I've only recently stumbled across the Veritasium YouTube channel, but I've already watched a few very interesting videos on it. This one is from about a month ago and it covers three different types of night vision: Active Illumination, Image Intensification, and Thermal Imaging. It also goes into a brief history of night vision and talks about pros and cons of each.
Personally, I've got a couple of inexpensive active illumination night vision monoculars and a low-end thermal that plugs into my phone (reviewed here (https://ufozs.com/smf/index.php?topic=1170.0)). The price jump up to decent image intensification night vision has kept me from getting those, although they're definitely on my want list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeJHAFjwPM