diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/lucene94/Lucene94HnswVectorsWriter.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/lucene94/Lucene94HnswVectorsWriter.java
index 6e3cf62ba75..c83fc58e1ed 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/lucene94/Lucene94HnswVectorsWriter.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/lucene94/Lucene94HnswVectorsWriter.java
@@ -594,7 +594,8 @@ public final class Lucene94HnswVectorsWriter extends KnnVectorsWriter {
         case BYTE -> new FieldWriter<BytesRef>(fieldInfo, M, beamWidth, infoStream) {
           @Override
           public BytesRef copyValue(BytesRef value) {
-            return new BytesRef(ArrayUtil.copyOfSubArray(value.bytes, value.offset, dim));
+            return new BytesRef(
+                ArrayUtil.copyOfSubArray(value.bytes, value.offset, value.offset + dim));
           }
         };
         case FLOAT32 -> new FieldWriter<float[]>(fieldInfo, M, beamWidth, infoStream) {
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/document/KnnVectorField.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/document/KnnVectorField.java
index 1ddb025592a..2376f1806d3 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/document/KnnVectorField.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/document/KnnVectorField.java
@@ -157,6 +157,13 @@ public class KnnVectorField extends Field {
    */
   public KnnVectorField(String name, float[] vector, FieldType fieldType) {
     super(name, fieldType);
+    if (fieldType.vectorEncoding() != VectorEncoding.FLOAT32) {
+      throw new IllegalArgumentException(
+          "Attempt to create a vector for field "
+              + name
+              + " using float[] but the field encoding is "
+              + fieldType.vectorEncoding());
+    }
     fieldsData = vector;
   }
 
@@ -172,6 +179,13 @@ public class KnnVectorField extends Field {
    */
   public KnnVectorField(String name, BytesRef vector, FieldType fieldType) {
     super(name, fieldType);
+    if (fieldType.vectorEncoding() != VectorEncoding.BYTE) {
+      throw new IllegalArgumentException(
+          "Attempt to create a vector for field "
+              + name
+              + " using BytesRef but the field encoding is "
+              + fieldType.vectorEncoding());
+    }
     fieldsData = vector;
   }
 
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorEncoding.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorEncoding.java
index f527aee061d..8ae6dd40e34 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorEncoding.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorEncoding.java
@@ -21,12 +21,10 @@ package org.apache.lucene.index;
 public enum VectorEncoding {
 
   /**
-   * Encodes vector using 8 bits of precision per sample. Use only with DOT_PRODUCT similarity.
-   * NOTE: this can enable significant storage savings and faster searches, at the cost of some
-   * possible loss of precision. In order to use it, all vectors must be of the same norm, as
-   * measured by the sum of the squares of the scalar values, and those values must be in the range
-   * [-128, 127]. This applies to both document and query vectors. Using nonconforming vectors can
-   * result in errors or poor search results.
+   * Encodes vector using 8 bits of precision per sample. Values provided with higher precision (eg:
+   * queries provided as float) *must* be in the range [-128, 127]. NOTE: this can enable
+   * significant storage savings and faster searches, at the cost of some possible loss of
+   * precision.
    */
   BYTE(1),
 
@@ -34,8 +32,8 @@ public enum VectorEncoding {
   FLOAT32(4);
 
   /**
-   * The number of bytes required to encode a scalar in this format. A vector will require dimension
-   * * byteSize.
+   * The number of bytes required to encode a scalar in this format. A vector will nominally require
+   * dimension * byteSize bytes of storage.
    */
   public final int byteSize;
 
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorSimilarityFunction.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorSimilarityFunction.java
index f21a27c1511..ad793facaeb 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorSimilarityFunction.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/VectorSimilarityFunction.java
@@ -42,9 +42,10 @@ public enum VectorSimilarityFunction {
 
   /**
    * Dot product. NOTE: this similarity is intended as an optimized way to perform cosine
-   * similarity. In order to use it, all vectors must be of unit length, including both document and
-   * query vectors. Using dot product with vectors that are not unit length can result in errors or
-   * poor search results.
+   * similarity. In order to use it, all vectors must be normalized, including both document and
+   * query vectors. Using dot product with vectors that are not normalized can result in errors or
+   * poor search results. Floating point vectors must be normalized to be of unit length, while byte
+   * vectors should simply all have the same norm.
    */
   DOT_PRODUCT {
     @Override
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/VectorUtil.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/VectorUtil.java
index 132de83fca3..5e7c313fd7f 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/VectorUtil.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/VectorUtil.java
@@ -283,6 +283,10 @@ public final class VectorUtil {
   public static BytesRef toBytesRef(float[] vector) {
     BytesRef b = new BytesRef(new byte[vector.length]);
     for (int i = 0; i < vector.length; i++) {
+      if (vector[i] < -128 || vector[i] > 127) {
+        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
+            "Vector value at " + i + " is out of range [-128.127]: " + vector[i]);
+      }
       b.bytes[i] = (byte) vector[i];
     }
     return b;
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/document/TestField.java b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/document/TestField.java
index de57596912d..781f2b613c6 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/document/TestField.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/document/TestField.java
@@ -16,10 +16,16 @@
  */
 package org.apache.lucene.document;
 
+import static org.apache.lucene.search.DocIdSetIterator.NO_MORE_DOCS;
+
 import java.io.StringReader;
 import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.DirectoryReader;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexReader;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexWriter;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.Term;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.VectorSimilarityFunction;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.VectorValues;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.IndexSearcher;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.TermQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.TopDocs;
@@ -506,6 +512,43 @@ public class TestField extends LuceneTestCase {
     dir.close();
   }
 
+  public void testKnnVectorField() throws Exception {
+    try (Directory dir = newDirectory();
+        IndexWriter w = new IndexWriter(dir, newIndexWriterConfig())) {
+      Document doc = new Document();
+      BytesRef br = newBytesRef(new byte[5]);
+      Field field = new KnnVectorField("binary", br, VectorSimilarityFunction.EUCLIDEAN);
+      expectThrows(
+          IllegalArgumentException.class,
+          () -> new KnnVectorField("bogus", new float[] {1}, (FieldType) field.fieldType()));
+      float[] vector = new float[] {1, 2};
+      Field field2 = new KnnVectorField("float", vector);
+      expectThrows(
+          IllegalArgumentException.class,
+          () -> new KnnVectorField("bogus", br, (FieldType) field2.fieldType()));
+      assertEquals(br, field.binaryValue());
+      doc.add(field);
+      doc.add(field2);
+      w.addDocument(doc);
+      try (IndexReader r = DirectoryReader.open(w)) {
+        VectorValues binary = r.leaves().get(0).reader().getVectorValues("binary");
+        assertEquals(1, binary.size());
+        assertNotEquals(NO_MORE_DOCS, binary.nextDoc());
+        assertEquals(br, binary.binaryValue());
+        assertNotNull(binary.vectorValue());
+        assertEquals(NO_MORE_DOCS, binary.nextDoc());
+
+        VectorValues floatValues = r.leaves().get(0).reader().getVectorValues("float");
+        assertEquals(1, floatValues.size());
+        assertNotEquals(NO_MORE_DOCS, floatValues.nextDoc());
+        assertNotNull(floatValues.binaryValue());
+        assertEquals(vector.length, floatValues.vectorValue().length);
+        assertEquals(vector[0], floatValues.vectorValue()[0], 0);
+        assertEquals(NO_MORE_DOCS, floatValues.nextDoc());
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
   private void trySetByteValue(Field f) {
     expectThrows(
         IllegalArgumentException.class,
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/util/TestVectorUtil.java b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/util/TestVectorUtil.java
index d5033e3ee3c..9a1a15db018 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/util/TestVectorUtil.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/util/TestVectorUtil.java
@@ -244,4 +244,16 @@ public class TestVectorUtil extends LuceneTestCase {
     u[1] = -v[0];
     assertEquals(0, VectorUtil.cosine(u, v), DELTA);
   }
+
+  public void testToBytesRef() {
+    assertEquals(
+        new BytesRef(new byte[] {-128, 0, 127}),
+        VectorUtil.toBytesRef(new float[] {-128f, 0, 127f}));
+    assertEquals(
+        new BytesRef(new byte[] {-19, 0, 33}),
+        VectorUtil.toBytesRef(new float[] {-19.9f, 0.5f, 33.7f}));
+    expectThrows(
+        IllegalArgumentException.class, () -> VectorUtil.toBytesRef(new float[] {-128.1f}));
+    expectThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class, () -> VectorUtil.toBytesRef(new float[] {127.1f}));
+  }
 }