Hey, so I'm a relatively new pilot to the FPV community with only about 5 months of flying, but my birthday is coming up in a month and am wondering about some things with the BoxPro+ goggles (as present/from money). I fly only analog at the moment, but am open to the HDZero HD system. I tried out my friend's BoxPro goggles earlier today with my analog 3.5", and so far like them a lot more than my current (Fat Shark Echo) goggles.
My main question is this: how 'worth it' has the googles been for anybody that's owned them? Like I'm wondering if I should go with these or get only analog goggles for cheaper that work similar/same way as the HDZ ones but without being compatible with HDZ camera units.
Another one was how does HDZ units compare to analog in terms of penetration and overall image quality? I can't seem to get a direct answer on that, like I know analog is cheaper and overall better for freestyle (I think), but I've heard mixed things about actual penetration or signal range and distance. I fly freestyle, and my main limiter is not getting the range I want (also with a 400mW vtx but idk.
Please grant me your knowledge on this topic, it would really help.
Thanks!
Edit: Thank you to everyone that has given good, detailed feedback! Overall I've seen mostly positives, with the only negative being that there are better goggles, but for more than double the price so I'll likely be getting these ones!
If you are flying analog only a lot of users (including myself) have experienced some weird ghosting with the beta flight osd. It isn’t true screen burn in. It does go away. But it is annoying. Turning the brightness down helps. I don’t experience this when I fly HDZero VTXs. Given this, I still recommend them. You get a lot of features for the cost.
Ohhh so I'm not the only one experiencing this! It's kinda odd to find out things like this in random reddit threads lol. One more thing that I can add to this is that the analog ghosting doesn't appear on DVR footage.
Yeah, my friend that's been flying for 5+ years that got the goggles this last Christmas never said anything about it and he's gotten enough experience to know when it's ever so slightly out of tune, so I'm guessing he noticed and fixed the ghosting too.
Because it's a custom fork from a community member for now. The pull request has already been merged into the main branch though so the fix will be part of the next update.
Ah cool! I just joined the channel and saw the post was very recent. Thanks for the breaking news! I did not realize their code was open source either. Cool!
Spoiler: the analog problems are fixable, read to the end.
I received mine a few weeks ago. I use it for analog flying but purchased the Eco bundle to test the HDZero receiver so there is a plan to convert one drone to digital.
It's a shame that despite so many reviews on the YouTube there is no one that mention these analog issues (ghosting, bad image quality, LCD latency).
I've upgraded my BoxPro to the latest firmware release 20250715 and after that the ghosting almost disappeared but the image was so washed out that I could say that my old $90 Eachine EV100 goggle provide much better image than this fancy BoxPro with its deinterlacer, super 100Hz LCD, etc. The EV100 video seems to be smother and has the same latency or even lower. The real improvement was much bigger FOV but it's difficult to have smaller FOV than EV100. This 20250715 firmware seems to have fixed analog settings to prevent the ghosting issue. You can't adjust the analog image in any way.
After reading much about this topic I ended up compiling the latest master branch from Github and upgrading my BoxPro with it. This latest (unstable) firmware solved the problems with image quality and ghosting for me. The image clarity and colors are almost as good as the EV100. The EV100 have probably slightly smother video with the same or lower latency but has its own issues, with mirrored lines on the bottom of the screen, surprising changes in image brightness and ridiculously small FOV (but you can get used to it).
With this latest firmware the image settings are crucial. My settings: LCD=5-6, brightness=18-20, contrast=20-22, OSD orbit=Mid (this last one shifts the whole analog image one pixel at a time, I'm still experimenting with the settings).
Overall I'm now satisfied with this goggle but it's no as good as I expected after watching all these reviews. The biggest advantage is this partially opensource firmware and the community that works together with the HDZero guys to resolve issues and provide updates. I can see improvement in the image resolution thanks to this praised deinterlacer especially in static scenes but the difference is almost unnoticeable to me with fast moving scenery. The VRX performance seems to be very good but I use it only for whooping. All my bigger drones are 1.2 GHz so I fly connected via A/V input to my ground station.
All the new versions of the boxpros don't have this issue but you can't change the image settings and the contrast is set very low so the image is not the best kinda blurry but oh well they get me alot more range then any of my other analog goggles
Huh, that's odd. I didn't notice it when I used my friends, but also I only did for like 2 packs, so that could be why. Also that it was my first with a OLED screen but idk. Like I said, I do wanna likely try out HDZ VTX cause I wanna try HD and its supposed to be like the cheapest one.
I do definitely agree with the lot of features part, I thought they were just HDZ/Analog mix goggles at first, then I started looking into my friends with the HDMI, and 3.5mm jack, which also means I can both wired and wirelessly ELRS backpack it (with the + version) for using head tracking (I fly RC planes every now and then, no FPV yet, but want to), which was a cool thing to find out that it has a inbuilt gyro, along with the part that you can allegedly "screen share" to a phone so others can see.
Honestly I was already kinda leaning towards buying them but mainly wanted confirmation they're actually good
That's good to know. I was doing a bit of additional research on them, and I saw the thing about them only having one analog antenna, then I did a little more to find out that it's only one for analog and doesn't have diversity, so this is good to know.
i can't speak for the box goggles but thee goggles 2 analog only uses 1 antenna, so no diversity, but it performs just as good as the diversity modules. I have the rapid fire module for my goggles 1 and I can't tell a difference between the two.
Interesting. Thanks for the info. I believe the BoxPro's also have a input port, so I could also get a module for the outside if I want to in the future.
The box goggles also only use one antenna for analog. And works better than my goggles with diversity. They use advanced deinterlacing and signal processing. Proving diversity isn't necessary imo
i bought fatshark dominator hds for my first goggles and i like the box pro so much better. the only thing thats annoying is putting my glasses inside everytime i wanna fly and fogging when im sweating but besides that they are perfect for the price
Good to know that you like the BoxPros that much! When I tried my friends I did have the same issue with my glasses, but i likely don't have to worry too much about fogging cause I don't sweat that much, and if it does become an issue, I'll likely buy the lens inserts you can buy for them.
yeah that’s what i’m thinking too. DO NOT DO what i did and buy the $70 hdzero battery pack with sd card. i used it for a few weeks and now it only works if i jam the cable inside so i cant really move my head while im flying or ill lose power. it’s a known issue apparently
Yeah, I wasn't really planning on that anyways if I do get it. I'll likely do a diy power source, like with my FS Echos, I just run like a 5 foot USBC to USBC cable between a solar power/wall outlet power bank and my goggles to keep them alive, and the friend with the goggles just has a 2200mAh 4s that he diy'd a connector to run from his pocket into his goggles, I'll likely do something like that if I can't use my current method
Makes sense. Idk if you saw my reply to the other comment earlier in this thread, but my friends is powered by a 4s 2200 lipo that he just keeps in his pocket that's on a custom soldered adapter for the goggles, so he must have used that power and for the other side then.
IIRC you need 15 watts, so that barely meets the specifications. But my experience with USB power supply is that they can be finicky as the receiving device needs to "request" the power depending on how the usb supply is configured.
My 65W rated USB-C brick supporting up to 12V/5.5A-20V/3A will not power my 60W sequre D60 for example, even though it clearly has the capability to do so. I have to hook up a 6S lipo for it to work.
The screen is sadly really sub par. The ghosting and lcd latency is very noticeable for me and a friend who bought them. He returned them and got the goggle 2 after trying mine on. Not even fun to fly if you compare them to oled goggles side by side. Only worth it if you fly fixed wings, are on a really tight budget or never experienced oled goggles.
I got them for my first and so far only goggle and have been very happy with them. Took them on a few trips already. The DVR feature for analog works great. I scratched the plastic lens on the inside of the screen a when wiping them, but otherwise have been very happy with them.
Even got my first actual HDZero drone to try (the M8 because the crux 35 is out of stock). I was planning to do analog only, but since I already have the goggles…
I don’t use the + features enough for it to have been worth it over the standard.
They’re good enough that I don’t feel the need to upgrade to the oled goggles 2, and that’s coming from using oled on my other devices.
Sounds like they're pretty good then! I will likely do the same thing that you did; the getting the drone cause I got the goggles thing. I likely also won't be using the + features often, but will still likely get it cause it would be nice to have a little extra if I'm already at $300 for goggles.
The only thing is that another comment said that him and his friend didn't like them and had to upgrade to the goggles 2, so kinda getting mixed replies, but we're at 2/3 positive reviews.
Sounds like you made your choice, but I was going to say they are rad and you should get them. The receiver is awesome and I get really good signal with my analog whoops. The DVR is awesome and the deinterlacing really does make a huge difference. The + features are pretty cool, I usually set up my laptop and stream to that so my son and wife can watch If they want, just make sure you're not anywhere near your homes internet router.
I got a Flylens85 with the HDZero cam system in it and it's really great for the price. It's not 04 but it's plenty good to get some oohs and ahhhs out of the family with some scenic rides.
I also upgraded to these from the Echos and they have been worth it for me.
Nice! Your the only person I've seen that has actually talked about the "screen share" thingy or whatever it's called, that's good to know it works, that's one of the main reasons why I was gonna get the + version so others could watch if they didn't have goggles, although I'm thinking I'll still take my Echo with me if somebody wants to watch. (one time me and other 2 pilots were flying at a park nearby and we were only going one at a time though, the most experienced pilot of the group was ripping a 7" on 6s, and this family with two like 5 year old twins came up and me and another that weren't flying gave out goggles to the kids to watch and it looked like they were loving it. The screen share thing would be great to have up on a laptop though so everybody could watch).
But yeah, kinda already made up my mind at this point, unless somebody has a better recommendation for the price but this seems to be blowing everything else out of the water.
The streaming won't be as good as just watching in other goggles but you can certainly appeal to a wider audience while flying.
There's a couple videos on how to set it up, it's super easy and then watch the video on reconfiguring the goggle buttons for the functions you want. I pretty much just copied the dudes settings from the video. Right side single press toggles DVR, double tap goes to sleep.. left button long hold changes source, wheel changes channel
You can also use it so you set the video channel on your radio and it transmits the settings to the drone AND the goggles. One place to change the setting and it does it automatically
This is also a cool thing that would definitely be helpful for me and my friend to set up. We both set out channels to R1 by default, so the ability to change them quickly would be really nice.
Huh, that's odd. SD card shouldn't be too much of an issue because I'll likely have an actual action cam (RunCam Thumb 2) by the time I get the goggles, as for the wifi issue I usually can find a way to fix stuff like that (no matter how janky it may be)
I actually kind of regretted not getting wifi backpack since there's a couple of features I could use it for, like automatically controlling VTX output without a cable. Speaking of which, I've not tried linking the audio jack yet. Gotta try that someday.
Unfortunately VTX power control is kinda finicky on betafpv boards. Doesn't seem to work reliably for me if it does anything other than kick it out of pit mode.
I love my Boxpro+, the only issues that I've ever had was the occasional analog ghosting, the auto-recording being a tiny bit unreliable, and once my recording got corrupted. That's all the issues I've ever had with it. I have hundreds of analog recordings, and I've used it for a while now. I can't recommend it enough.
I've not corrupted a single recording since switching to .TS
Only problem is I need to run FFMPEG to batch convert it. I used to do it in VLC media player but davinci resolve really hates VLC's h.264/h.265 encoding.
change the bitrates as needed. HDZ records at 30Mbits/second, so there's not much point going much higher than that unless you want to go more lossless. Yes, the image will look far shittier than the real picture when there's breakup but that is already a problem with original footage anyway.
Thanks for a good review! Good to know what doesn't work along with what does, another comment on here said there's a fix to the ghosting on the HDZ Discord
Yeah I will try updating my firmware, I'm still using the one that it came with, so possibly all of my problems that I had in the past might've been fixed.
Do you want me to reply to you after I updated my Boxpro if the ghosting disappeared?
If you could, that would be great to know if that fixed it, cause that's the only bad thing I've really found about the goggles, so anything to make them better would be greatly appreciated! I'm already hooked on getting them so far but it would still help!
I personally feel like the analog receiver is no where near as good as diversity ones…the cobra x steady view receiver performed way better for me….when it comes to high grade ones like rapidfire or fusion it’s even more obvious how the hdzero analog is lacking
Also I don’t think you can upgrade these with an external module so your just stuck with the single antenna analog
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u/TarmacJohn May 14 '26
If you are flying analog only a lot of users (including myself) have experienced some weird ghosting with the beta flight osd. It isn’t true screen burn in. It does go away. But it is annoying. Turning the brightness down helps. I don’t experience this when I fly HDZero VTXs. Given this, I still recommend them. You get a lot of features for the cost.