Brimstone

I have night vision on my car which I got in March, and I haven't driven at night too much but I turn it on almost every time I do.

Thus far its pretty much been a novelty it beeped at me once for a biker on the edge of the road, which I saw just fine w/o night vision.

Otherwise I've verified it works reasonably well as it can pick up on things before I can see them (if I can see them at all) as its grabbed joggers behind the bushes on sidewalks and through fog.

The 2 things I don't like about it is : staring at the virtual **** pit is distracting when i feel i should be staring at the road. And it doesn't work above around 77 degrees F, which makes it pretty close to useless in the summer in NC, although this at least makes sense for a heat camera.

So finally nice cool night in VT driving through the back woods, I also discovered I'm not terribly sure its very useful on the windy/curvy roads, since you really need to watch the roads and especially couple with the elevation changes its 900ft vision may not be useful for beyond 50 ft. Along the ride I'm able to notice cows and tombstones off in the darkness that I can't otherwise see. It also shows me one or two smaller animals (skunk and what I think may have be a coyote)

Eventually, I'm on a reasonably straight stretch of road and i see something odd in the ditch I look at it in the VC and look up to see the 2 eyes reflect off the high beams, and start to tap my brake and before I know it, pre-sense kicks and and the car slowed down a good 20-30 mph, the deer darts into the woods presumably spooked from the loud sound the tires made. It woke my wife up, but not the kids.

I think everything worked like it was supposed to it helped me (the driver) with early info, and then the car reacted independently. The deer was never in the road, lights sometimes spook them into the woods but definitely not always, I think the sound spooked it and I believe I would have come to a full stop before I reached it. I've said if it prevents one accident its worth the cost and I'm not exactly ready to say this prevented one (hard to say what the deer would have done if brakes were not touched) , but it was close and useful and I'm glad I have it. Additionally its nice to know if it sees something in your path it will flash the triangle in the headsup and presense kicks in, so staring at the VC isn't strictly necessary, on straighter stretches of road I just glance periodically.

I was using the ACC (55 mph) and presense is set to medium I think.

Trevor K

I appreciate your detailed experiences while listing the pros and cons. I'm impressed that it began to slow for the deer, I wasn't aware of this feature, I thought that it only slowed for cars, pretty impressive. Your logic of "if it prevents one accident it's worth the cost" makes sense, as long as you can justify the upfront price. But that's also why you purchase insurance, and insurance rates don't significantly decrease because of the active safety features. Anyhow, thanks for sharing your experiences, it looks like a technology that will only help.

sabca

Glad you had a positive experience. I got this option on the my '18 Q7 because I live in PA which is the deer capital of the US and due to the fact I live in an area of town where there lots of people jogging, walking dogs, etc. and it scares me to death driving around here after dark. Hoping the NV will be beneficial. That is, if the Q is ever released from the RI port where it has been since 7/6 and delivered to the dealership.

Brimstone

I hit a deer once if I had a passenger with me in the car at that time they would have likely had serious injuries (it pushed the passenger mirror through the window). Insurance covered my car and it did not affect my rates. (that particular vehicle was probably only worth ~$3k which is what the night vision upgrade costs) but i would estimate the monetary value of not having to deal with hassle of everything (filing a report, getting the repairs, insurance paperwork, and missing my car for a month while it got fixed) at several hundred $ at a minimum. If someone had gotten injured or worse then I think its much higher than that.

My accident was during the day, so night vision would not have helped, but I think anyone who's ever had certain things happen to them, tends to treads carefully.

I think I've listed a number of the caveats, and I think my logic holds true in terms of preventing accidents but the way the presense behavior worked last night helps me move the needle from theoretical value to actual value on this feature. (I assume it may be the rarest feature that people are most curious about)

Brimstone

I'm originally from NW PA, this happned shortly after I hit the deer I mentioned in the previous post, except I got it from a local news paper (which was funnier and more red neckish) not the weekly world news: https://books.google.com/books?id=PP...0hands&f=false

Trevor K

I grew up in Bucks County and I completely understand where you are coming from. Speed limits at night are completely useless as I self-limit my speed to avoid deer collisions. Driving at night without seeing deer is rare, and if I still lived in the area I would probably put more consideration into this option. Good luck with the car!

rsilvers129

I have owned two sets of US military night vision googles, and I have a FLIR iPhone adaptor, and I once bought a very expensive TI FLIR for the roof of my Hummer. So I am as predisposed as anyone to want this. I didn't get it partly due to the temperature limitation. What we need are just better headlights.

iconoclast

The minor pro is being able to see State Troopers in the brush or side of the road at dusk or in the evening. You may not spot a dark vehicle on the side of the road but the silhouette of the vehicle is present in the VC.

I have been installing e-code (euro spec headlights) on my vehicles since the B5 days because the US headlights just plain under-perform and look ugly. The antiquated laws here do not allow for Matrix headlights or the like in the US/NAR. Until legislation changes hardware cannot.

gsobol

It should read "may or may not" ;-)

rsilvers129

That is a good reason.


So expensive. $7000 for replacement matrix headlights.