Vantrue N5 - 4CH Dash Camera Test & Review - RCG

[brimopop567]

Why turn them off? Do they bother you?
I personally need internal cameras more in the parking lot than in motion.
Although in motion they also benefit.

I dont, but if you scroll up you find a user that asked for such.

 

[Dex_]

I can be additional option in settings menu. I do not need to record myself in motion but in parking time it can be useful field of view.

 

[Leon69]

I bought the N5 primarily for the parking feature, especialy the "motion detection with 10s advance recording"...
But, I wish I asked myself about N5 power consumption BEFORE buying mine... Thanks to @rcg530 I have a clear view of the current drawn, and it's clear that the advertised feature is almost never suitable :-(

However, VANTRUE seems to be considering customer feedback, so I'll have a try.

My ideal usage would be to have "parking monitoring" days long with motion detection. It's a dream, I can actually expect max 24h monitoring until the car battery reaches HW kit "low bat" criteria.
If I downgrade my expectations, I would have two use cases :
Use case 1 : Parking monitoring in high risk environnement, like supermarket or street parking, for few hours. I would definitely use "motion detection" in this case
Use case 2 : Long term parking in less sensitive environnement (my parking lot for instance), for several days. "shock detection" could be fine.

However, currently, I cannot switch easily from one mode to another, I would most probably always forget to switch back to "shock only" monitoring. What would be great is either (or both):
A) an option in parking mode to set a timeout after which the motion detection (or above, like low framerate recording) would downgrade to "shock detection" , in hours. For instance, after 3hrs of "full gear monitoring" with motion detection, it would still monitor in "degraded mode" (or more positive wording: "low power mode") with only shock detection
even better:
B) assuming the 5 levels Hardwire kit is sending a "shutdown" signal when the car battery reaches low level, use this signal (or even better : a new intermediate signal*) to switch from "full gear monitoring" to "shock detection only" monitoring
* the intermediate signal could be sent when car battery reaches a step higher, for instance if cutoff is set to 11.9V, "low power" mode would be set at 12.5V

Hope this make sense for you readers,
Leon

 

[rcg530]

B) assuming the 5 levels Hardwire kit is sending a "shutdown" signal when the car battery reaches low level, use this signal (or even better : a new intermediate signal*) to switch from "full gear monitoring" to "shock detection only" monitoring
* the intermediate signal could be sent when car battery reaches a step higher, for instance if cutoff is set to 11.9V, "low power" mode would be set at 12.5V

The Vantrue 5-levels hardwire kit does not have any communication capabilities (that I'm aware of). It allows you to set an optional low voltage cutoff voltage value and set an optional parking mode timer time value. When either of those two situations occur, the dash camera constant power is turned off.

 

[Leon69]

The Vantrue 5-levels hardwire kit does not have any communication capabilities (that I'm aware of). It allows you to set an optional low voltage cutoff voltage value and set an optional parking mode timer time value. When either of those two situations occur, the dash camera constant power is turned off.

I wondering then how the "ACC off" information is transmitted to the dashcam (for the dashcam to enter parking mode)

 

[rcg530]

I wondering then how the "ACC off" information is transmitted to the dashcam (for the dashcam to enter parking mode)

There's a wire/pin the USB-C connector (5-volt I'm assuming) that has power when the input 12-volt ACC power is on and when the input 12-volt ACC power is turned off, that same wire/pin in the USB-C connector has its power turned off. When the 12-volt system voltage level goes low, the low voltage feature turns off the dash camera by turning off the 5-volt USB-C power to the dash camera.

 

[brimopop567]

I bought the N5 primarily for the parking feature, especialy the "motion detection with 10s advance recording"...
But, I wish I asked myself about N5 power consumption BEFORE buying mine... Thanks to @rcg530 I have a clear view of the current drawn, and it's clear that the advertised feature is almost never suitable :-(

However, VANTRUE seems to be considering customer feedback, so I'll have a try.

My ideal usage would be to have "parking monitoring" days long with motion detection. It's a dream, I can actually expect max 24h monitoring until the car battery reaches HW kit "low bat" criteria.
If I downgrade my expectations, I would have two use cases :
Use case 1 : Parking monitoring in high risk environnement, like supermarket or street parking, for few hours. I would definitely use "motion detection" in this case
Use case 2 : Long term parking in less sensitive environnement (my parking lot for instance), for several days. "shock detection" could be fine.

However, currently, I cannot switch easily from one mode to another, I would most probably always forget to switch back to "shock only" monitoring. What would be great is either (or both):
A) an option in parking mode to set a timeout after which the motion detection (or above, like low framerate recording) would downgrade to "shock detection" , in hours. For instance, after 3hrs of "full gear monitoring" with motion detection, it would still monitor in "degraded mode" (or more positive wording: "low power mode") with only shock detection
even better:
B) assuming the 5 levels Hardwire kit is sending a "shutdown" signal when the car battery reaches low level, use this signal (or even better : a new intermediate signal*) to switch from "full gear monitoring" to "shock detection only" monitoring
* the intermediate signal could be sent when car battery reaches a step higher, for instance if cutoff is set to 11.9V, "low power" mode would be set at 12.5V

Hope this make sense for you readers,
Leon

This is actually a good idea. A timer schedule for parking mode including changing between modes during a timer run would be an interesting and possibly battery saving feature.

 

[Leon69]

There's a wire/pin the USB-C connector (5-volt I'm assuming) that has power when the input 12-volt ACC power is on and when the input 12-volt ACC power is turned off, that same wire/pin in the USB-C connector has its power turned off. When the 12-volt system voltage level goes low, the low voltage feature turns off the dash camera by turning off the 5-volt USB-C power to the dash camera.

Thanks for the insight... I digged into USB-C spec to discover it has well evolved since USB2
There are plenty side buses and up to 10 pins available for multipurpose... So I guess one has been dedicated to what you describe. The good news is that there are remaining pins and a "sideband protocol"

On a side note, I was wondering how USB3 could work over such a long distance (for the rear camera), I got my answer : it's most probably USB2, which is the only mandatory USB bus on a USB-C connector !
The N5 dashcam is not (yet) working as I expected, but at least I upgraded ly knowledge about USB-C

 

[rcg530]

This is a follow-up to my original report of dropped/duplicated video frames I discovered when first testing the pre-production N5 dash cameras a few months ago.

After updating my production N5 4-channel dash camera with updated firmware using the Android Vantrue app, I captured video during a drive around town this morning. I found a 1-minute period when the vehicle was moving during the entire 1-minute period. This allows me to check for duplicated and dropped video by reviewing the four different videos frame-by-frame. I first used the video player MPC-BE to step through each video frame from the front camera (A) video file. After finding several instances of dropped or duplicated frames, I imported the four video files (all video channels) into Adobe Premiere Pro which allows me to see the seconds and frame number within each second of the video content. That allowed me to see if there are any patterns to when the dropped / duplicated frames occur within the 1-minute videos.

The front and rear interior cameras have the largest number of dropped / duplicated video frames. There does seems to be a pattern to the time at which those events occur.

The pattern to the time info in my list of dropped/duplicated frames:

[HH:MM:SS – in video status line] / SECONDS_FROM_START_OF_VIDEO:START_FRAME_NUMBER-END_FRAME_NUMBER

The “SECONDS_FROM_START_OF_VIDEO “ and the frame numbers (00 to 29) are zero based numbers: Minimum 00:00, Maximum 59:29 (videos are 30 fps)

Duplicated = two adjacent video frames contain the exact same video content
Dropped = two adjacent frames have video showing movement of the objects within the field of view that should not be possible at the current speed of the vehicle (a frame is missing between those two frames).

Example: 09:52:07 / 48:04-05 - Duplicated

“09:52:07” = Time as displayed in the video status line
“48:04-05” = 49th second in the video (remember it’s a zero based number) and the event takes place between frames 04 and 05 inclusive (again zero based – As Adobe Premiere Pro reports in its timeline)
Duplicated = The event is “Duplicated” and that means frames 04 and 05 have the exact same video content

The raw video files, screenshots of the firmware information and a text file version of the dropped/duplicated info are located in a Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14CtkgDC-NH4armjLXsdyRwWZ5YscCyv9?usp=sharing

Entire list of the dropped/duplicated video frames from my 1-miniute video test are in the "Spoiler" block.

Spoiler

Dash Camera:

Vantrue Nexus 5 (Production Unit)

Firmware Versions: (Updated 21-Aug-2023)

Software(Front): VT-ECH121
Software(Cabin): VT-ECD191
Software(Rear): VT-ECG201

20230822_095119_0012_N_A - Front

09:51:20 / 01:05-06 - Dropped
09:51:21 / 02:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:23 / 04:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:24 / 05:05-06 - Dropped
09:51:31 / 12:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:33 / 14:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:37 / 18:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:39 / 20:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:41 / 22:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:47 / 28:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:48 / 29:05-06 - Dropped
09:51:49 / 30:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:50 / 31:05-06 - Dropped
09:51:56 / 37:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:57 / 38:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:58 / 39:05-06 - Dropped
09:51:59 / 40:05-06 - Duplicated
09:52:00 / 41:05-06 - Dropped
09:52:04 / 46:00-01 - Dropped
09:52:05 / 46:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:06 / 47:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:07 / 48:04-05 - Duplicated
09:52:08 / 49:05-06 - Dropped
09:52:09 / 50:05-06 - Duplicated
09:52:10 / 51:05-06 - Dropped
09:52:14 / 55:06-07 - Dropped
09:52:15 / 56:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:16 / 57:05-06 - Dropped
09:52:17 / 58:05-06 - Duplicated
09:52:18 / 59:05-06 - Dropped

20230822_095119_0012_N_B - Front Interior

09:51:31 / 12:04-05 - Duplicated
09:51:36 / 17:05-06 - Duplicated
09:51:52 / 33:02-03 - Dropped
09:51:54 / 35:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:00 / 41:28-29 - Dropped
09:52:05 / 46:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:10 / 52:00-01 - Dropped

20230822_095119_0012_N_C - Rear Interior

09:51:19 / 00:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:22 / 03:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:23 / 04:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:24 / 05:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:25 / 06:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:26 / 07:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:27 / 08:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:28 / 09:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:29 / 10:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:30 / 11:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:31 / 12:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:32 / 13:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:33 / 14:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:34 / 15:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:35 / 16:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:36 / 17:03-04 - Dropped (maybe)
09:51:38 / 19:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:39 / 20:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:40 / 21:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:41 / 22:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:42 / 23:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:43 / 24:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:44 / 25:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:45 / 26:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:46 / 27:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:47 / 28:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:48 / 29:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:49 / 30:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:50 / 31:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:51 / 32:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:52 / 33:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:53 / 34:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:56 / 37:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:57 / 38:03-04 - Duplicated
09:51:58 / 39:03-04 - Dropped
09:51:59 / 40:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:00 / 41:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:01 / 42:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:02 / 43:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:03 / 44:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:04 / 45:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:05 / 46:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:06 / 47:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:07 / 48:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:08 / 49:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:09 / 50:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:10 / 51:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:11 / 52:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:12 / 53:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:13 / 54:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:14 / 55:03-04 - Dropped
09:52:15 / 56:03-04 - Duplicated
09:52:16 / 57:03-04 - Dropped (maybe)
09:52:18 / 59:03-04 - Dropped

20230822_095119_0012_N_D - Rear

09:51:22 / 03:13-14 - Duplicated

 

[wibbly]

I bought the N5 primarily for the parking feature, especialy the "motion detection with 10s advance recording"...
But, I wish I asked myself about N5 power consumption BEFORE buying mine... Thanks to @rcg530 I have a clear view of the current drawn, and it's clear that the advertised feature is almost never suitable :-(

However, VANTRUE seems to be considering customer feedback, so I'll have a try.

My ideal usage would be to have "parking monitoring" days long with motion detection. It's a dream, I can actually expect max 24h monitoring until the car battery reaches HW kit "low bat" criteria.
If I downgrade my expectations, I would have two use cases :
Use case 1 : Parking monitoring in high risk environnement, like supermarket or street parking, for few hours. I would definitely use "motion detection" in this case
Use case 2 : Long term parking in less sensitive environnement (my parking lot for instance), for several days. "shock detection" could be fine.

However, currently, I cannot switch easily from one mode to another, I would most probably always forget to switch back to "shock only" monitoring. What would be great is either (or both):
A) an option in parking mode to set a timeout after which the motion detection (or above, like low framerate recording) would downgrade to "shock detection" , in hours. For instance, after 3hrs of "full gear monitoring" with motion detection, it would still monitor in "degraded mode" (or more positive wording: "low power mode") with only shock detection
even better:
B) assuming the 5 levels Hardwire kit is sending a "shutdown" signal when the car battery reaches low level, use this signal (or even better : a new intermediate signal*) to switch from "full gear monitoring" to "shock detection only" monitoring
* the intermediate signal could be sent when car battery reaches a step higher, for instance if cutoff is set to 11.9V, "low power" mode would be set at 12.5V

Hope this make sense for you readers,
Leon

I have exactly the same issue and been suggesting A) as a "fallback to Collision Detection mode based on a timer" in the N4 Pro forum. Alternatively, though not so effective, a timer that simply delayed activation of parking mode after leaving the car would achieve a similar effect, so the camera continued to record normally for a time before entering any parking mode if the parking mode was set to Collision Detection.

@Jeff_Vantrue is there an official place that feature requests from users can be submitted?

 

[rcg530]

I ran a power consumption test for the N5 with the front camera firmware ECH121 which includes a new setting for collision detection parking mode. You have a choice of "Power Saving Mode" or "Quick Start Mode" which must be configured on the dash camera since it is not available in the Vantrue app. The original behavior is "Power Saving Mode" which allows the N5 to go into a deep sleep only consuming 16 mA @ 12.6 volts or 0.20 Watts. In "Power Saving Mode", the time to start recording after an impact averages 12 seconds.

The new quick start mode is as I expected in that the N5 goes into a "low" power consumption mode consuming 174 mA @ 12.6 volts or 2.19 Watts while it waits for an impact. In "Quick Start Mode", the time to start recording after an impact averages 5 seconds. The price paid for this "quicker" startup time is a greatly reduced parking mode time due to the higher power consumption.

Here are my updated power consumption results with the new "quick start" collision detection results added.

• Configuration
  • N5 4-Channel
  • N5 USB power provided by "Vantrue 3-Lead ACC Hardwire Kit" (unit with dip switches on the side)

 

[wibbly]

Were you using a hardwire kit (which one) or a cigarette lighter socket adaptor when running the tests? Or something else?

 

[rcg530]

Were you using a hardwire kit (which one) or a cigarette lighter socket adaptor when running the tests? Or something else?

The title and notes in the power consumption spreadsheet states it's powered by the Vantrue 3-wire hardwire kit. I just added extra text to note it's the 3-wire hardwire kit with the configuration dip switches on the side of unit.

 

[wibbly]

The title and notes in the power consumption spreadsheet states it's powered by the Vantrue 3-wire hardwire kit. I just added extra text to note it's the 3-wire hardwire kit with the configuration dip switches on the side of unit.

For what it's worth I tested the N4 Pro with both 2 and 5 level (3-wire) hardwire kits. I measured power consumption as slightly higher using the 5 level kit. I don't think this would make any practical difference except in low power parking mode.

I also found power consumption overall was lower with the latest version of firmware. Have you seen any changes between firmware versions?

(For reference: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/vantrue-nexus-4-pro-review.49252/post-599815)

 

[rcg530]

For what it's worth I tested the N4 Pro with both 2 and 5 level (3-wire) hardwire kits. I measured power consumption as slightly higher using the 5 level kit. I don't think this would make any practical difference except in low power parking mode.

I also found power consumption overall was lower with the latest version of firmware. Have you seen any changes between firmware versions?

(For reference: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/vantrue-nexus-4-pro-review.49252/post-599815)

I've not rerun the entire set of power consumption tests with the latest firmware installed. I only retested the power consumption for collision detection parking mode (both modes). I show the power consumption for the 3-wire hardwire kit by itself in my chart which is a bit higher than the 2-wire hardwire kit that I tested with the E1/E1 Lite dash cameras.

 

[brimopop567]

The parking mode, motion mode even in low detection, just keeps recording. Anyone else experience this? Might as well keep it on low bitrate mode but my car battery was getting near cut off point after 16 hours at the hotel were staying.

 

[rcg530]

I went for drive last night to gather some nighttime footage from the N5 and two other dash cameras.

The N5 front interior's IR LEDs are within full view of the rear interior camera and the opposite is true as well. The front interior camera seems to handle the direct exposure to the rear interior's IR LEDs a bit better than the rear interior camera handles direct exposure to the front interior's IR LEDs. The rear interior camera is somewhat blinded by the direct exposure to the front interior's IR LEDs. You see a white haze in the rear interior's recorded video. The rear interior camera is still very out of focus (still waiting for a resolution to that from Vantrue).

With some outside light present:



With almost no outside light present:

 

[JohnPRyan]

Dropped/Duplicated Video Frames - Front & Front Interior Camera Footage

I found that the front camera is either dropping or duplicating a video frame about once every second in the video. I first observed this behavior while playing the video on my Windows 11 laptop. I imported the front camera video into Adobe Premiere Pro. I confirmed the video was dropping one video frame or duplicating a video frame about once every second for the front camera. I found similar examples in the front interior video, but not necessarily every second in the video. The resolution selection was 1440p (front) + 1080p (front interior) + 1080p (rear interior) + 1080p (rear) and the front camera's WDR feature was enabled and the rear camera's HDR feature was enabled (which the default values for those settings). I've reported the issues noted in this post to my Vantrue contact.

In this screenshot from Adobe Premiere Pro, I placed a marker at each occurrence of a dropped or duplicated frame.

View attachment 65352

The rear interior and rear camera video files don’t appear to have any dropped or duplicated frames. The rear interior and rear cameras have focus problems.

In general, the rear interior camera is a bit out of focus for the entire field of view. The front interior camera has everything in focus (see below).

View attachment 65353

The rear camera is out of focus (badly) except for a small amount on the extreme left side. If something appears on the extreme left of the field of view, it’s in focus but when it moves out of that small section to the main field of view it goes out of focus. Yes, I've confirmed the protective film has been removed from the rear camera lenses and they are clean and the rear window is clean.

View attachment 65354

Here's what the front camera footage looks like:

View attachment 65356

Here's what the front interior camera footage looks like:

View attachment 65357

I’ve uploaded the raw video files for the A (front) / B (front interior) / C (rear interior) / D (rear) cameras from the examples included in this post to my Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wPUM_-PzF8CaBzbfEHC39iDg3IUou5My?usp=sharing

I've noticed the same thing with the rear camera being out of focus. I thought it was my camera looking through the electrostatic piece sticking to the rear window. I was considering moving the location of my rear camera so I could mount it to my third brake light instead of the window. Haven't gotten around to doing that just yet.

 

[Panzer Platform]

I've noticed the same thing with the rear camera being out of focus.

RCG530, myself, and a lot of other testers have been seeing a lot of out of focus issues in the past year.
From now on it's a good idea to check focus before you install the camera by holding it outside WITHOUT window glass in front of it.
Check when the camera is "COLD" and again when the camera is "HOT" say after 4 hours of operation.
Compare the COLD & HOT recorded footage.
The HOT check is to see if the lens looses focus when it gets to operating temp.
I failed to perform this HOT check on the A119 Mini 2, and RCG530 did not discover it until months later when he had time to test the camera more thoroughly.
Now this COLD & HOT focus check is the first thing I do when testing a new camera.
Just like every other consumer product these days, quality control ain't what it used to be,
-Chuck

 

[LateralNW]

I went for drive last night to gather some nighttime footage from the N5 and two other dash cameras.

The N5 front interior's IR LEDs are within full view of the rear interior camera and the opposite is true as well. The front interior camera seems to handle the direct exposure to the rear interior's IR LEDs a bit better than the rear interior camera handles direct exposure to the front interior's IR LEDs. The rear interior camera is somewhat blinded by the direct exposure to the front interior's IR LEDs. You see a white haze in the rear interior's recorded video. The rear interior camera is still very out of focus (still waiting for a resolution to that from Vantrue).

With some outside light present:

View attachment 67295 View attachment 67294

With almost no outside light present:

View attachment 67297 View attachment 67296

I have finally created and rendered a video of night driving with passengers focusing on how much light and image quality the Vanture Nexus 5 delivers when in complete darkness with four passengers.

The cabin looks like the interior light is on but I can promise that the only light if from the occasional street lamp and the Vantrue's Infrared LEDs.

The front facing in camera does a good job with contrast and focus but the rear facing in camera not as good.
I'm wondering if the front IR LEDs are creating some type of exposure problems as two of the front LEDs point directly at the rear dashcam.

Look forward to the forums opinion.
Cheers

I had mentioned this in my review shown above with a video.
I'm now wondering if the camera actually requires a contrast / brightness update.