Does using spotlight at night or leaving night vision use more battery ?

[Tonered12]

One of my cameras is in a dark spot and I saw that other people said the night vision uses more battery . If I turn off night vision and do the spotlight instead am I saving battery ? It drains more than my other camera when I use the spotlight at night . Thanks! 

[jguerdat · Accepted solution]

I would imagine that the spotlight does use more energy than the IR night vision LEDs but generally I suspect it would be a wash unless you have a ton of nighttime recordings. Personally, I would use the spotlight in most cases although use of the IR LEDs could be more useful to avoid having the camera being noticed (there is still a dull red visible from the LEDs so it's not exactly unnoticeable).

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

Personally, I would use the spotlight in most cases 

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It depends in part on the field of view.  I have some located where the spotlight doesn't illuminate the FoV very well.  Nightvision works a bit better for them.

The spotlight can also be annoying (either to you or neighbors).

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@jguerdat wrote:

I would imagine that the spotlight does use more energy than the IR night vision LEDs).

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Interesting question. 

I'm seeing 100 lumen bulbs spec'd at about 0.5 watt, and IR LEDs around 150 mW.  If Arlo components have similar specs, then the two IR LEDs would use 300 mW, compared with 500 mW for the spotlight.