VIOFO T130 Review

[sanglt]

I'm not sure if this question has been asked, quickly skimmed through the threads as well as a Google search but didn't come up with anything.
In parking mode, does this camera only detect motion (and start recording) from the front camera, or do the interior/rear have this ability as well?
Example: say your vehicle was vandalized from the rear, but not enough force to activate the g-sensor

I test the same thing and can confirm that the detection motion working on 3 cameras when in parking mode.

 

[rcg530]

I ran an audio test with four dash cameras (Vantrue E1, VIOFO A119 Mini, VIOFO A229 Duo, VIOFO T130).

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/a119-mini-review-testing.46969/post-578853

 

[VIOFO-Support]

Thanks for all your replies, @rcg530 thanks for the confirmation, I can now purchase this camera as that was a big selling point for me.
I don't believe any of the literature I read on @viofo product page specified this specifically, because someone (like me) could me looking for this function in their dash cam and perhaps pass on it.
Many 2/3 channel cams have some form of AED, but not all detect motion from all cams, I would think they would want to highlight that function to differentiate from the rest?
I currently have the Vantrue N4 3ch (only front detects motion) system which I will now be replacing for this.
Thanks again

We have updated our FAQ page as this https://viofo.com/content/30-viofo-t130-dash-cam-support/, sorry for the inconvenience caused, if other suggestions or questions, you can contact us directly at https://support.viofo.com/support/tickets/new

 

[rcg530]

@VIOFO-Support the T130 FAQ page needs to be fixed since there are several FAQ entries that appear twice on that page. The FAQ entries outlined in red in the attached picture are duplicates.

 

[VIOFO-Support]

@VIOFO-Support the T130 FAQ page needs to be fixed since there are several FAQ entries that appear twice on that page. The FAQ entries outlined in red in the attached picture are duplicates.

View attachment 61289

Thank you for your reminder, we have fixed it now.

 

[rcg530]

VIOFO updated the firmware files available for the T130 dash camera. I've been testing this version for the past several days. It seems to be working well.



Video Bitrate Change

There is a bitrate adjustment (reduction) for the front and rear camera video files, but the interior video files now have an increased bitrate.

Before Update: Front V1.2_0510 / Rear V1.1_0120 / Bitrate Maximum


After Update: Front V1.2_0815 / Rear V1.1_0815 / Bitrate Maximum


Bitrate Change:

Front: Decrease of 15.64%
Interior: Increase of 81.11%
Rear: Decrease of 19.89%

Parking Mode Audio (aka "Video Protected" announcement)

Updated 2022-08-25 17:10 GMT-7

There was discussion on another DCT thread about having a feature added to disable audio announcements while in parking mode. For example, if someone/something impacts your car, it was requested to not have the T130 announce "Video Protected" so any thief that might be in the vehicle won't know to look for the T130 and take the dash camera as well.

I checked the firmware settings in the VIOFO app and I did not find a configuration option to turn this feature on/off. I just ran a test to see if this feature is present. It appears to be present.

I powered up my T130, turned off accessory power to have it enter parking mode and then I generated an impact event. The REC LED did flash (I still had the REC LED enabled in parking mode), but there was no announcement made of "Video Protected". I confirmed that the T130 did place the video files being recorded at the time of the event (low bitrate parking mode) in the DCIM\Movie\RO directory.

 

[Dadi_T]

Auch, i didn't expect that, to decrease the bitrate. I just made the update. If i knew there was a decrease of the bitrate i would have not update it.
What a disappointment! I was expected some IQ improvements, but the "update" is about IQ downgrade.
The interior cam had very good quality. I don't know what for are these changes...

 

[Derekmillion]

@rcg530 I just updated to this newest firmware last night, unfortunately I just saw your post today.
I say unfortunately because of your comments about the reduced bitrate.
As you've probably been running this firmware for awhile now, is there any noticeable difference between the previous firmware and this new one in terms of the reduced bitrate?
Is there any impact to video quality from your assessment?

 

[rcg530]

@rcg530 I just updated to this newest firmware last night, unfortunately I just saw your post today.
I say unfortunately because of your comments about the reduced bitrate.
As you've probably been running this firmware for awhile now, is there any noticeable difference between the previous firmware and this new one in terms of the reduced bitrate?
Is there any impact to video quality from your assessment?

The updated 0815 firmware seems to have resolved a video stuttering issue I had encountered with the previous version. It didn't happen all of the time, but after a parking mode session completed and normal mode recording started again the front/interior video seemed to have a stutter present every few seconds. VIOFO looked at the footage and they said was due to duplicated video frame in the video footage at each stutter point.

The updated firmware (front and rear 0815) seems to have resolved that stuttering issue. The bitrate being reduced, isn't noticeable to me. Keep in mind, I haven't been driving at night recently (gasoline well over $6 USD per gallon) so I don't have any night footage to check for worse/same video quality.

 

[Lothar]

Interesting that the interior camera now has almost twice the bitrate as the rear camera and is therefore more important/prioritized by Viofo or maybe that is what their Uber/Lyft driver clientele wants.
So in this case...Front > Interior > Rear.
Which again tells me that if you're not an Uber or Lift driver, stick to using only a front and a rear camera. Don't just buy an interior 3CH dashcam just for kicks if you don't need it otherwise there will be a degrade in image quality.
The processor can only process a certain amount of bitrate and there must be some compromise somewhere.

Would be interesting to know if they also did this change to the A139 3CH and 2CH dashcams...

 

[Derekmillion]

The updated 0815 firmware seems to have resolved a video stuttering issue I had encountered with the previous version. It didn't happen all of the time, but after a parking mode session completed and normal mode recording started again the front/interior video seemed to have a stutter present every few seconds. VIOFO looked at the footage and they said was due to duplicated video frame in the video footage at each stutter point.

The updated firmware (front and rear 0815) seems to have resolved that stuttering issue. The bitrate being reduced, isn't noticeable to me. Keep in mind, I haven't been driving at night recently (gasoline well over $6 USD per gallon) so I don't have any night footage to check for worse/same video quality.

Hmm I never had any stuttering issues, but the camera would always seem to reboot every once in awhile randomly when driving. Sometimes I would click the wifi button, it would activate the wifi, make a beep noise and then say recording started. I use a 256gb Sandisk Max Endurance card which I formatted with sdformatter tool and ran a check using H2testw and came back with no errors. Updating seems to have resolved the wifi button issue, I haven't driven since updating the firmware

Which again tells me that if you're not an Uber or Lift driver, stick to using only a front and a rear camera. Don't just buy an interior 3CH dashcam just for kicks if you don't need it otherwise there will be a degrade in image quality.

My reason for buying this camera is straight security. I owned the Thinkware F770 in the past which did it's job great, but I always felt the gap in between the front and rear camera was concerning because I wouldn't know what happened if something occurred in that space. Then I bought the Vantrue N4 3ch but realized thereafter not all systems have motion recording on all cameras. Now I have the T130 which I love and works great in conjunction with my 3 daisy-chained external battery packs for parking mode.

 

[joydivision84]

This is going to sound like a bizarre question, but I am looking at the T130 as a dual cam option, front and interior cam.

Currently after discounts, Amazon has the 3 cam variant (including rear) for cheaper than the 2 cam option.

Can anyone confirm that I can simply purchase the 3 cam version, and just not plug in the rear cam and use only the front and interior cam?

Also, is anyone using cam via drawing power from a OBD2 port (with low voltage cut off), I would ideally like to hook up via that way rather than go the fuse box route.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dadi_T]

Can anyone confirm that I can simply purchase the 3 cam version, and just not plug in the rear cam and use only the front and interior cam?

Yes you can.

 

[CaptureYourAction]

This is going to sound like a bizarre question, but I am looking at the T130 as a dual cam option, front and interior cam.

Currently after discounts, Amazon has the 3 cam variant (including rear) for cheaper than the 2 cam option.

Can anyone confirm that I can simply purchase the 3 cam version, and just not plug in the rear cam and use only the front and interior cam?

Also, is anyone using cam via drawing power from a OBD2 port (with low voltage cut off), I would ideally like to hook up via that way rather than go the fuse box route.

Thanks in advance.

Viofo does not recommend using the OBD port for power, especially if your going to use parking mode.

 

[flynn23]

Hello all. New member here. I've looked around on this site but haven't seen anything obvious for what I'm looking for. Has anyone done any work on the VIOFO T130 to snatch files off of it via wifi directly instead of using the app? As has been reported many times, the app is unreliable at best for downloading clips. I think most users do what I do, which is just pop the SD card out and download them directly from the card instead of trying to use the app.

I was thinking of cobbling together a solution that would log into the wifi host when the cam is in my garage at night, probably use something like rsync to archive the files off of the cam and stash them somewhere for backup instead of having to manually delete locked files all the time to keep the SD card from filling up.

Anyone try something like this? I don't want to waste time reinventing the wheel.

 

[Karagandinez]

Hello all. New member here. I've looked around on this site but haven't seen anything obvious for what I'm looking for. Has anyone done any work on the VIOFO T130 to snatch files off of it via wifi directly instead of using the app? As has been reported many times, the app is unreliable at best for downloading clips. I think most users do what I do, which is just pop the SD card out and download them directly from the card instead of trying to use the app.

I was thinking of cobbling together a solution that would log into the wifi host when the cam is in my garage at night, probably use something like rsync to archive the files off of the cam and stash them somewhere for backup instead of having to manually delete locked files all the time to keep the SD card from filling up.

Anyone try something like this? I don't want to waste time reinventing the wheel.

Welcome to the forum.
I think that without the Viofo app you can't do anything.
The T130 does not have a Wi-Fi station mode like the A139 does.

Goal: Access A139 with Station Mode

Hello Folks, I have update my Viofo 3 channel dashcam to the latest firmware and I can see now Station Mode options within settings. I would like to be able to connect my camera while is in Parking Mode outside my home to my Wifi network and that way I can do a wireless back up of my files. 5g...

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