There is just no way to keep up and know all the things that you could do with a cellphone nowadays. There is simply too much. Our phones have become an extension of ourselves. They are a tool that is so powerful that we depend on it for every-day activities. In this landscape, it can be easy to get lost in the thousands of apps that are available. A quick search in the app store will show you results for any query, this is great to find what you are looking for with ease.

We will discuss today a few details about Night Vision Cameras. We will define them and see if they are available for our Android phones. Let’s see what we can learn about this.
Night Vision Camera For Android Phone

Android

We are focusing on Android today, we will not cover other Operating Systems in our search for the perfect night vision camera. Most of the information should still be relevant to any iPhone user, but we will focus on Android for today’s discussion. In case you are clueless about this let us clarify:

Android is the operating system developed by Google to power millions of phones all over the world. It is the main alternative to Apple’s iOS. Android is based on Linux architecture and provides the foundation for all the apps you install on your phone.

If you are an Android user you will have to use Google’s PlayStore to search for and install applications. You will find there paid and free apps, as well as reviews for all of them. This is usually helpful when deciding on whether or not to install an app.

Night Vision

What exactly is night-vision? Let’s find out to see if it is something that we can actually achieve on our phones.

Night-vision is a low-light mode on a given camera. It takes images under very poor lighting conditions such as a dark room or at night. Usually whenever there is very little light your camera will not work. This happens because any camera depends on ambient light to understand the world that it sees. Without enough light, the camera just won’t work. This is the same thing that happens with our eyes, except our eyes have a much better range.

Our eyes can see much better in the dark than most cameras. That is why a night-vision camera is something that many people are looking for.

Origins

Night-vision was first developed and used by the army. There used to be a time when fighting in the dark was simply not an option. This was the case throughout history. Of course, you can imagine that no army will go into the battlefield without being able to see what is going on. Too much potential for friendly fire and unwanted results on either side. This changed completely. Nowadays night-vision is part of every well-equipped army. It makes such a big difference that armies that have it will prefer to operate during the night. It gives an enormous advantage over the enemy if they do not have it themselves.

The colors

The current night vision is unable to show colors in a proper way. This is just too much to ask from any camera. The result of this is images that are mostly black and green or in some cases black and a blueish white. This is a very characteristic effect and most people recognize it when they see it. It is the best way that our technology can handle the lack of ambient light and still show images that can be understood.

Is it possible on a phone’s camera?

This is a very good question to ask. Night vision equipment is very expensive, big and hard to adapt to other hardware. Night vision goggles, for example, are quite big still to this day. So a good question to ask is: Is night vision possible with the hardware inside an Android phone?

Even though technology improves really fast and hardware keeps getting cheaper and smaller the answer is no. You still have a few options to get what you need out of your Android phone, though. Let’s see.

Add-ons

If you need real night vision, to be able to capture images at night or very low light conditions, you will need to add a piece of hardware to your phone.

These attachments can be bought online. There is a good range of prices and you should be careful when buying. Perhaps read a lot of reviews. Also, the cheaper your product, the worst results you will get. This is a delicate piece of hardware that is not cheap to manufacture.

If you make up your mind what you get is the following: An attachment that fits right over your phone’s lens. It is used on the camera that is facing away from you. These attachments are usually somewhat effective in capturing images and video in low light conditions. Just don’t expect miracles.

Software-based

If you do a quick search on Google’s PlayStore you will find a lot of apps that claim to give you night vision. As we discussed, this is not possible through software alone. You can get a marginal improvement, but not much at all. What you usually get when installing one of these is a filter. This filter alters the images that you take. It makes them look green and black or white and black. It is just a cosmetic effect, though.

This could be all you need, perhaps that is what you are looking for. If that is the case you will get images that seem like they were taken in the dark.

Conclusion

Night vision is real, but not on our Android phones without outside attachments. You can get the effect through filters. If you need actual night vision you will need outside hardware to help you.