Vantrue Nexus 4 Pro Review

[wibbly]

In the interests of full transparency I was offered a Vantrue N4 Pro for review by Vantrue, and allowed to keep the product in exchange for an honest description of my experiences here on the Dashcamtalk.com forum. I’m in the UK (so a right hand drive car). I have been researching dashcams, but this is the first one I will have fitted. The products supplied were the N4 Pro camera kit (which at time of writing lists at £304 on Vantrue’s website) together with a hardware kit and 128GB Vantrue Micro SD card, both of which are sold separately.

The N4 Pro features the Sony IMX678 chipset which supports Starvis 2.0 technology for the main forward facing camera. There are also cabin facing (attached to the main forward facing) and rear facing cameras. There's a large ~3" screen (non touch) and an intuitive menu system for set up on the camera, driven by 4 physical buttons.

Unboxing and initial impressions - Vantrue’s design choices

Products are well packaged - as are many are these days. Boxes have a premium and rigid feel to them, there are boxes within the boxes and you ‘explore’, digging deeper and deeper, discovering more bits and pieces they have provided. For example,

• The cameras protected by high density foam
• Spares of 3M camera attachment and other stickers
• Trim removal tool
• Lens cleaning cloths
• Multilingual manual (called a Quick User Guide) that, for English at least, is understandable and for the most part clear - which is not always the case for product originating out of China. This doesn't seek to walk you though all the options available to you, instead concentrating on what you need to know that isn’t obvious from what you discover playing with the product on your own. I like this. https://www.vantrue.net/manuals/pdf...anuals/Vantrue N4 pro User Manual English.pdf

I felt I had almost everything I needed in the main box, which is good. I was supplied with a Micro SD card for review. But why, then, does Vantrue not include a Micro SD card in the box of a size that will at least get you started? Everyone will need to use one and buy it separately. Yet they chose to include a cigarette lighter adaptor even though those wanting to hardwire the camera will not even use it... I'm not sure of the logic here, but just beware you'll need to buy a suitably fast card up to 512GB. Vantrue specify Class 10, U3, A2 are all required specs.

The main/front camera(s) unit feels very well built, with nice design choices. It’s attached to its mount magnetically, which feels solid. Even the cover for the Micro SD card (which is also the power/'emergency recording' button) attaches with a reassuring magnetic click - much better than a grommet kind of cover. The main power is connected at the mount, not the camera, so the camera is easy to remove. The rear facing/cabin camera rotates very smoothly to adjust its position.

But, unfortunately, the rear camera cable is plugged directly into the main/front camera unit, not its mount. Why? This means you still have to worry about plugging cables when removing or attaching the main camera via its elegant magnetic mount. This seems to defeat one of the benefits of having a mount with the main power cable connected to the mount. Also the front/rear cable for the rear camera is provided with straight USB-C connectors, which exit the main camera upwards. This prevented mounting the camera as high up on the car windscreen as I wanted to. I needed to buy a right angle Micro USB adapter. Much better if the cable could also have just plugged into the mount like the power cable, as I mentioned above.

The main camera mount is mounted with a 3M sticker that's attached to a large electrostatic sticker that's applied to the windscreen first. This is intended to ensure you don't end up with a sticky mess on the windscreen if you have to remove the mount later. I found the edge of the electrostatic sticker was visible on a recording in my case. However removing the excess was simple enough with a knife and the excess electrostatic sticker was easily removed.

The main camera isn’t exactly stealthy due to the size required as a result of integrating both the large screen and a rear/cabin facing camera into it. And positioning of the cabin camera and main power/'emergency recording' button have clearly been designed for left hand drive cars. This makes positioning challenging, but not impossible, in right hand drive cars. In the UK dashcams should be fitted less than 40mm into the area of the windscreen swept by the wiper blades.

Super capacitors rather than a lithium polymer battery are used to give the camera power for a short period if external power is lost, to ensure it can still shut down without corrupting the SD card. The use of super capacitors is a good choice as lithium polymer batteries have a short service life in the extremes of temperature often found in a car and thus need users to periodically replace them (if that's even possible).

The rear camera is small and simple enough to mount with a 3M sticker. Not clear if I was supposed to use an electrostatic sticker with it or not. Its vertical rotation/adjustment is not nearly as smooth as the main camera, but fortunately should not have to be done more than once anyway.

The front to rear camera cable seems quite thick and I expected it to add to the challenge of routing it neatly from the front to the back of the car. At least a trim tool was included with the camera bundle. In the event it was ok, and I was happy with the cable's apparent robustness, but where in entered/existed trim wasn't as neat as it would have been if it had been thinner.

The 2 level adujstable hardwire kit has many piggy back fuse options supplied to accommodate what you might find in your car's fuse panel. The low voltage cut-off can be set at 11.6V or 12V. Whilst either of these settings might leave enough in the battery to start the car, car batteries aren’t generally designed to be significantly discharged regularly, so I believe setting either of these voltages will have a detrimental effect on the car battery’s overall service life. I would prefer to have the option of a higher cut off voltage. But more importantly there should be a software option to have the camera’s other parking modes automatically switch to the lowest power consuming Collision Detection parking mode after a set amount of time. Or at least be able to set a delay before parking mode starts, after leaving the car. This would give the best protection for shorter parking periods without having to manually think about and set the desired parking mode every time the car is left. That is currently not possible, forcing users like me to always use Collision Detection mode if they regularly leave the car undriven for days at a time. Collision Detection parking mode has no pre-capture and a significant start up time, so events are more likely to be missed completely, but it's the only option for those that fear reduction in the car battery's service life with the other options.

There is also a 5 level adjustable hardwire kit that I was subsequently able to test below https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/vantrue-nexus-4-pro-review.49252/post-599815

The CPL filter screws onto the forward facing camera rather than just pushing on. This adds to feeling of product and design quality. It can then be rotated to maximize its effect.

The Vanture Android app seems capable at first use. It successfully upgraded the firmware in the cameras and is an easier way to set up all the camera options than using the camera itself (not that that's bad). It can connect over 5GHz Wifi and so far works fine for viewing files, setting up the camera, and looking at a live view. For some reason the app excludes the list of voice commands that can be used on the camera. These can only be viewed within the camera's own menu.

I do frequently have a number of problems downloading files to my phone using the app. They would either fail to download or the app would just wait interminably for them to download. Smaller file sizes seem more reliable. Also choosing to download files from the file overview screen is more reliable than from the playback screen, Reformatting the camera's card or switching to 2.4GHz Wifi did not help. I presume this is a bug that will ultimately be fixed. I was using a Pixel 6 (Android 13). Beware there is also a Vantrue Dash Cam app in the Google Play store, which is not the app aligned with N4 Pro. Without the app, you can remove and directly connect the camera to your laptop/PC with a supplied cable connected to the camera's rear camera cable connector, and transfer the files that way.

I have also noticed if I set HDR to off in the app, the setting does not persist on the camera. If I set it on the camera, it works as intended.

Photos are available here (I can't attach more than 10 in-line in a post)

 

[wibbly]

Power consumption

Parking mode power consumption is of particular interest to me due to my comments above about the hardwire kit. For power consumption tests I connected to a 12V power supply and used the camera in a mode where the screen turned off before a measurement was taken. All 3 cameras were active (2160P+1080P+1080P 30FPS unless otherwise stated), with the hardwire kit in use (rather than cigarette lighter adapter)

• Normal recording mode ~ 750-820 mA
• Collision detection parking mode ~ 11 mA: Start up time after collision detection ~ 11-12s
• Motion detection parking mode ~ 710 mA
• Low bit rate parking mode set to 1080 15FPS (can be set lower) ~ 550-600 mA
• Low frame rate parking mode 1FPS (can be set higher) ~ 640-650 mA

I noted that the screen wakes when coming out of parking mode. This is less than ideal as it attracts attention to the camera and this behavior cannot be switched off in the current firmware.

Also it wasn't clear to be from the manual, but Collision Detection is also still active in Low frame rate and Low Bit rate parking modes and will take the camera into normal recording mode bit rates and resolutions for 5 min after a collision is detected. Other that the screen coming on, this to me is a good idea to ensure full detail is captured but, as the camera changes modes, a number of seconds of recording are missed at a time when they may be critical to collect.

Collision sensitivity can be finely tuned, and the movement detection sensitivity can be tuned separately in each axis (side to side, up and down, front to back)

See post below on updated power consumption figures https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/vantrue-nexus-4-pro-review.49252/post-600361

 

[wibbly]

Voice commands

The current list (listed in a menu on the camera, not in the app) are:

• Take photo
• Video start
• Turn on audio
• Turn off audio
• Turn on screen
• Turn off screen
• Turn on Wifi
• Turn off Wifi
• Lock the video
• Show front camera
• Show rear camera
• Inside video on
• Back to home page

On the plus side, in the right conditions, they are all recognized and do what I would expect them to do. However:

1. I find them inconsistent. For example, why is "Lock the video" used and yet not "Take a photo". I suspect this is a result of less than optimal translation from Chinese. The next point makes this more problematic.
2. They have to be said word-for-word. For example "Turn on screen" works whilst "Turn screen on" does not. "Lock video" won't work. Nor will 'Screen on". In these days of Google Assistant/Alexa/Siri there is an expectation that there should be flexibility with alternate similar phrases achieving the same thing. It would be better if common additional alternate phrases were recognized.
3. Phones, for example, have multiple microphones leading to being able to recognize voice in noisy environments. My Pixel phone will respond from its car mount even whilst driving and with music playing (so long as it's not too loud). Maybe because it only has one microphone, or because of its firmware implementation, I found the N4 Pro struggled to recognize even correct phrases when I was driving, leading to my having to repeat the phrases more than once to get a response, and wind up 'shouting' at it! Adjusting the sensitivity did not help.

I thus found the voice activation features rather ineffective and would not want to rely on the N4 Pro recognizing something like 'Take photo' in the heat of the moment. Instead it's more reliable to reach across and press the button on the far side end of the camera (as in RHD cars the camera's likely to be mounted to the left of rear view mirror, on the passenger side). This will to force locking of the current video and taking of a photo. I can see the voice commands as being far preferable and less dangerous than prodding buttons on the camera whilst driving, but they have to be reliable.

Micro SD Card Size

With 3 cameras running 2160P+1080P+1080P 30FPS, I found I should budget for about 20GB/hr being written to the card. I would recommend you factor this into your choice of card size and the time it will take for older recordings to be overwritten (assuming you are using looped mode). The camera supports cards up to 512GB where Class 10, U3, A2 are all required specs. Beware there is a division where locked/event recordings start getting overwritten once they take 30% of the available space, and normal recordings start getting overwritten once they take 70% of the available space. Thus, for example, using a 128GB card the budget would be 30% * 128/20 = approx. 1.9 hrs of event video and 70% * 128/20 = approx. 4.8 hrs of normal video before the oldest video starts getting overwritten. So an hour commute each way each day will see normal videos not being retained to the end of the third day after they were recorded. Larger cards are also likely to see less wear as they will be overwritten less frequently.

 

[wibbly]

So I tried to capture videos in more challenging conditions as there are plenty in good conditions posted elsewhere. In all cases HDR was set to off in an attempt to maximise clarity of moving objects. CPL filter was fitted. I found it pretty hit and miss if I could extract number plates, but I don't see that as a show-stopper. At 40mph, the approach speed for oncoming traffic is going to be ~ 80mph, so it's a challenge to be able to capture detail as they pass you, especially in challenging conditions

In rain at night:

On the motorway, facing sun:

At junction, facing sun

Diving, in and out of sun

 

[wibbly]

Following my concerns over too low battery voltage cut off and other issues in the review above, Vantrue kindly agreed to send one of their 5 level adjustable hardwire kits for review

https://www.vantrue.com/en-gb/products/5-level-adjustable-hardwire-kit

Initial impressions

This differs from the 2 level kit originally supplied in two key ways:

1. There are 4 choices of battery cut off voltage (11.6V/11.9V/12.2V/12.5v for 12v vehicles). These include higher voltage options than the original kit which, in my opinion, are more appropriate for maintaining battery service life.
2. There’s the option for using a timer that will also cut off the camera if the set time expires before the battery voltage drops too low anyway (2, 4, 6, 12, 24 hours cut off, or always on). This can potentially save SD card space in parking modes that continuously record to the card, and also allows the user to be less concerned with the battery voltage trigger being reached.

All settings are made via DIP switches on the device itself. The product is well packaged and appears well built, as has become my expectation for Vantrue products. A variety of fuse adaptors are included, and I was happy to discover the product supplied did not have a fuse adaptor pre-attached to the ACC cable as photographed in the product page above. This allows a choice for the fuse adaptor to be used as appropriate to your car.



The product also has a LED next to the camera cable. This doesn’t seem to be documented.



The product would normally be installed out of sight in a car, typically behind removable trim. Whilst the low battery voltage setting is probably set-and-forget, I can see users perhaps wanting the timer setting adjusted from time to time (for example as a result of selecting a different parking mode for the camera). So making a timer adjustment on the hardwire kit would be more awkward than the time being set via an option in the camera settings and/or app.

Bear in mind that when the timer expires it cuts off the camera power so there is no parking mode at all after that. Collision Detection parking mode, specifically, consumes little power and can likely run for many days before even a higher battery cut off voltage is triggered. The 11-12 seconds start up time with Collision Detection parking mode, once a collision is detected, isn't great and will likely miss something. The other parking modes, whilst better in many respects nonetheless consume much more power and are useless once the power goes due to over temperature, low battery, or timeout with the 5 level hardwire kit. The 11-12 second delay with Collison Detection parking mode might catch something. Once the power is gone (which will happen much faster with the other parking modes) you can be 100% sure nothing will be captured.

Using this hardwire kit alone there is still no option to fall back to the low-power long-lasting Collision Detection parking mode from one of the other parking modes after a period of time. If implemented, I think that would require a firmware update in the camera and would seem the best of all available modes, together with the protection of the low battery cut-off at higher voltages with this kit.

 

[wibbly]

In Collision Detection parking mode, the current consumption settled to ~ 16mA, compared to ~ 11mA for the simpler 2 level hardwire kit. I presume this is due to the more complex electronics inside.

The LED glows green whilst power is being supplied to the camera, and turns red after the timer expires (tested with the 1hr setting). When the timer expires current consumption (despite the red LED) is less than 1mA.

The 5 level adjustable hardwire kit unit is larger than the simpler (2 level) kit and will need to be orientated wherever it's placed so the DIP switches can be changed if you need to, and the label that shows their their setting is visible.

 

[wibbly]

New Collision Detection Power Saving and Quick Start parking modes in N4P_VT-ECH121 firmware (2023-08-21)

The firmware now splits Collision Detection parking mode into two sub-modes, Power Saving Mode and Quick Start Mode.

The new Quick Start mode reduces the time to start recording after a collision is detected to ~ 5 secs, which is a significant improvement from the ~ 12 seconds in the previous firmware.

 

[Nigel]

The new Quick Start mode reduces the time to start recording after a collision is detected to ~ 5 secs, which is a significant improvement from the ~ 12 seconds in the previous firmware.

In my view, 5 seconds is still too long, I had a Vantrue that took 6 seconds, and that definitely missed quite a lot. Thinkware are managing under 2 seconds with their U1000/U3000, which is far better.

 

[wibbly]

In my view, 5 seconds is still too long, I had a Vantrue that took 6 seconds, and that definitely missed quite a lot. Thinkware are managing under 2 seconds with their U1000/U3000, which is far better.

I hear you. But, as ever, it's a compromise compared with the other parking modes which die completely after a few hours (due to low battery voltage cut off or high temperature or timeout) so you miss everything after that. All you can really say is a 5 sec wake up will miss less than a 12 sec wakeup. Sub 2 sec would be much better. I'm curious to measure the trade off on power consumption with the 5 sec mode. I've so far not had the 12 sec mode cut off by the voltage protection even after a number of days leaving my car. (I work from home and can walk many places I go)

 

[Nigel]

I hear you. But, as ever, it's a compromise compared with the other parking modes which die completely after a few hours (due to low battery voltage cut off or high temperature or timeout) so you miss everything after that. All you can really say is a 5 sec wake up will miss less than a 12 sec wakeup. Sub 2 sec would be much better. I'm curious to measure the trade off on power consumption with the 5 sec mode. I've so far not had the 12 sec mode cut off by the voltage protection even after a number of days leaving my car. (I work from home and can walk many places I go)

I'm not sure why we need to compromise though, unless we want pre-buffering. There is no need for the processor to boot up Windows every time it comes out of sleep mode! It is only sleeping, should be able to start recording again in milliseconds, and anything under a third of a second would be fine for most people, anything over two thirds of a second and you start missing the plate on the car that destroyed your side mirror.

 

[wibbly]

I'm not sure why we need to compromise though, unless we want pre-buffering. There is no need for the processor to boot up Windows every time it comes out of sleep mode! It is only sleeping, should be able to start recording again in milliseconds, and anything under a third of a second would be fine for most people, anything over two thirds of a second and you start missing the plate on the car that destroyed your side mirror.

I agree. I can only assume this is a limitation of the SoC they use (can't 'suspend' at very low power) and maybe the time it takes to power up the actual sensor (not that this should take seconds). The only advantage of a full reboot of its OS that I can think of (which it what it seems to do when it takes 12 sec), is that it starts fresh each time and doesn't crash

 

[ivoryarcher]

Do you think the 5 second wake up time can be improved in software in the future ? I hope it is not hardware related ?
I personally think its a software issue and can be fixed.

 

[wibbly]

Power Consumption using 5 level adjustable hardwire kit, new Collison Detection parking sub-modes and later firmware

So I had a feeling that with N4P_VT-ECH121 firmware (2023-08-21) that the camera was running cooler, at least to the touch. So I decided to re-run the power consumption measurements I had taken with the previous firmware. As before all 3 cameras were active (2160P+1080P+1080P 30FPS unless otherwise stated), with one of the hardwire kits in use.

Before (copied from post above), with 2 level adjustable hardwire kit

• Normal recording mode ~ 750-820 mA
• Collision detection parking mode ~ 11 mA: Start up time after collision detection ~ 11-12s
• Motion detection parking mode ~ 710 mA
• Low bit rate parking mode set to 1080 15FPS (can be set lower) ~ 550-600 mA
• Low frame rate parking mode 1FPS (can be set higher) ~ 640-650 mA

With N4P_VT-ECH121 firmware (2023-08-21), with 5 level adjustable hardwire kit

• Normal recording mode ~ 650-715 mA
• Collision detection parking mode - Power Saving sub-mode ~ 14 mA: Start up time after collision detection ~ 12-13 sec
• Collision detection parking mode - Fast Start sub-mode ~ 115 mA: Start up time after collision detection ~ 5 sec
• Motion detection parking mode ~ 595 mA (after screen times out after 3 min, not configurable)
• Low bit rate parking mode set to 1080 15FPS (can be set lower) ~ 440-470 mA (after screen times out after 3 min, not configurable)
• Low frame rate parking mode 1FPS (can be set higher) ~ 500 mA (after screen times out after 3 min, not configurable)

My observations are

1. The screen times out almost immediately in Collision Detection parking mode, but after 3 min in the other parking modes. I had set a 1 min timeout in the settings (which seems only to affect normal recording mode)
2. All current/power levels are down, supporting my feeling that the camera doesn't seem to get as hot now. This is good.
3. Collision Detection parking mode - Power Saving sub-mode current is higher because I am now using the 5 level adjustable hardwire kit. But using that kit, the current was previously 16mA, so that's down too with this firmware
4. Collision Detection parking mode - Fast Start sub-mode is an interesting compromise between the Power Saving sub-mode and the other parking modes. Only users can decide if the cost of 8x the current consumption compared to the Power Saving sub-mode is worth it to get a ~ 5 sec start up time after a collision is detected. The higher current consumption will lead to an earlier cut off due to the car's battery being too low but how long you will actually get will depend on the battery's health, size, where you've set the cut-off voltage and what other current draw there is in the car when the ignition is off.

For perspective I have read that an overall draw around 85 mA with the ignition off is considered the maximum for many modern cars without any after-market devices like dashcams fitted. So adding an extra, say, 115 mA with Collision detection parking mode - Fast Start sub-mode is more than the whole 85 mA budget & means things have to be managed.

Blog - Parasitic Battery Drain

Understand parasitic draw and how it affects your car battery.

no.co

On Reddit, user Vantrue-Echo (I think from Vantrue) included the comment below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vantruedashcam/comments/1608lvv/_/jxnsqkc

My findings are consistent with the statement

 

[wibbly]

Do you think the 5 second wake up time can be improved in software in the future ? I hope it is not hardware related ?
I personally think its a software issue and can be fixed.

I don't know - they've only just got it from ~ 12 secs to ~ 5 secs at the cost of 8x higher power consumption compared to the existing Collision Detection - Power Saving mode... My guess is it is hardware related based on the capabilities of the SoC/processor they use.

 

[mikek753]

any plans to share your results for rear camera?

 

[Karagandinez]

any plans to share your results for rear camera?

Videos from here do not fit?

Vantrue Nexus 4 Pro 3CH 4K / My introduction to the new model.

Your white balance fluctuates too like mine? Yes, there is. You need to try to turn off HDR during the day. I notice no audio too - does yours make vibration sounds like mine? I did not experience the sound, because I did not go alone and in the cabin there were conversations not intended for...

dashcamtalk.com

 

[wibbly]

So, like some others, I felt the rear camera had some focusing issues. Vehicles and road signs seemed to be clear only when closer than I expected. It was as if the camera was set to focus on nearer objects, even as close as the plastic trim around the rear window.

Vantrue were kind enough to send a replacement which appears to be a bit better

I noticed the rear plastic trim is no longer in focus and it seems the following car's number plates are possibly readable from a little further away. Obviously this is not a 4K camera on the rear so what you see is, I guess, as good as you can expect from the 1080P sensor in it and the compression the software uses.

Both videos have HDR off.

 

[Karagandinez]

Obviously this is not a 4K camera on the rear so what you see is, I guess, as good as you can expect from the 1080P sensor in it and the compression the software uses.

Did anyone promise 4K on the rear camera?

 

[wibbly]

Did anyone promise 4K on the rear camera?

No. Just trying to set expectations. So for 1080P this is as good as it gets?

 

[Karagandinez]

No. Just trying to set expectations. So for 1080P this is as good as it gets?

Of course not, but you shouldn’t expect 4K from 1080p either.