Reviewing and Testing the Vantrue Nexus 5S

[EricSan]

I’ve had the N5S camera installed in my car for a little more than 3 months now and I’m liking it more and more! It’s a great 4 channel camera and it has operated flawlessly during this time. I’ve had it installed with the suction cup mount and the 12v utility plug adapter - all three pieces have performed great.

I just hardwired it into my car and connected it to my new DIY LTO parking battery so I can have 360 degree parking coverage. It also provides great coverage out the side windows while driving - something none of my other cameras can do! Post #68 above shows a plate capture of a moving car out the side window.

One small detail - be sure not to mix up the rear video cable with the cable from another camera during installation. If you mix them up like I did (oops…), you’ll know right away because the rear cabin camera feed will be blacked out on the screen. The rear camera USB cable for the N5S has TWO pairs of video wires inside, one for each camera. It worked much better after I installed the correct cable. 😉

 

[jsmith]

I’ve had the N5S camera installed in my car for a little more than 3 months now and I’m liking it more and more! It’s a great 4 channel camera and it has operated flawlessly during this time. I’ve had it installed with the suction cup mount and the 12v utility plug adapter - all three pieces have performed great.

I just hardwired it into my car and connected it to my new DIY LTO parking battery so I can have 360 degree parking coverage. It also provides great coverage out the side windows while driving - something none of my other cameras can do! Post #68 above shows a plate capture of a moving car out the side window.

One small detail - be sure not to mix up the rear video cable with the cable from another camera during installation. If you mix them up like I did (oops…), you’ll know right away because the rear cabin camera feed will be blacked out on the screen. The rear camera USB cable for the N5S has TWO pairs of video wires inside, one for each camera. It worked much better after I installed the correct cable. 😉

Correct. I tested this out of curiosity and pmed @Jeff_Vantrue for further confirmation after receiving a black screen. Other cables are not capable of carrying the data to support 4 channels.

I like the 5S a lot. I've actually opted to run it full time over keeping the higher quality N4S Pro. I get a nice view of my side windows (front and rear) which no other cameras provide. My other cameras make up for the higher quality front and rear capture. Not to say the N5S doesn't do a solid job at capturing.

 

[znedlob]

Hi, can you please measure the consumption while driving and in parking mode set to motion detection? Thank you.

 

[EricSan]

Hi, can you please measure the consumption while driving and in parking mode set to motion detection? Thank you.

Sorry for my delay - I've been traveling for a bit and haven't had much spare time. Here is a full set of power consumption figures for the Vantrue N5S 4-ch camera. I'm glad that you asked for power consumption figures - I installed my N5S in the car before making these measurements and once you run the rear video cable under the headliner, all of these measurements become much more difficult because you have to work in the car instead of at my desk in the house...

Anyhow, here is the data:

All measurements were made with the VP03(II) Hardwire Kit and the windshield GPS unit attached, mimicking real-world usage scenario. Since the main benefit of this camera is the four-channel recording capability, I made all of my measurements with all four channels running.

I also made a fun new discovery this time around. I've been reluctant to make these measurements since installing the camera because it complicates the logistics. The rear camera cable for the N5S is rather unique - it has two separate runs of wire that carry the signals from two separate video cameras. There are also extra power delivery requirements for two cameras plus a set of four IR LEDs in the rear cabin camera to record at night. The discovery is that the USB-C to C 10Gbps 100 W, 1m cable that came with my Dell USB-C monitor and connects it to my Dell laptop for charging and transmits audio/video signals ALSO has sufficient pairs of wires to substitute for the 5m cable that comes from Vantue. This made making measurements much easier because I could work in the house instead of the garage.

I used a relatively empty 64G Vantrue SD card to make these measurements. This is an important data point for the Impact Detection parking modes because it influences start up times. Larger cards take longer than smaller cards and full cards take longer than empty cards when the camera is waking up.

 

[jsmith]

Sorry for my delay - I've been traveling for a bit and haven't had much spare time. Here is a full set of power consumption figures for the Vantrue N5S 4-ch camera. I'm glad that you asked for power consumption figures - I installed my N4S in the car before making these measurements and once you run the rear video cable under the headliner, all of these measurements become much more difficult because you have to work in the car instead of at my desk in the house...

Anyhow, here is the data:

View attachment 92104

All measurements were made with the VP03(II) Hardwire Kit and the windshield GPS unit attached, mimicking real-world usage scenario. Since the main benefit of this camera is the four-channel recording capability, I made all of my measurements with all four channels running.

I also made a fun new discovery this time around. I've been reluctant to make these measurements since installing the camera because it complicates the logistics. The rear camera cable for the N5S is rather unique - it has two separate runs of wire that carry the signals from two separate video cameras. There are also extra power delivery requirements for two cameras plus a set of four IR LEDs in the rear cabin camera to record at night. The discovery is that the USB-C to C 10Gbps 100 W, 1m cable that came with my Dell USB-C monitor and connects it to my Dell laptop for charging and transmits audio/video signals ALSO has sufficient pairs of wires to substitute for the 5m cable that comes from Vantue. This made making measurements much easier because I could work in the house instead of the garage.

I used a relatively empty 64G Vantrue SD card to make these measurements. This is an important data point for the Impact Detection parking modes because it influences start up times. Larger cards take longer than smaller cards and full cards take longer than empty cards when the camera is waking up.

What are you using to measure voltage?

 

[EricSan]

What are you using to measure voltage?

Thanks for asking - the technique for measuring power draw is a bit more complex than it seems because dashcams don't draw constant current like most other devices, the measurement bounces all over the place over time for every camera that I have.

I use two different meters simultaneously on the 12v side of the hardwire kit. The first meter (generic Thsinde 19B+ meter from Amazon that is surprisingly accurate when compared to a 6-digit calibrated Agilent lab meter) is for a voltage measurement on the output of my LTO battery pack. I measure to the 100th of a volt. The second meter is a Fluke 117 with the ability to measure Min/Avg/Max figures in the milliamp range over time. The Fluke meter for measuring amps is placed inline with the Black (ground) wire because both the red and yellow wires leading into the 12v to 5v voltage regulator draw power.

Measurements for various drive modes are made after the screen has turned off (this is typically how I run my cameras). When I make the milliamp readings for parking mode, I disconnect the yellow ignition trigger wire from the battery pack, wait for the screen to turn off, then set the meter to "average" mode. I let it sit for about a minute to gather enough data to make a meaningful average (the only dashcam mode that results in a steady current draw is Collision Detection mode). Then, I just multiply average current draw by the voltage reading to obtain power consumption in watts.

 

[EricSan]

Also just want to express my appreciation to @Jeff_Vantrue and the programming team for the update that retains the camera settings after performing a firmware update! This is a very welcome feature, thank you! 👍

I'm happy to see this feature spreading across camera models as new firmware rolls out!

 

[znedlob]

Thank you for measuring the consumption. I want to install N5S in the new Škoda Peaq. I will use VIOFO BP100 between the car battery and the camera for longer recording. If I calculated correctly, VIOFO BP100 with an extension battery should allow 34 hours of power supply with motion detection including LTE module.