Infrared, Color Night Vision, or Thermal Cameras: Which Night Vision Tech Do You Trust the Most?

[Reolink.Oskar]

Night vision technology has come a long way, offering homeowners and businesses various ways to monitor their properties after dark. But not all night vision technologies are created equal—each has its strengths depending on your security needs.

Tell us:
What’s your go-to night vision tech for different scenarios?
Have you noticed limitations in any of these technologies?
If you could improve one type of night vision, what would you change?

[joseph_1979]

@reolink-oskar This all boils down to costs. One of the key advantages of full colour night vision technology is that it offers clear and vivid colour images, even in near complete darkness say as low as 0.0005 lux. This is made possible by having a massive 1/1.2'' CMOS image sensor to capture more light, as well as a warm light that reaches up to 200ft. The technology has come a long way in recent years and continues to improve, making it a popular choice for cameras. There are also a couple different technologies to achieve full color. Some of the more affordable full color cameras use a built in warm light that can go as far as 100ft. More advanced cameras utilize two lenses. One lens captures visible light and the other captures infrared, both are then combined with clever programming to achieve a multi-spectral image. This means that with the same 100ft warm light, you can see even further in the dark.

Another technology is thermal imaging technology which captures the temperature difference between objects. They use microbolometers to detect different amounts of infrared light which are then converted to images of heat signatures. Since these cameras can identify heat patterns, they can see even in zero light and when there’s smoke present. So thermal night vision cameras are very useful for security where visual clarity is important regardless of the lighting condition.