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

[rcg530]

Vantrue reached out to me to see if I wanted to check out the new Vantrue N5 4-channel dash camera. Yesterday, I received two Vantrue N5 dash cameras. I unboxed one of them and took some pictures.

I was told that the hardwire kits and 40mm CPL filters that worked with the E1 dash camera that I reviewed will also work with the N5. I was not sent the optional Bluetooth remote. I'll split this over a few posts since there's a limit of 10 picture attachments per post.

Vantrue N5 Box



Box Contents:

 

[rcg530]

Front Camera:

 

[rcg530]

Rear Camera:



Cables / Accessories:

 

[Julian23]

Did I see correctly that the front camera has a swivel mount to rotate the dashcam?

 

[Panzer Platform]

Very nice.
I love rear interior POV.
That’s what I use the Viofo A229 “rear” camera for.
But it doesn’t have IR emitters so it’s useless at night unless I turn on the dome light.
I wish Viofo offered an A229 Duo IR, just like the old A129 Duo IR.
Most likely won’t because it might take away sales from the A139 & T130 series.
I’m looking forward to rear interior views of your PPV test mule. Lol
-Chuck

 

[rcg530]

Did I see correctly that the front camera has a swivel mount to rotate the dashcam?

The front camera body has a swivel mount for the front interior camera. The main camera body has magnetic windshield mount that allows it to be adjusted.

 

[rcg530]

But it doesn’t have IR emitters so it’s useless at night unless I turn on the dome light.

The rear interior camera does have four IR emitters. It was not easily seen with the first picture. I just took a picture with additional light shinning on the plate that the IR emitters are behind so you can see them.

 

[kamkar]

The SOC the N5 are made on support HDR on 2 channels, and as i understand ATM that is the two interior cameras.
I am not sure if that is by design or chance, IMO it seem a waste of good HDR to use it on the interior cameras, but maybe it can not be done on the 2 other cameras as one of them are 1440p resolution.
Of course as i am not ride share driver, my mind tend to relegate those cameras to secondary value, and thats probably why i noticed the use of HDR on the interior cameras.

The N5 look to be a nice ride share system, with interior from 2 angles which i can easy imagine situations where that might be useful.

ATM i am a little perplexed, if Vantrue send me a N5 to beat on, i am unsure on what side of my mounting spot on the windscreen to actually install it, i guess that will have to come down to a brainstorm session when i install it.
I am going to have to clear up some cameras on the windscreen as it seem like i will have plenty of cameras to work with in the near future.
I will also have to find 2 more fuses for install of hard wire kits, i can do 2 systems on my current fuses, but connecting 3 or 4 hard wire kits and XX cameras to that will probably be a gamble.

I still consider the front camera a primary camera, but thats me here in EU ville, Americans, well at least in the one plate in the back states, the rear camera would be the primary one at least in regard to chance of plate capture on oncoming cars.
So selfishly i like all or most of the effort to be focussed on the front camera, which are also the one camera i have pulled the most footage from in the past 10 years.

Anyways, things are moving forward, and as a old guy i appreciate the speed of innovation / improvements are not super fast so i can keep up.

 

[Jeff_Vantrue]

Did I see correctly that the front camera has a swivel mount to rotate the dashcam?

The Vantrue Nexus 5 has four places to rotate and adjust the camera angle

 

[Julian23]

The Vantrue Nexus 5 has four places to rotate and adjust the camera angle

Thanks for the pictures.
This means the front camera lens is not adjustable like the E3 because the mount can rotate?

 

[Jeff_Vantrue]

Yes, the Vantrue E3 is the lens rotation and the Vantrue N5 is the mount rotation.

 

[Panzer Platform]

Does the Vantrue N5 record in H.264, or H265 Codec?
Or both?

 

[Jeff_Vantrue]

Does the Vantrue N5 record in H.264, or H265 Codec?
Or both?

Vantrue N5 record in H.265.

 

[rcg530]

I believe I found my first bug for the N5. I was just getting the N5 4-channel configuration setup for some power consumption testing.

This is not the bug, but I tried to use the latest Android "Vantrue" app and it does not list the "Nexus series" as it shows in the manual. I downloaded the iOS "Vantrue" app and it does list the "Nexus series" dash cameras. I was able to successfully connect and configure the N5. This 4-channel dash camera does consume a large amount of power in normal recording mode 750 to 800 mA.

I have set the "Auto LCD Off" set to 30 seconds. When the N5 is in normal recording mode, the screen does auto turn off after 30 seconds. Even if I turn on the screen via a voice command of "Turn On Screen" it will turn on and 30 seconds later it turns off.

I have low bitrate 1080p 15fps parking mode enabled. When I turn off the ACC+ power to the 3-wire Vantrue hardwire kit, the screen turns on and the icon for the parking mode shows up in the middle of the screen. The problem/bug is that the screen takes a really long time before it turns off while the N5 is in parking mode. When in parking mode, it takes 3 minutes before the LCD screen turns off. Parking mode does not seem to pay attention to the "Auto LCD Off" setting.

 

[kamkar]

I would have assumed that the change to parking mode screen on, would turn off as fast as the screen off timer the user would set, or maybe just be 10 seconds and not be related to user screen off settings.
I would never be able to test APP on IOS, as i do not know anyone that have a Fruit phone,,,,,, well aside for my nieces which have both fallen into that trap, but both of them are far away, and with as little as they care for old uncle, well i will not be the one to pester them.

 

[rcg530]

Preliminary Power Consumption Test Results - Vantrue N5

I spent the day running a series of power consumption tests. I ran power consumption tests for the top four resolution selections (starting with the highest resolution) for the 4-channel and 3-channel configuration options. I didn't run normal mode power consumption tests for the 2-channel and 1-channel configurations because if you've purchased a N5 why would you not use two of its cameras all of the time. I can certainly run those tests at some point, but they're not included in this set of test results.

Notes

• Motion Detection / Low Bitrate / Low Frame Rate parking modes all had the same issue where the screen would stay on for the first 3-minutes of each parking mode session.
• Motion detection parking mode on the default "Medium" sensitivity setting was extremely sensitive. I had to reduce the sensitivity level to low to allow the motion detection parking mode to not trigger on what seemed like no motion situations.
• The video bitrate values were very consistent for each resolution.
• The very first time I powered up the N5 after removing it from its box, the 12.6V amp draw reached about 1.1 amps. I believe this to be related to the initial charging of the supercapacitor.
• All of the tests had:
  • The front camera's WDR feature enabled and the rear camera's HDR feature enabled.
  • The IR LEDs settings were changed from "Auto" to "On" to make sure the IR LED power draw was consistent for all of the tests.

 

[Jeff_Vantrue]

Preliminary Power Consumption Test Results - Vantrue N5

I spent the day running a series of power consumption tests. I ran power consumption tests for the top four resolution selections (starting with the highest resolution) for the 4-channel and 3-channel configuration options. I didn't run normal mode power consumption tests for the 2-channel and 1-channel configurations because if you've purchased a N5 why would you not use two of its cameras all of the time. I can certainly run those tests at some point, but they're not included in this set of test results.

Notes

• Motion Detection / Low Bitrate / Low Frame Rate parking modes all had the same issue where the screen would stay on for the first 3-minutes of each parking mode session.
• Motion detection parking mode on the default "Medium" sensitivity setting was extremely sensitive. I had to reduce the sensitivity level to low to allow the motion detection parking mode to not trigger on what seemed like no motion situations.
• The video bitrate values were very consistent for each resolution.
• The very first time I powered up the N5 after removing it from its box, the 12.6V amp draw reached about 1.1 amps. I believe this to be related to the initial charging of the supercapacitor.
• All of the tests had:
  • The front camera's WDR feature enabled and the rear camera's HDR feature enabled.
  • The IR LEDs settings were changed from "Auto" to "On" to make sure the IR LED power draw was consistent for all of the tests.

View attachment 65261 View attachment 65262

Thank you for your review, this information is very valuable.
Parking Mode turns off the display after 3 minutes, and I will discuss this with the engineer to make a more suitable solution.

 

[rcg530]

Collision Detection Parking Mode

The collision detection parking mode reduces the power draw from the N5 to a very low level (15 mA @ 12.6V or 0.19 Watts) by powering down the N5 to a state where it's monitoring only for impacts. This greatly extends the amount of time that a vehicle battery or dash camera battery pack can power the N5 in this parking mode.

The really big downside to this parking mode (IMO) is that it takes 11 seconds (based on my 4-channel testing) for the N5 to power up an resume recording after an impact has been detected. It records a 60 second video. The video will contain the activity 11 seconds to 71 seconds after the impact event. Will that be sufficient for your needs? Will it actually record anything related to the impact event?

 

[kamkar]

Some when they have made a motor vehicle Boo - Boo ( accident ) will not be that fast in removing / distancing them self from that situation, BUT ! the number of people that would i feel are still high enough that you would want to consider this.

It is sort of like me, using low bitrate for 1 hour on the timer, and then last year parking at my sisters place, someone backed into my car 2 hours after i parked, hence why today i use 3 hours on the timer, and with my luck that will probably be to little some day.
The radars that some brands deploy in this regard might alleviate this to some degree, though i still dont think it will be the end all fix.
The dride 4k i am in bed with, or at least pave put money towards on kickstarter it also have radar, and actually also in the rear camera, just like some new cameras also have.
But i still feel something approaching even at a not high speed, well if it take long to wake up system then the threat have be be detected far away, which again mean the camera will constantly be waking up, and so you have a situation that a little resemble the issue using motion detect for parking guard.

I am so glad i do not feel i have any use for long term parking guard, cuz that i am sure would have me pretty frustrated about what to do then.

The 3 minutes the LCD are on changing to parking guard, that is indeed long i feel, i would think 1 minute would be plenty.
Personally i dont see why at all, but that is my partikular setou / car, CUZ in my car the center camera on my windscreen at least ( assuming there was only 1 system ) i can not see the LCD screen from the driver seat, i would have to hunch over a bit or stretch to see the screen above the mirror, at least that is how it is with wedge shaped systems installed in my car.

 

[kamkar]

I have been wondering, i think most dashcams use CBR ( Constant bitrate ) but if a dashcam used VBR ( Variable bitrate ) then you sort of would have parking mode without making it, CUZ the system if there was not much going on where you are parked would throttle to a low bitrate.

On my IP camera i use VBR so most of the time the bitrate are just 1 mbit for the 1440p camera, but it can go as far as 8 mbit i have set as the upper limit.
I am however not sure if anyone have experimented with VBR on a dashcam, if it could ramp up in bitrate, say when you drive in between trees lining the road and there is a lot to figure out, it would be cool if a system was able to temporarily ramp up higher than the normal we see.
Then again that might be for a long time if you drive thru a forest of size and not just a 1/2 miles with trees, so there would be a thermal concern none the less.

Opposite when you park in a parking lot, where not a lot happen the camera would drop to a really low bitrate, this would of course be higher if you was parked curbside to a busy road, i just cant stop wondering how bad it would be.
But if it worked, you dident have to worry about programming all that stuff, the camera would just record all the time, but when parked probably at a very low bitrate.

I wonder if any of the modders have experimented with things like that.