it suits; see your quick start guide for the calibration control on your model.

Work through it in order: set the objective focus for your target distance first (most "soft" images are focus), drop the step zoom back toward 1× (digital zoom softens fine detail), trigger a manual FFC, then try a different palette and back the brightness off if it's washing out. Nine times out of ten it's focus or zoom, not the unit.

Only the Sirius LRF (S650LRF) has a rangefinder — the Standard, Zoom, HD and HD Zoom do not. It measures the straight-line distance to whatever you're looking at, accurate to about ±1 metre out to 1,000 m, shown on the display, so you can confirm how far away an animal is the moment you spot it. If it won't return a reading, it's almost always the target or the conditions rather than a fault — see the shared article Why won't my LRF measure distance?

Every Sirius records stills and video to 64 GB of built-in storage, with an on-board microphone so you can add voice notes to a clip. Capture and record controls are marked on the unit; the app lets you review and pull footage off later.

Connect the Sirius to a computer with the USB-C cable and enable USB storage mode — it appears as a drive, and you copy your stills and video off like any USB stick. You can also review and transfer over the Pixfra Outdoor app.

Update over the Pixfra Outdoor app when it prompts you, or over USB-C by copying the firmware file across in USB storage mode and restarting. Always start from a well-charged battery, and don't interrupt an update in progress.

The Sirius body is a carbon-fibre-textured polymer sealed to IP67, so rain and dust are no problem. Wipe it with a soft dry cloth, or one barely dampened with a mild neutral detergent — never alcohol, benzene, thinners or abrasives, and keep your hands off the front lens. Use genuine 18650 cells, and for long-term storage keep the battery topped up.

A factory reset in the system menu returns the unit to default settings. Use it if the Sirius is behaving oddly and a restart hasn't helped — you'll re-set your preferences (palette, brightness, Wi-Fi password) afterward.

If it's none of those, talk to the Australian team — real people who run this gear.

The Sirius carries three years on the optic and one year on the rechargeable battery, backed in Australia by C.R. Kennedy. If it ever needs attention it's assessed and serviced locally — never sent overseas. Keep your proof of purchase; Pixfra Australia is the direct retailer, so you deal with us.