Does anyone have it? Do you find it useful? My biggest complaint is that it is on the i-Drive screen and not directly in front of you. What I find even funnier is that if a customer was to order HUD, night vision would STILL not be placed in the HUD. BMW said that it would "distract" the
driver. MB has the best night vision I have seen to date, but you can't compare a Benz to a BMW, infact the only two things they have in common is that they are both made in Germany and they both begin with the letter B!

 

I don't have it, but I had a 750i with night vision for a week. I must say it's useless, it would be the last thing I would spend my money on.

 

I have it on my car. Traveling on a major highway with it running really won't help that much. I like it for driving through the country or in towns where the lighting is not that good. The system has helped a couple of times when a person was standing between vehicles and walked out in front of me. I saw their feet as white blobs before they walked into the street. I have noticed it has a bit of trouble keeping up with speed. It will freeze and then jump forward to the current shot.

 

I have it and it was the one option that I really wavered on regarding whether to get it or not. I wound up getting it because my wife has some vision issues and I thought this might be helpful for her while driving at night.

It helped me once on a country road at night and it picked up an animal in the road that I may not have seen without it. I don't know that I would have hit it, but I did see it on the Night Vision screen.

Now that I have it and have used it, I'm not sure it is worth the money unless you travel frequently on dark, relatively untraveled roads. My wife hasn't driven my car yet so the jury is still out on that one.

It is a relatively expensive option. In hindsight, I probably would have gotten the Nasca leather with the ventilated seats for about the same cost.

For BMW to say that it would be distracting to put it on the HUD doesn't make sense. I think that is exactly where it should be so you don't have to take your eyes off the road to see if it is picking up anything. My guess is that it was a technical issue to display the IR Night Vision image on the HUD.

 

Showing the "night vision" would ruin your own night vision. The HUD is a monochromatic display using a color that has minimal impact on your nightvision. It could not show the detail of the night vision camera without a complete change in technology. I think seeing even a black and white image reflected on your windshield would be blinding.

 

Thanks Guys! I am ordering a 550i under the BMW Employee Program in February. It only adds about 10 bucks to the cost of the lease and I was wondering if it is actually worth it or not.

 

I would spend that 10 bucks for something else, like a M-aerodynamic body kit.

 

I thought long and hard before speccing night vision, but after six months I wouldn't be without it.

On well lit major roads its of no use at all, but on country roads its superb.

I live in a small village, the roads in and out are unlit and have no pavements - so people have to walk in the road.

Its difficult to spot pedestrians at night anyway, especially when some are so idiotic that they wear dark clothing. When you have a car coming towards you, then you cannot see anyone walking on your side of the road until you are quite close.

With Night Vision, pedestrians stand out very very clearly 100-200 yards away; I've found that I soon got into the habit of just glancing at the night vision screen , its not an issue that its on the IDrive screen.

What did surprise me was how superior the performance of the BMW system is to the Merc system - it seems far more sensitive to body heat, making people ( and animals ) really stand out, whereas the Merc system ( I has an S on loan for a week ) seems to merge things far more, making you need to examine the screen for far longer to work out what you...apparently its something to do with BMW using far infrared, MERC using near infrared.....whatever that means.

 

Night Vision has saved me one speeding ticket (saw the cop 100 yards ahead on the side of the road) and prevented me from running over my neighbor's cat (maybe good, maybe bad... I hate that cat).

I don't use it very often, but it comes in great on those dark, foggy, rainy days (even in the city where idiots love to jump in front of your car) and when we go skiing (I can see the deer on the side of the road much more clearly). It is phenomenal in inclement weather.

For $10/month... worth every penny just for the coolness factor alone IMHO.

 

having had it since sep i would be right at the bottom of my wish list. i help on dark 2 lane roads, marginal in fog and rain. when i drive in to my work area in the dark it does help me spot the pedistrians. would i get it again is a hard question to answer.

what you can do to recover the cost is use it for heat loss surveys. aim it at your house in the dark and back about 200 ft. you can see where your home heat going. charge you neighbors $25 for two or three views.