Security camera night vision: colour needs visible light

You are stood at the gate with the phone open, trying to judge whether a face would still be a face after dark. The gallery is in colour and the table says Night Color. On the six ABUS listings we read on amazon.co.uk, that cell is on every table, including a 480p bullet. It names neither a colour recording nor a distance you can pace, and this page did not film a yard.

Shelf prices below are the GBP figures in those saved listings on 15 October 2026. Products Compared editorial team read the listings, the Information Commissioner's Office home CCTV guide, and Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 9. There is no lab photograph. A qualifying purchase through our comparison links can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

In short

Night Color is on all six tables, including the 480p CASA30500. Five name infrared. The older lamp names LED. No night test was done for this page.

Security camera night vision on these six tables

Night Color sits on the indoor cube, the outdoor 4K camera, both lamp-cameras, the monitor set and the older bullet. The resolutions beside that phrase already disagree.

PPIC31020, ASIN B09LYJBZCD, is £96.47: 1080p, 180 degrees, 15 frames a second, indoor and not water resistant. A wet porch is the wrong wall. A flap covers the lens. Power is a 5 volt plug at 1.6 watts.

PPIC54520B, ASIN B0DJRGY6HC, is £148.66 and outdoor 4K. The bullets mention night vision, and there is no white lamp and no remote pan or tilt. The table prints Night Color and no metre figure beside the 4K line. The star line is 3.4 from 18 ratings.

EasyLook PPDF17000, ASIN B0B4SYR61Y, is £350.99, a camera and a 7-inch monitor. The resolution cell prints 3.0. Infrared is listed and there is no white lamp. The bullets say no internet and no WLAN, while the technical table says Wi-Fi. Reviews describe a private link to the monitor.

CASA30500, ASIN B009XBMPR8, is £221.23, with 480p, a 60 degree angle, infrared only, and no lumen figure. The raw title is garbled, and the origin cell says United Kingdom, where the other five say China. PPIC46520, ASIN B0C6626ZL7, is £239.82, with a white lamp up to 1,000 lumens, infrared also listed, and no pixel count. A special-features line says HD. Night Color is on both rows.

The ABUS security camera comparison keeps those rows together, so the resolution and the lamp stay next to the shared cell.

Infrared and a white lamp do different jobs

Infrared is the light source on five tables. You barely see it, and the frame is typically grey. Colour needs visible light. An infrared security camera shows that someone is there. The colour of a coat does not.

Only two listings are sold as lamps. PPIC36520, ASIN B07H7L825N, at £220.03, names LED, up to 950 lumens, 1080p, 120 degrees and IP55. PPIC46520 claims up to 1,000 lumens, a 10 metre lighting range and app dimming, and it also lists infrared. The night-vision cell is a separate 10 metre figure. The table does not say whether 11pm runs the white lamp, the infrared, or both.

A white lamp can light a bedroom across a boundary. If the picture or the microphone reaches someone else's property, a pavement or a communal path, the ICO home CCTV guidance says data protection rules apply. That page was under review on 15 October 2026 after the Data (Use and Access) Act. The PPIC46520 is 230 volts and 17 watts, so replacing an outdoor light is mains work. Approved Document P is England's document. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own rules. The older lamp states 6 watts, no voltage, and a cell that says hand-operated. An LED floodlight camera at night was not switched on.

What the reviews actually said

On the PPIC31020, reviews describe the camera infrared stuck on in sunshine, so the daytime picture stays grey. Some call the night vision useless. Others praise it. The text is not labelled United Kingdom. A privacy flap across the lens is a separate cause, and the bullets say it also switches off the microphone and the Wi-Fi link. No reset was tried. That file does not licence a verdict on the other five. EasyLook is 4.4 from 183 ratings. The PPIC31020 is 4.0 from 168. CASA30500 has no Customer Reviews line. Stars do not count night frames.

Night vision range in metres

On the CASA30500 the bullets say 8 metres and the night-vision cell says 30 metres. The file never says which figure is a person, which is the diodes, or which was copied. The same table says 480p night vision and 60 degrees, so a gate beside the drive can sit outside the cone. The price is £221.23, higher than the 4K camera at £148.66.

The PPIC46520 night-vision cell says 10 metres. The lamp line says up to 1,000 lumens and a 10 metre lighting range. Grey infrared and white light are different results, and the file shows neither. The indoor cube, the 4K camera, the older lamp and the EasyLook set print no night-vision metre figure. Recognition usually fails sooner than detection. That is a rule of thumb.

What to check on the listing

Read the night-vision name, the light source, every distance, the resolution and the viewing angle. When Night Color appears, look for infrared or LED, and keep a lumen figure apart from the infrared line. When 8 metres and 30 metres share a file, leave the longer number unused until the seller explains it. Treat 480p, a bare 3.0 and the word HD as unfinished detail. A 180 degree indoor cube is a room camera.

A shape on a path asks less than a face you would describe to the police. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 9, ties satisfactory quality to the description and the price. Night Color is a thin part of that description. Nothing was mounted, and no night frame was shot.

This article adds no night ranking. If the brand is open, use the outdoor security camera comparison and the wider security camera comparison, and read their night cells the same way.