[f10trek]

Simple question
Night vision is helpful or it is only a useless gadget?

On this movie

looks great, but how is on real?

[dunderhi]

I have it, and use it frequently, but pedestrian detection doesn't work anywhere near that well, so you need to spend time looking towards the center of your dash while you are driving in areas of concern. In my experience if a person is in the middle of the road (not the side) and maybe 30 feet in front of the car, you may get a pedestrian warning.

[jeroguz]

Is it on at any speed?

[BMWrules7]

The system can be useful if you train yourself to use it. For example, you need to look at the monitor every few moments to check for deer and pedestrians.

Interestingly, the system is rarely effective in being the first to inform you of a deer in the road. You will almost always see the deer first by looking out the windshield.

The system becomes a bit more useful in that it helps to confirm what you thought you saw.

The pedestrian detection has a serious design flaw. It is only activated when night vision is actually actively displayed on the idrive screen. The flaw here, of course, is that any change to the idrive like selecting a radio station silently terminates pedestrian detection. I see no reason that pedestrian detection can't stay running in the background when a user makes simple music change.

Originally Posted by f10trek

Simple question
Night vision is helpful or it is only a useless gadget?

On this movie

looks great, but how is on real?

[EdM5]

Originally Posted by BMWrules7

Interestingly, the system is rarely effective in being the first to inform you of a deer in the road. You will almost always see the deer first by looking out the windshield.

Wait a minute, early detection of animals on or next to the road seemed like the most important feature to me.
A few years ago we crashed in to a deer. My wife was driving doing about 80 km/h and she had absolutely no time to react whatsoever. The E92 was a write off.
I keep wondering if a night vision system could have prevented the crash.

[nordic@telia.com]

I think its useless.. have it on my 550iX F10 but havent order it for my new M5 F10!

[nordic@telia.com]

Dont detect animals, i have tested.. detect people to late i think.. so i say useless, put the money on HUD, HIFI prof, keyless for example:-)

[ausfahrt]

Originally Posted by BMWrules7

The pedestrian detection has a serious design flaw. It is only activated when night vision is actually actively displayed on the idrive screen. The flaw here, of course, is that any change to the idrive like selecting a radio station silently terminates pedestrian detection. I see no reason that pedestrian detection can't stay running in the background when a user makes simple music change.

I agree and disagree with you there. The night vision is flawed when you change the station or go to any of the other menu's on the iDrive on the main console. But you can use your steering wheel control to change radio stations, songs, etc...without Night Vision turning off.

[schneeky]

They need to combine it with the HUD. Looking at the centre LCD display is too distracting - might cause more accidents that it prevents. If it was projected on screen, I would order again, as it is, my next car will not have it.

[yogi799]

Not only does it look useless, it looks dangerous! If one keeps looking down, they may indeed get into an accident caused simply by trying to use this unnecessary technology (I'm actually surprised it was approved by BMW safety experts)! When it's as dark as in this movie and nobody approaching from the opposite side, you turn your high beams on and can see things way better. I wouldn't use that dangerous feature if it was free...