TOPDON NV001 Thermal Camera for Cars, Automotive Thermal Night Vision System with 656ft Long-Range Vision, AI Recognition of People, Vehicles, and Animals, Anti-Collision Warning, IP69K Waterproof

Exactly as described. Great little tool for better driving safety! The thermal imaging camera is fast, and the image is clear. It seems like its well built and comes in neat easy packaging. So far it seems like a great lower cost device with higher cost quality. Not yet used it in real world driving, but so far its great! Will update once I get it mounted and some miles under me with it. But as it stands, im more than satisfied! Also, it was a breeze to install, the screen is nice and bright and since it plugs in, no battery needed as long as you have a cigarette lighter to plug into or adapter. I just wish it had a function to where you could darken or brighten the image as needed. But like I said, its still a clean clear and crisp image of good quality and even has an SD card slot if you want to record your drive!

I'll be returning this as soon as I find time to pull it from my car. What a POS. The main reason, IMHO, that anyone would want to buy a system like this would be to have ample warning of hazards ahead. I live in rural Ohio and have totaled 3 cars to deer. This system doses absolutely nothing to identify deer either on the side of the road or even directly in front of the car. I know this because a deer jumped in front of me, not even 30 feet away, and this didn't give me a warning. I looked at the display and it did highlight the deer, but WTF? No warning? And why didn't I get a warning BEFORE it jumped out, I was going slow, under 30 mph, and was far enough away that the deer was within the field of view. Additionally, it shouts "Warning, too close!" nearly every time a car approaches from the oncoming lane. This is frigging ridiculous. And, and, and, it doesn't give that warning until the oncoming car is only 30 feet away! Yep, it's useless. I'm on the phone with my wife and she thinks I'm driving drunk, and she knows I don't drink!! Also, all cars appear much further away in the display than they really are. I think this can, in the wrong circumstance, cause a driver to misinterpret something significant and possibly cause a very bad decision. The manufacturer advertises "Dynamic AI Collision Alerts". Again, IMHO, the AI has a mental impairment.

Thought this would be a somewhat of fast install. The metal camera mount was too thick to install on the Miata hood. It was hitting the outside vent area and I couldn’t close the hood. Moved to the License plate holder and found the manufacturer didn’t bother to measure American license plates mounting holes. See pic. The 2nd hole is off by 1/8” to a 1/4”. No way to make this work. The user manual is a useless. Just tells you how to power on/Off and some warnings. You’re left trying to figure out everything else. Updated: 12/28/24 Now installed and working. Camera was tie-wrapped to the front grill and run up via the engine compartment. Image on the screen is very tiny and the lens appears to be a Fisheye lens, so everything is pushed back far from your car making the image even smaller. I’ve notice a tunnel effect as well. A blooming white tunnel with the image clearer in the middle of the tunnel. Good News: It does as advertised showing object close or approaching in red. Cars moving with you are in yellow. People are flagged in a bright red or orange color. Just wished the screen was bigger or I could zoom in on the image. There is an occasional pinging noise like glasses tapping together. Some kind of a warning?, but have no idea what it means. Update 1/1/25 Giving this 1 more star. It does do what’s advertised! I even have gotten several warnings of “To Close” as I pull into the merge lane and cars are going by. The seller has reached out to me for a full refund, so that shows they stand behind their product. The lic. plate camera mount not having the correct hole location is a big screwup. I recommended they drop the holes and use long rectangular slots. This way you can adjust the mount to fit many different plates. Their supplied two side tape and mine couldn’t stick to the rubber on the base of the device. I used a rubber band to hold it to a cellphone rubber holder. Now it won’t fall off the dash. My entry to the passenger compartment for my Miata, where the engine compartment is jammed tight with components, was: 1. Grill to the engine area, 2. A space under and next to the hood to the whippers. 3. The cable then went outside the car for 1/2” near the windshield to the door (in a metal groove between the chaise). 4. Then down between the door and car mounting hinge, between the soft foam rubber that separates the inside & outside of the car. I’d love to see this with a bigger screen! Or at least a way to plug in a bigger screen. Updated 1/30/25: I’m really enjoy using this everyday. It’s warned me several times that I’m getting too close to objects. Increased 1 more star. It does actually give sounds that I have no idea what they mean. High pitch clacking “Ting ting” like two glasses being tapped together. No chance yet to see it work in the rain or fog. Update 2/4/25: Got a chance to see it perform in the rain during the day. It does work, but not with the same details. The tunnel vision I see in the sunlight is more pronounced. You’re lookin down a white tunnel. Image has a more blurry look. But good news. You can still get cars and people to stand out with bright colors. If the rain is intense this identification drops off. I’m betting at night these objects will be better identified. Update: 2/8/25 I got a confirmation from the seller, that the “Ting-Ting” noise is alerting you to pedestrians or animals. But I see neither when I hear this alert. There is no noise when people go in front or on the sides of this camera. I haven't had an animal to test. I’m betting the AI software has a problem. I’d recommend this for a first time low cost infrared car camera! This is the way to go even though it can be painful install. You do see the cars and people even in rain. Updated 11/30/25 Moved this to my C8 2022 Corvette. Mounting on the grill for this car is not as easy as the Miata. Instead I mounted to the front hood by the windshield. I used double side tape with a camera mount for another camera. I ran the cable under the hood to along the windshield edge and under the door foam insulation to the inside of the car. Works great. Updated 1/25/26 Use this everyday with no problems! Several times I’ve seen people glowing on the screen but can’t see them with my eyes! Since they’re across the street and about to use the cross traffic crosswalk they appear yellow against the black/gray background. I can make out their head, arms legs with this camera. But my eyes see nothing until they walk into the street and the street lights eliminates their body. The fact I can see this make it worth every penny and the pain of getting to this point! With the camera on top of the Corvette hood, I now get constant warnings. LOL. On the Miata front grill I got almost no warnings. I’ve now had to tip the camera down a bit to use the hoods thermal reflection to act as a kind of thermal filter so it’s not too sensitive. I’ve gotten warnings vehicle ahead has movement, pedestrians and the normal “too close”.

Many newer car models have similar cameras on them. Now, you can have similar functionality for a reasonable price. This can be a life saver in situations where animals (especially deers) would jump in front of you. Highly recommended! Will upload pics soon.

I guess good FLIR is still a multi-thousand dollar expenditure. I had a sharp picture for about a week. But now its snowy. You can barely make anything out. And yes, the "too close" warning is on everything. I bought a switch to ensure the unit was off when I drove into the rising or setting sun. Not sure, but maybe there needs to be an actual cover during the day.

So, if you've read any of my reviews you know i like gadgets. Going down a trail at night is hazardous enough. I thought this would be perfect for that, as well as driving in the rain at night. This product solves that problem. I can say it works extremely well. Set up is a breeze, routing the cords is the biggest part of the install. The rest is plug and play. The thermal camera has two options for your mounting needs. I chose the hood mount option. This is definitely going to come in clutch, during bad weather and night time driving. It's absolutely worth the price.

The image quality was not the best it looked like the camera itself was built to withstand being outside of the vehicle the screen was way too tiny to see even though you're sitting like two feet away from it it's still way too tiny to see otherwise it worked as it was supposed to

While it's a very nice thermal camera, I found the AI features lacking. The display is also too bright for night time use. I was able to cover it with a thin piece of opaque plastic which did help. The AI hazard identification would alert and tell me I was too close for oncoming cars that were staying in their lane and were not about to hit me. It did not alert for deer on the edge of the road nor for a deer that was in my lane that I had to brake hard to avoid. I did call TOPDON and spoke to a representative. I was told that the NV001 is no longer made or supported and that he didn't have any documentation with which to help me other than a few specs. The camera is supposed to recognize deer out to 54m and objects out to 108m. He did not have any information on how to adjust the display brightness. He tried to help me as much as he could, and I would rate TOPDON staff as very helpful. He just didn't have a way to help me for an unsupported camera. The temperature sensitivity is good enough that you can see a lot of detail for the terrain around you, even patches of ice on the road showed up as a different shade of black and white. The difference in brightness between the display and a dark rural area is too much for my eyes to shift between the two quickly. It probably takes me about 5-10 seconds to adjust, and at highway speeds it's too much. I was told that it's linux based so perhaps you can get some of the source and possibly modify or change out the AI system. On rural two lane US roads it would almost always tell me the oncoming traffic was too close, and it never warned me about any of the deer.