Review: FatShark Dominator v2 (Part 1 of 3)

This review will be broken down into 3 parts:
Part 1 = The goggles, Features, thoughts
Part 2 = DVR Quality, How to Operate
Part 3 = Accessories, Reception Quality Shoot OUT( 3 different Antennas Tested)


Hello everyone, i have recently had a chance to enjoy the FPV experience with many different sets of goggles including the FatShark Dominator v2, FatShark Attitude SD, Skyzone Diversity goggles and even the Quanum monitor/goggles DIY set up.
In this post i will focus more on the newly updated Dominators, some people call them version 2.2, because the company had made some major changes in the positive direction for these goggles.

As stated above i have tried many different solutions for flying FPV. Let me just say get this out of the way, if you are flying via monitor and not goggles you are doing yourself an injustice because your experience is not at all what it should be. There is no other feeling like feeling that you are sitting inside of your little 250 frame zooming between trees or what ever kind of flying you do. You simply can not get that immersive feeling by starring at the glare of the monitor on a sunny day. Period. I have had many monitor people tell me that i am very wrong, im just speaking from experience because i actually started out FPV with the monitor, and thought it was nothing all that special and did not get back to FPV flying for another 2 month until a friend of mine let me try out his goggles for one battery session, I was blown away. I knew at that point that monitors are going up for sale, game consoles will collect dust and video games are going to be given away to friends.

That is why i stress to people that if they are going to half ass their first FPV, they will most likely never go back to it. Same principal applies to most of things in life. First impressions mean the world.

So lets talk about why i ended up settling down to these Dominator v2 by Fatshark and not any other model or brand.

@$379.99 they are most defiantly not the cheapest of the goggles i had opportunity to test but they are for certain not the most expensive ones. They are pretty much up there with the most expensive ones. Currently when looking at all the major players in the goggle industry the most expensive ones are the Carl Zeizs goggles which are $750, and in second place we have the FatShark Dominator HD(not all that HD) retailing at $550, and in third place the newcomer, Skyzone Diversity Goggles, running at $410, also at that same price you have the FatShark Attitude SD bundle which i will talk about shortly.
$380 is not so bad you might think considering the pricing of all the other high end products, but there is a small catch, which a lot of people dont realize right away, the Dominator Series of goggles is what they call Modular, so for your $380 you get a bare-bone unit shall i say, which does not include the Wireless Receiver, or the Head Tracking Module.
See to some people this might seem like a huge minus, where to me it was quite the opposite, modular means that you are presented with more options.
Although i was not really interested in the options, in my opinion being able to stick a 2.4ghz receiver into your goggles is great but just think about the mad mushroom antenna size for 2.4ghz, not really appealing nor light weight.
I personally think that goggles should be as light weight as possible, so considering that i do not fly a wing, the option of HeadTracking very fast fades away, so to me its good that its not there,  and i really like that when i do fly my larger multirotors that run on 2.4ghz video, i can just remove the 5.8ghz module from the goggles which pretty much turns them into the FatShark Base goggles, and those are great by the way if you are always planning on using a ground station based system.

So lets take a look at what i have been talking about in these pictures:
I believe the features are better explained as you are looking at the photos, so please refer to the captions below each photo for information and you will see why these goggles are perfect for me!

Module for the ImmersionRC/Fatshark Frequencies only!!!

This is where a Head Tracking Module would plug in, on the opposite side of the receiver

Power and Video Out/In are right next to each other, which allows you to utilize a special cord that has the power lead and video lead together, making it less cable clutter

FatShark's Famous Dog Bone shaped battery that does fit very nicely into the strap.

One of the biggest complaints with FatShark Goggles was that the pouch they came with was very small, well with the recent update they have listened to their customers and made it in my opinion perfect size.

As you can see they are very nicely secured in there by these elastic bands, it easily fits a battery and the new IbCrazy Ultra Antenna that has the protective down on them, good luck trying to fit that into the older pouch. Also always bring with you the SMA wrench that IbCrazy provides, it will make sure that you will not destroy your connector.

One of the most important features that has really changed for the better is the distance you can move the lens, it has greatly increased in both directions i believe, but i was having hard time seing as my eyes are a little more apart then others, so on the Attitude SD i could not move the lenses far enough to not see double in some areas.

Thas is right Ladies and Gentleman, right there before you is the MicroHDMI port, i can happily confirm that it works perfect with my laptop, i was able to connect an saw my desktop, it was pretty cool. Most defiantly not for work but watch a movie on a plane sure.  Right next to them is the Stereo sound which could also act like a port for your teletry that passes through the audio.

And NOW the MAIN EVENT!!!, ahah, no but seriously this was the number 1 reason why i decided to settle on these goggles, the built in DVR,  very easy to operate, no need to drag extra cables to standalone dvrs.  Granted most people do not need this because why would they want standard defintion video recording when just half of an inch above they have a mobius or a gopro recording at 1080. That is why i was saying these goggles are perfect for me, because all i do is built multirotors, so being able to record my OSD and later go back to it and see what kind of power i was drawing using a certain set up or tune, now when people buy machines from me they never have to worry about that because i have already done all the heavy lifting for them, they just have to enjoy the flight. Dont get me wrong these goggles have the best picture quality also, just so u dont think that DVR is the only reason. its just one of many reasons i chose these ones.

So the Little Nipple on the right hand side is the joystick that controls the DVR functions. U simply turn on your model, then turn on your goggles, make sure u have the video in goggles before u power on the DVR becomes for some reson you will get most of your video cut off when its recording. So FIND AND TUNE THE CHANEL BEFORE TURNING ON DVR!. To turn on the DVR u just hold that button for 2 seconds, u will see the light right below the SD card light up solid red, that means the DVR is engaged but not recording. to start recording just tap the joystick one more time, and the light will start flashing indicating that its recording, to stop just tap it again. IF YOU POWER OFF GOGGLES BEFORE STOPING RECORD, ALL PHOOTAGE WILL BE LOST

Another huge improvement is how nicely these adjusters work, all previous goggles suffer from this issue where they are so loose that even your eyelash can move the lens away from the desired position, in the Dominator V2 the movement is half circle instead of straight and its very stiff.

The Joystick on the Left control your Brightness and contrast, and the two buttons are self explanatory i believe. 

Great Tool, included in Ultra sets of IbCrazy antennas, makes sure you do not snap off that sma connector, please refer to the future video review

Antennas are most important aspect of your set up, i was fortunate to test and i can reassure you that you really get what you pay for when it comes to antennas, in reality its between the ImmersionRC Spironet, at $40, which are good, but if you want the best possible penetration and quality out of your video signal then the IbCrazy Ultra Line is the only way to go.



I hope this was infomative for some of you, Please check back right over here in a couple of days i will be uploading a video review and a short how to properly operate and things to look out for while using these great goggles.

Thank you,