jdong

You might as well buy a portable FLIR camera and mount that on your windshield at night… A bunch of speed countermeasures folks do this to spot cops parked at night.

Superfly_A6

Why do you "need" an HUD?
As far as I know the NV displays on the instrument cluster.

Richard Solomon

Hmmm, you may be right - I was thinking of the HUD because it comes bundled that way in the US, but maybe that's just AoA product placement.

Actually I'm going to eat my words - running the cabling and calibrating the camera look like the hard parts. The control unit is under the driver's seat - and I'd bet there's no wiring present in non-NV-equipped cars, but maybe all it needs is power, a 5-pin DIN to the camera, CAN, and couple of wires (probably another CAN?) to the instrument cluster. [ETA: Different headlight switch too, since you need the enable button.]

Of course coding the cluster and the MMI may or may not work well, but you're bringing me around on the mechanical/electrical difficulties.

You might need a dealer to calibrate it for you, I think all the Audi camera systems use some interesting fixtures for calibration.

lnferno

It is integrated with the HUD. If it detects any humans, it can generate the outline-human warning on the HUD.

Superfly_A6

Yes, but it is not necessary to have the HUD in order to have the NV.
If I remember correctly, when I ordered my '14 there was an option that "bundled" HUD and NV together. However, if you didn't want one or the other, you could have taken individual options. The bundle saved about $1500 compared to the individual prices.

lnferno

We are in violent agreement

zia

The HUD is useful, however night vision not so much. Also, keep in mind that you have to take your eyes (with full peripheral view) off of the road to look at the display (with narrow view). I find it a wow factor kind of feature, but not really worth the investment as such for its practical uses.

Richard Solomon

Yeah, this is part of why I didn't choose the option - given that AoA bundles it with HUD, if the display appeared in the HUD I might have been more positive on it. I've not gotten used to having a HUD, so it's not on my want list by itself - at least given the hassles folks report with windshield replacement, etc. Conversely if I could have bought just NV knowing that it didn't appear in the HUD I might have done that for the gizmo factor and occasional use.

Seems like an AoA / Audi.DE disconnect - either Audi.DE should offer NV display in the HUD (which seems like it would sell more HUDs) or AoA should allow purchase of HUDs and NV separately (as it appears Audi Canada does).

jdong

IMO this obsession over the fact that the NV display is on the instrument cluster and you "have to look down" to use it is really overblown. It's relatively quick to scan the instrument cluster to look for bright or yellow highlighted objects that don't correspond to things you are aware of on the road.

People have looked at speedometers and fuel gauges and tachometers for decades without driving off a cliff. It's like saying that checking your RVM or blind spots is unsafe because you have to take your eyes off the road. You are taking your eyes off the road to scan an instrument that could potentially give you MORE information about what is on the road. And the ability for it to scan far down the road is the most important part. If a pedestrian is 100 feet away from you, you can see him with your eyes.

But the NV system is capable of identifying animals and people 1000+ft away from your car and making them bright as day against a dull gray backdrop. You don't have to closely peruse the image. You scan down for less than half a second then you look up and try to match the bright white blob you saw to something on the road. And most of the time you go "Oh, now I can make out a pedestrian way down there"

Richard Solomon

I think you misunderstood the text of mine you quoted - I'm not opposed to have NV in the IC as much as I am opposed to buying a HUD to get NV and then having to look in the IC. "given that AoA bundles it with HUD, if the display appeared in the HUD I might have been more positive on it" and "if I could have bought just NV knowing that it didn't appear in the HUD I might have done that".