I'm ok with using a low light source to up the lighting by one step, however, it will come with a severe limitation on range without the low light vision to compliment it. Like the dim light will only penetrate about 5 feet, or about 1.5 meters of you are using metric. If you'd like to swap it out, I'm fine with that since it hasn't been used yet, and doesn't affect anything too much. Also keep in mind that while thermo vision can see in darkness, it relies on heat, if the background and air are the same temp, you're not going to see anything either. Granted, any heat introduced through body heat, flashlight, etc will make it visible to some extent.