Sionyx Nightwave vs Black Oak Low Light Cameras

I snagged this from another boating forum. Admin's, is it permissible to copy a link to another forum site, where there was some technical discussion about the setup by the creator of the comparison, that might be useful to readers here?

Readers on the other site still wonder whether either or both can hold up to weather and water intrusion. In the end there is more to the story than picture quality, though things certainly begin there.

I see there are no reactions to this topic. Have been researching FLIR, Sionyx etc for the last week. Would like to have a Raymarine FLIR, but the prices are out of this world, so started looking at Sionyx. Still expensive, but quality seems to be good enough.

Is anyone using Sionyx already and have some input on good and bad parts about this camera ?

Both of those are video captures from a stream that was also displayed on an MFD, right? As opposed to hand held devices?

FWT said:

I snagged this from another boating forum. Admin's, is it permissible to copy a link to another forum site, where there was some technical discussion about the setup by the creator of the comparison, that might be useful to readers here? ...

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Thanks for that, very interesting.

We have a bottom-of-the-line FLIR to try to avoid floats but it takes a lot of concentration to pick them out.



-Sven

Trawler_traveler said:

Thanks for that, very interesting.

We have a bottom-of-the-line FLIR to try to avoid floats but it takes a lot of concentration to pick them out.



-Sven

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Thanks

I ended up getting the handheld version, which can be mounted and the image displayed in a tablet. But I have yet to do anything with it other than stand in the backyard, which because of the ample ambient light isn't much of a test.

Time will tell with a better test.

In the mean time I have seen a lot of videos on Sionyx on Youtube and I do understand the principle, amplification of ambient light. Am just curious if it will have enough ambient light when I am out at sea, no light pollution from cities etc, just the moon or stars.......will I see anything or nothing. Military grade will let me see everything, but will this one do the same ?
I do have the Raymarine AR 200 and Cam300 onboard, but that is just augmented reality, it won't show me fishing pods or an anchorage when I come in at night.
A flir would do that, but 7000 or 10000 USD is a bit over the top for me.

As I understand it:

Flir and similar work by detection of temperature differences. Things like crab pot floats will retain the heat difference in the early evening hours but after midnight will have equalized with the water temp. So coming into port after sundown quite useful, but in the hours before dawn much less so. In fog you are blind.

But probably the best for man overboard detection.

For the low light technology, moonless / cloudy nights are obviously problematic. However that can be mitigated with infrared flashlights to light up the path ahead in light spectrums not visible to the eye.

Illuminator Kit

Flir does make a camera that combines low light and infrared into a single camera. $22,500 if you are up for it.

M364C | Teledyne FLIR

I dont have either of theses cameras. I have a Nite trac camera.
https://www.gonitetrack.com/

I have had it for several years. I came up from Florida with this boat 2 years ago. We drove 24/7 100% outside . 4 days 4 nights. The camera was invaluable for the night diving. If the moon or stars are out worked great. In a pitch black night not so much. In that senecio I ran with the flood on and could see much farther on the cam than with the naked eye.

The range on these things is fantastic. On a black see it finds the lights on the ships before you can see them by eye .

This camera also has a large IR blaster. This makes black nights pop better like going into a dark harbor.

I can only imagine the newer stuff is better.

I have never understood the appeal of the devices discussed above. We own a monocular low light viewer which works well even on very dark nights, but have used it very rarely, maybe half a dozen times. That's in around 40,000 miles, much of it offshore and maybe a third at night.


Our Furuno radars on Fintry and Morning Light, when properly adjusted, will pick up lobster pots and other small objects and certainly government marks and other boats -- it just requires practice to set them up and interpret the results. On entering harbor, I just overlay the radar on the chart and can see everything.



On the new (sail) boat, I've budgeted for a 24" Furuno Doppler radar, but no FLIR. If I were getting a trawler again, it would be a 6 foot Furuno radar.


Jim

Circumnavigator said:

I have never understood the appeal of the devices discussed above. We own a monocular low light viewer which works well even on very dark nights, but have used it very rarely, maybe half a dozen times. That's in around 40,000 miles, much of it offshore and maybe a third at night.


Our Furuno radars on Fintry and Morning Light, when properly adjusted, will pick up lobster pots and other small objects and certainly government marks and other boats -- it just requires practice to set them up and interpret the results. On entering harbor, I just overlay the radar on the chart and can see everything.



On the new (sail) boat, I've budgeted for a 24" Furuno Doppler radar, but no FLIR. If I were getting a trawler again, it would be a 6 foot Furuno radar.


Jim

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If only the fishing pods were anything more than 5 liter milk cannisters I would agree with you. Unfortunately they dump them absolutely everywhere, there is no logic and there are no rules. I have had to go hard port or hard stbd so many times that I know I don't want to risk that at night, not in the Aegean sea.
And since we come into anchorages at night I don't mind having a bit better view. I do have a Led bar onboard, but other than lighting the bow of the boat I cannot say it is very helpful.

Circumnavigator said:

I have never understood the appeal of the devices discussed above. We own a monocular low light viewer which works well even on very dark nights, but have used it very rarely, maybe half a dozen times. That's in around 40,000 miles, much of it offshore and maybe a third at night.


Our Furuno radars on Fintry and Morning Light, when properly adjusted, will pick up lobster pots and other small objects and certainly government marks and other boats -- it just requires practice to set them up and interpret the results. On entering harbor, I just overlay the radar on the chart and can see everything.



On the new (sail) boat, I've budgeted for a 24" Furuno Doppler radar, but no FLIR. If I were getting a trawler again, it would be a 6 foot Furuno radar.


Jim

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I do agree with you the radar when properly set up and interpreted correctly is a powerful tool. Now take that low light viewer you have and have it on your screen full time at night. You can see logs in the water, small floats like back bay crab pots, ripples an disturbances in the water, a Wake from a container ship and items very close to the boat . All of these do not show up on you radar. Pull into a crowed mooring at night and you will be thankful you have it.

Its one more tool to boating safely and confidently. We have the technology out there , why not use it. If you don't boat at night or rarely its not necessary. If you do, I feel its a must. But I'm weird. I boat at night every weekend in the summer. And today compared to the Flir. While it has it/s place. The starligth camera technology blows the Flir out of the water in price.
The camera will definitely reduce your stress driving at night. Who knows it may help you venture into the dark even more.

I had bought the highest-end handheld FLIR (Oceanscout 640) and honestly found it to be useless, it wasn't practical to use on a boat and the image quality was not good enough for me. So we didn't even use once, and ended up selling on eBay last week.

Maybe the boat mounted ones are better or more practical? Debating whether to get a Sionyx for the new cat, maybe better when combined with an MFD.

Has anyone tried night vision camera by BoatEye360? Looks like they are a new company and cheapest comparing to sioynx or flir.

I have just posted (on Instagram) a comparison between Raymarine Cam300 and the Sionyx night camera. Must say that it is a world of difference. On the Raymarine I can basically see nothing at all. The Sionyx however was as clear as it could be.
Filmed it in the wide open sea, about 30 nm from any land, cloudy night, quarter moon, but the Sionyx performed flawless. It was pitch black when I would look just straight ahead and I could see absolutely everything when I was looking on the screen of the Sionyx.
One thing I did change however. Sionyx talks about a fixed mounting, but I decided to put it on a tri pod and thus I can point the camera in any direction I want. Connecting it to my old Simrad NSS12 was not a big success, to grainy. But connecting it to my Samsung Tablet worked perfect.
Tonight we crossed the channel of Corinth around 10 PM and certain parts were quite dark, but the Sionyx brought it back to almost daylight. Will be posting those pictures and video shortly. After the channel we had to pull into an completely unknown port due to some technical issues. Without the Sionyx it wiould have been possible, but the Sionyx made my life so much better. Had to evade some shallows, rocks and dry patches, worked like a charm on the tablet.

I have the hand held SiOnyx, and it has performed well. I use it with an android and an apple tablet. I also have an infrared flashlight which helps in moonless nights. With some ambient light it does very well. When it is really dark, the IR flashlight helps, but the range does go down some. As with all technology it has a learning curve.

I ended up purchasing Boateye360. I must say 1080p from HDMI is working great. I can clearly see everything under half moon. For the price you can't go wrong. I will try to upload a video after my next fishing trip.

johncote3333 said:

I ended up purchasing Boateye360. I must say 1080p from HDMI is working great. I can clearly see everything under half moon. For the price you can't go wrong. I will try to upload a video after my next fishing trip.

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John, Thanks for posting this. That looks like a nice piece of hardware. Do you have it physically connected to a chart plotter? Does it operate over WiFi in addition to physical cable? Can you see the image on an IPad/IPhone?

Edit: I see in the literature that it currently works with Android devices, and they are working on compatibility with Apple devices.

FWT said:

Thanks

I ended up getting the handheld version, which can be mounted and the image displayed in a tablet. But I have yet to do anything with it other than stand in the backyard, which because of the ample ambient light isn't much of a test.

Time will tell with a better test.

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The one issue I ran into was that the IPad needs to be set to “always on” within the SiOnyx application. Otherwise, it may shut off at an inopportune moment.

johncote3333 said:

I ended up purchasing Boateye360. I must say 1080p from HDMI is working great. I can clearly see everything under half moon. For the price you can't go wrong. I will try to upload a video after my next fishing trip.

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What do you use to display that HDMI feed?

Helmsman said:

The one issue I ran into was that the IPad needs to be set to “always on” within the SiOnyx application. Otherwise, it may shut off at an inopportune moment.

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I normally have the Sionyx switched off, only at night I switch it on and then I also start the app on the tablet. It will connect via bluetooth and then I will keep the tablet plugged in on the charger, so it won't switch itself off.
Basically the set up I make then is to have one extra screen in front of me, which is then solely dedicated to the Sionyx.

Mambo42 said:

I have just posted (on Instagram) a comparison between Raymarine Cam300 and the Sionyx night camera. Must say that it is a world of difference. On the Raymarine I can basically see nothing at all. The Sionyx however was as clear as it could be.
Filmed it in the wide open sea, about 30 nm from any land, cloudy night, quarter moon, but the Sionyx performed flawless. It was pitch black when I would look just straight ahead and I could see absolutely everything when I was looking on the screen of the Sionyx.
One thing I did change however. Sionyx talks about a fixed mounting, but I decided to put it on a tri pod and thus I can point the camera in any direction I want. Connecting it to my old Simrad NSS12 was not a big success, to grainy. But connecting it to my Samsung Tablet worked perfect.
Tonight we crossed the channel of Corinth around 10 PM and certain parts were quite dark, but the Sionyx brought it back to almost daylight. Will be posting those pictures and video shortly. After the channel we had to pull into an completely unknown port due to some technical issues. Without the Sionyx it wiould have been possible, but the Sionyx made my life so much better. Had to evade some shallows, rocks and dry patches, worked like a charm on the tablet.

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Do you have a link to that post ? It would definitely be interesting to see.

Thx.

Trawler_traveler said:

Do you have a link to that post ? It would definitely be interesting to see.

Thx.

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If you go to MV Endless Summer on Instagram: "Another night approach into a non lighted Anchorage. Sionyx nightwave to the rescue. Total game changer." you will see a picture I took 2 nights ago when we came into an anchorage which is completely dark, there are no houses or any lights in the neighborhood. I took a picture of the Raymarine plotter and the image on the Sionyx. The back ground is pitch black, cannot see anything at all. The Sionyx however turned it almost into daylight and made it very easy to bring the boat into the anchorage.
This anchorage is bit particular since it requires you to enter the 'bay' almost until the end, past the last marker of the fishing buoys, make a 90 degree turn, proceed around the mussels fishing field, make another 90 degree turn and you will have an area of around 100 yards by 200 yards where you can anchor. Since there are no lights anywhere you cannot see the shoreline without visual aids. You could try to solely rely on GPS and trackplotter, but with all the rocks that are around and not being able to see all the fishing pods and fishing nets, it would become unsafe. With the Sionyx it was basically a breeze, it was like a daylight approach, but you have to trust steering based on info that you get off a tablet screen.

Here is another one where I compare the image of our Raymarine Cam300 with the Sionyx, world of difference. MV Endless Summer on Instagram: "Going through the night on our Aegean sea crossing. Our view from the fly bridge is absolutely nothing. It is a moonless night, cloud cover and so a perfect way to test our night vision cameras. First view is our Raymarine Cam 300 with AR,200. Not really a great image, very grainy, but better than nothing. The second night vision is our Sionyx night vision camera and that image is much better. We set it up on a tripod so we can basically point the camera in any direction. Great addition for boat safety, can highly recommend it. . . . . . . . .#sionyx #raymarine #nighttravel #yachtlife #trawlerlife #trawlerlifestyle #defever #defeveryachts #defever49 #trawler #aegeansea #greece #nightvision #cmcmarine"

And this one is while going through the channel of Corinth. It is a very narrow channel and although there are some lights, the image of Sionyx made it a lot easier. MV Endless Summer on Instagram: "Channel of Corinth at night. SIONYXnightwave is our night vision pair of eyes. Worth every penny!!! . . . . . . . . #channelofcorinth #korinthos #corinth #corinthians #greece #defever #defever49 #trawlerlife #trawleryacht #yachting #yachtlife #traveling #enyoinglife #sionyxnightwave #nightvisioncamera #navigationaids #navigationequipment"