Review Vantrue E360 Ace 5.2K 360° Panoramic Dash Cam

[TonyM]

Normally, the front IR lights are used if you set the parking mode option "Low Light Night Vision" to ON, which is the default.

If you turn it OFF, the IR lamps do not activate and the recording is in colour.

It sounds as though Vantrue decided to override the Low Light Night Vision setting for Motion Detection mode, presumably for better detection.
CORRECTION: @bhb has checked and confirmed that this is not true - see post #23 below

FWIW, I don't find the IR lights cause a problem with the windshield in my car, but I understand that all cars are different.

 

[bhb]

Beware: if you set the thing up for parking mode and use “motion detection“ it turns on the infrared lights, which means your video is completely useless if you have a windshield. 🤦

In parking mode with the IR lights on, no matter what parking mode setting, the video is not useless. See the video in post #4, it is recorded in parking mode with the IR lights on.

 

[bhb]

I wanted to know what exactly happens with the IR leds turning on or off. I noticed the following with these used options in the drive record setup menu:

1. IR LEDs: Off, On and AUTO
2. Parking mode:
2a. Collision Detection
2b. Motion Detection
2c. Low Bitrate Mode, options 1080P/15FPS and 720P/15FPS
2d. Low Frame Rate Mode, options 1FPS, 5FPS, 10FPS and 15FPS
3. Low Light Night Vision in Parking Mode

Regardless of any combination of all of the options in 2. Parking Mode and with option 3. Low Light Night Vison in Parking Mode on or off, if option 1. IR LEDs is not on, the IR LEDs remain off and I have a coloured image.
If option 1 is on, or on AUTO and it is dark enough, then again in any combination of option 2. Parking Mode and option 3 Low Light Night Vison in Parking Mode on or off, the IR LEDs will turn on and I have a black and white image.

In short: I find the IR LEDs only work if I turn them on in the menu. That's why I have corrected my findings in post 12.

FWIW, I don't find the IR lights cause a problem with the windshield in my car, but I understand that all cars are different.

In my car the IR lights also do not cause a problem with the windshield. I also see no reason why. I have a indoor home camera with IR leds and if this home camera is in front of a window, with the IR leds on, the IR leds are red lights which reflect in the window causing poor image. But with the dashcam, when the IR leds are on, I don't see those red lights because they are covered by the screen and can't cause any reflection like with the home camera.

 

[TonyM]

I wanted to know what exactly happens with the IR leds turning on or off. I noticed the following with these used options in the drive record setup menu:

1. IR LEDs: Off, On and AUTO
2. Parking mode:
2a. Collision Detection
2b. Motion Detection
2c. Low Bitrate Mode, options 1080P/15FPS and 720P/15FPS
2d. Low Frame Rate Mode, options 1FPS, 5FPS, 10FPS and 15FPS
3. Low Light Night Vision in Parking Mode

Regardless of any combination of all of the options in 2. Parking Mode and with option 3. Low Light Night Vison in Parking Mode on or off, if option 1. IR LEDs is not on, the IR LEDs remain off and I have a coloured image.
If option 1 is on, or on AUTO and it is dark enough, then again in any combination of option 2. Parking Mode and option 3 Low Light Night Vison in Parking Mode on or off, the IR LEDs will turn on and I have a black and white image.

In short: I find the IR LEDs only work if I turn them on in the menu. That's why I have corrected my findings in post 12.

Thanks for the update and for the detailed check on all option settings

 

[Jeff_Vantrue]

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. The infrared lights in motion detection mode are designed to automatically turn on or off depending on the lighting conditions. For example, when it's dark at night, the infrared lights will turn on so that the camera can still capture clear footage in low light. During the day, when there's enough light, the infrared lights will automatically turn off.

We also understand that some users may not want the infrared lights to turn on, and our R&D team is currently working on adding a toggle switch for the parking mode infrared lights. This way, users will be able to adjust the settings according to their preference.

Beware: if you set the thing up for parking mode and use “motion detection“ it turns on the infrared lights, which means your video is completely useless if you have a windshield. 🤦

I’ve reset the thing to do low bit rate five FPS in parking mode. Alas, that means I don’t get to hear what people are saying when they stick their head in the car. sigh.

I don’t know why motion detection can’t operate without cranking the super bright infrared lighting. I don’t think people who designed these products actually ever USE them in the real world.

 

[bhb]

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. The infrared lights in motion detection mode are designed to automatically turn on or off depending on the lighting conditions. For example, when it's dark at night, the infrared lights will turn on so that the camera can still capture clear footage in low light. During the day, when there's enough light, the infrared lights will automatically turn off.

We also understand that some users may not want the infrared lights to turn on, and our R&D team is currently working on adding a toggle switch for the parking mode infrared lights. This way, users will be able to adjust the settings according to their preference.

Jeff, thanks for the explanation.
In my case I could not trigger the IR leds to turn on automatically in parking mode - motion detection. It kept recording with the IR leds off, with images in color.
A toggle switch is indeed needed in this case and very welcome.

 

[Jeff_Vantrue]

When the lighting is dark enough, the infrared LEDs in parking mode will automatically turn on. If possible, could you send me a short video from parking mode? I can forward it to our support team for further review.

Jeff, thanks for the explanation.
In my case I could not trigger the IR leds to turn on automatically in parking mode - motion detection. It kept recording with the IR leds off, with images in color.
A toggle switch is indeed needed in this case and very welcome.

 

[bhb]

When the lighting is dark enough, the infrared LEDs in parking mode will automatically turn on. If possible, could you send me a short video from parking mode? I can forward it to our support team for further review.

It seems I made a mistake with observing🙄
I had the dashcam indoors for testing and connected it to a 12V power supply with the hardwire kit. I first connected the ACC wire and then disconnected it to trigger parking mode. Then I saw the icon "1080P 15fps" for recording in low bitrate mode on the display and therefore thought the dashcam was in parking mode. After that I did not see the dashcam switch to IR mode on the display at any time during switching between the different parking modes, nor did the icon "1080P 15 fps" disappear. That is why I thought the dashcam was recording in parking mode all the time. But I did not look at the content on the MicroSD card to check this. Now that I wanted to send you a video, I saw that they are all in the Normal folder and not in the Parking folder. So there was no recording in parking mode. I therefore do not understand now why the icon "1080P 15fps" remained on the display while the dashcam was recording in Normal mode. As far as I know, this icon is only there when the dashcam is recording in parking mode. In any case, apologies to everyone for my mistake.

 

[TonyM]

In normal recording mode there is a small icon on the screen that shows what parking mode is selected in the settings (low bitrate, motion detection etc).

In parking mode there is a larger icon in the middle of the screen.

 

[bhb]

In normal recording mode there is a small icon on the screen that shows what parking mode is selected in the settings (low bitrate, motion detection etc).

In parking mode there is a larger icon in the middle of the screen.

View attachment 77998 View attachment 77999

Thank you TonyM.

After all the time using the dashcam, I have to pay more attention to when which icon appears on the display.

 

[bhb]

I updated the E360 firmware to the latest public version E360_VT-EEC11:

Platepix would be a great add for a future firmware release.

 

[Augustus]

I updated the E360 firmware to the latest public version E360_VT-EEC11:

Platepix would be a great add for a future firmware release.

Too far away to be able to get decent plate reads that's just the nature of it being a 360 camera and what others have found. Great for field of view, not so great for plate reads.

 

[bhb]

Too far away to be able to get decent plate reads that's just the nature of it being a 360 camera and what others have found. Great for field of view, not so great for plate reads.

You never know if Vantrue can improve (close by) license plate reading in the future. But actually I also like to dream.

 

[Augustus]

You never know if Vantrue can improve (close by) license plate reading in the future. But actually I also like to dream.

One can dare to dream but you're dealing with optics here hardware wise which can't magically make things better.

 

[Nigel]

One can dare to dream but you're dealing with optics here hardware wise which can't magically make things better.

It can read plates as long as they are close enough and moving slow enough.

Wouldn't "Platepix" help with the plates that it can read?

It is true that it can't read many plates that a normal 4K dashcam can, but that doesn't mean that it is not worth improving the ones that it can read. Some of those plates will never be seen by the normal dashcam because they are not in the field of view.

 

[Julian23]

Wouldn't "Platepix" help with the plates that it can read?

It is true that it can't read many plates that a normal 4K dashcam can, but that doesn't mean that it is not worth improving the ones that it can read. Some of those plates will never be seen by the normal dashcam because they are not in the field of view.

If I see the results from the E1 Pro, PlatePix would definitely help to improve plate capture in some cases.

The 360 view definitely has it's pros and cons. Up to the user if it's the right one for the use case.

 

[bhb]

And what do you E360 testers think about the quality of image from the rear camera, could there also be room and need for improvement from it?

 

[bhb]

Also with the new firmware E360_VT-EEC111:

HDR off
EV=0,0

 

[bhb]

And also:

HDR off
EV=0,0

 

[Petero89]

The resolution it's not the issue. Vantrue e360, even if it's a 360 dashcam, can read license plates without any issues trust me but ONLY with a very good ALPR software (PlatePix) + 60 fps!!! 1st of all they should try to make it work on 60fps because the fps will boost the LPR software for clear reading, it's not the other way around as most people think. This is the only combination that really works. However, I don't know if they bought the LPR software or it's developed by Vantrue, but it takes some time to implement it on e360 and I really hope they don't give up

The 2nd issue. Well, it's enough resolution BUT I don't understand why they don't try to focus the pixels on specific area like - from half to bottom. This should help the processor to work much much easier. A dashcam doesn't need a clear sky view or nice trees and houses, but clear license plates. They can change the way is recording when it's in handheld mode

I believe Vantrue has a great team and they are doing very high quality dashcams but the team is limited because, someone from Vantrue is focusing on the wrong things. Most probably they have useless meetings asking useless things from the development team. Congratulations for their hard work and for having balls launching a 360 dashcam