Veil G5 Review 2016
One of the biggest problems consumers face today is being able to decipher sales rhetoric and determining if a product is going to live up to the claims of the manufacturer before making a purchase. Today, we will decipher Veil G5’s claims listed below so that the consumer is fully educated when making a decision to make a purchase or not. According the the manufacturer, G5:
Protects you from tickets by reducing the effectiveness of police laser, giving you precious additional reaction time.Protects your privacy from IR photo enforcement and automated license plate recognition (ALPR/ANPR) systems.
Protects your headlights from long-term UV damage and oxidation, keeping them looking like new.
-StealthVeil.com
Claim #1: “[Veil G5] Protects you from tickets by reducing the effectiveness of police laser, giving you precious additional reaction time”.
That’s a bold claim, so let’s look at the facts. Lidar guns have the ability to acquire speeds at distances of up to 6000+ ft. However, most speed enforcement with lidar guns occur between 200 ft and 1000 ft using the license plate as the principle target on the vehicle due to it’s high reflectivity. At distances greater than 1000 ft, it is difficult to target only the plate as most lidar guns have a beam width of about 3ft at this distance.
While it’s possible to clock a target that is 2000 to 3000 feet away, the speed reading is of dubious accuracy and highly prone to error. On a clear day with no other traffic in sight a good laser operator can obtain reasonably accurate readings out to 1200, perhaps 1500 feet. However, if there are other vehicles present those distances should be sliced in half.
At distances in excess of 700-800 feet, the laser beam is easily large enough to not only be reflecting off of different parts of the target vehicle (which produce simultaneously different distances from the lidar gun), but also off of other vehicles. The obvious issue with this is that it’s easily possible for a lidar gun to obtain a speed reading from a vehicle other than the intended target. At distances in excess of 800 feet, the laser operator has no way of knowing what vehicle surfaces or entire vehicles are responsible for the lidar speed readings, especially if other vehicles fall within the scope of the laser beam.
– See more at: What Everyone Should Know About Laser Guns
Knowing these facts, let’s take a look at the results of Veil G5 against a vehicle with a modest amount applied (more than the manufacturer recommends) on the headlights of the vehicle:
The results do show an average of a 250ft reduction. This equates to about 2.5 seconds @ 70 mph, provided you are at a distance greater than 1000 ft. These results show that at the real world distances of under 1000 ft, Veil G5 is ineffective and as if you had not applied it to your vehicle. It’s ineffectiveness under 1000 ft is made even more obvious against new lidar guns like the Stalker XLR, TruSpeed SXb, and any of the DragonEye guns. The state of New Jersey requires all lidar speed measurements to be within 1000 ft to be enforceable and other states have followed suit. Even the Veil Guy himself, after making a claim on his own website that lidar ticket distances are commonly between 2000-4000 ft, received a speeding ticket at 420 ft. With or without Veil (he doesn’t specify in his video), he would not have been able to slow down in time to prevent a citation.
Claim #2: “[Veil G5] Protects your privacy from IR photo enforcement and automated license plate recognition (ALPR/ANPR) systems”
This is a slippery slope because in many states, even a license plate cover is considered illegal. The application of Veil G5 will undoubtedly lead most to remove it after noticing how dark it makes their license plates. While G5 does apply better than G4, it is obvious there is something on the license plate as seen in the Video below from VortexRadar:
In our tests with our own ALPR camera, we were able to read the plate 100% of the time with moderate coats of Veil G5. If you apply enough G5 so that it does live up to the claims of being able to protect your privacy from ALPR/ANPR, you take on the risk of being pulled over for having an illegal substance on your license plate. Since it takes so much G5 to be effective, even reading the plate with the naked eye can prove to be a daunting task due to your whole license plate turning black in color. The benefits of possible ALPR/ANPR protection does NOT outweigh the daily risks of receiving a citation due to an illegible license plate.
Claim #3: “[Veil G5] Protects your headlights from long-term UV damage and oxidation, keeping them looking like new”
While we have no way to fully test this claim, we believe this may in fact be accurate as the formula was changed to a water based solution prior to the release of G5 due to complaints of the original G4 damaging headlights by cracking them after prolonged UV exposure. We were not willing to risk the headlights of the test vehicle to do an adequate test due to the amount of G5 necessary to make it effective. This amount would also not be visually appealing. A very light coat does add a nice tint which is visually pleasing on the headlights, but anywhere else including the license plate this would be bordering on illegal as it took way too much Veil G5 on the headlights to even get the 250 ft average reduction. We had the opportunity to test Veil G5 with the Veil Guy himself in Arizona at Radar Roy’s, “Shootout in the Desert”. I can assure you, even the manufacturer doesn’t follow his own instructions. He put so much Veil G5 on that rented Porsche that I wish someone had recorded him doing it so we would all know EXACTLY how many cans he put on that car. Even during that test, we had similar results with only the PL4 having reasonable entry into enforceable distances. However, as we later discovered, that gun had an optic issue that resulted in inaccurate readings. In addition, when Veil Guy determined his G5 was not doing well, he ceased making runs against the remaining lidar guns, thus making it nearly impossible to show any definitive results. Here are the limited results from Arizona:
Does Veil G5 Work?
RALETC and other community members and testing groups have tested this product extensively and all the results mirror each other. Some reduction at ranges above 1000 ft were obtained, however at ranges less than 1000 ft, Veil G5 proved to be completely ineffective. So, does Veil G5 work? No, not at enforceable real world distances and not with most newer model guns that easily produce speed measurements even at distances greater than 1000 ft. A word of caution. The manufacturer of this product consistently pushes what he calls a, “defense in depth strategy”, in which he advocates using Veil G5 in conjunction with other products such as laser jammers and license plate covers. Let’s assume for a minute that this product is able to reduce speed measurement distances at enforceable real world distances, and that using Veil G5 with a laser jammer would effectively give you more time to slow down at these distances. The one thing they do not tell you is that it also adds increased scrutiny to your vehicle in the event the officer believes something is unusual. In our tests, the TruSpeed SXb™ produced speed measurements of ZERO miles per hour when above 1000 ft and Veil G5 applied. If I were running a laser jammer in combination with Veil G5 this would be of great concern if the officer became suspicious and decided to pull me over. He would never believe that I wasn’t jamming him too! In addition, the appearance of the product on any portion of your vehicle could lead you to a CITATION by itself! Buyer beware! This product could put you at great risk should you be pulled over for a roadside disco. It is our belief that if you are running Veil G5 in conjunction with a laser jammer, like Veil Guy suggests, you are bringing unnecessary attention to your vehicle. It is also our belief, that if you are running a laser jammer, there is no need for Veil G5, especially since it’s been proven to be ineffective.