Night Vision Assist

This is a costly option rarely chosen by Porsche owners when specifying their cars.  It's often seen as a gimmick or a "toy" meant for occasional use and then forgotten.

As with any option, its usefulness does totally depend on how one uses their car.

It isn't always clear from Porsche's documentation on Night Vision Assist that it is always working in the background once dusk has fallen and the visible range of your eyesight has reduced. 

He is a good example of it activating on our drive towards Östersund in Sweden as captured by our Porsche Dashcam.

Here is the sequence of events:

1. As dusk falls and light snow begins to fall, we're driving at the current speed limit of 90 km/h.  We're fully alert and aware of the challenging driving conditions.
2. Suddenly – and before anything was in visible range – the car starts to apply full emergency braking.
3. The vision assist display activates in our dashboard showing red squares around animals on the road ahead. They are still not very visible to the naked eye.
4. The hazard blinkers are automatically activated to warn traffic behind us. Additionally, our brake lights would be rapidly flashing.
5. The car comes to a complete stop just as we reach a herd of reindeer out on the road.

All of that happened completely autonomously with no initial intervention from the driver. As we identified what was happening, of course, we instinctively stepped on the brake to assist with stopping.

The real advantage is the early activation of the manoeuvre.  The infrared camera detects the animals' heat signature ahead of visible range. 

It uses machine learning to determine if they are moving into the path of our vehicle. It doesn't trigger if it detects the heat signature of animals (or people) harmlessly at the side of the road that are moving away from our route.

Note: this dashcam video has no audio.