Pre-order for A229 on May 20th 2022

[Lothar]

I messaged support. They said the pre-ordered ones would be despatched from China (about a week transit time) and they usually put a lower price on the customs declaration do no import duty is charged.
Sounds a bit dodgy to me. As @Lothar and @Dashmellow suggest above I might try and be patient and wait for a while and see how much they go for on one of the sale days coming up. Not sure I've got the patience though .

If you don't already have an existing dashcam, I don't recommend that you go naked as you are gambling that you would not need it for the next 2 months until this sale happens.
Don't push your luck.

 

[CliveR]

If you don't already have an existing dashcam, I don't recommend that you go naked as you are gambling that you would not need it for the next 2 months until this sale happens.
Don't push your luck.

I get what you are saying @Lothar . But I have been driving for almost 50 years without one. Probably just jinxed myself now, better get out and buy one off the shelf today

 

[Lothar]

I get what you are saying @Lothar . But I have been driving for almost 50 years without one. Probably just jinxed myself now, better get out and buy one off the shelf today

You don't have to buy one of the shelf today. Certainly wouldn't recommend that as the ones sold of the shelf in most stores are likely crap if it's not any of the major brands on this website (Viofo, Street Guardian, BlackVue, Thinkware).
There is a big difference between waiting for 1 week(based on the time they gave you) and waiting for 2 months for a potential sale.

If you need a stop gap product (assuming that your family have 2 cars), you can buy an A119 V3 and then transfer it to a different car(or give it to someone else) if you get this one.

 

[Nigel]

There is a big difference between waiting for 1 week(based on the time they gave you) and waiting for 2 months for a potential sale.

You just have to trust your insurance to sort out any problems for a little longer, and accept that you can't easily report other people's driving to the police, or at least if you do then it is unlikely to have any effect!

Most people don't have accidents every week, most people don't have them every year. It is worth a short wait to get something that you will be happy with for a long time to come.

 

[CliveR]

You don't have to buy one of the shelf today.

I wasn't really planning on doing so. It was a tongue in cheek comment

 

[CliveR]

Most people don't have accidents every week, most people don't have them every year. It is worth a short wait to get something that you will be happy with for a long time to come.

I can't honestly remember the last time I had to claim on insurance. Problem is I've most likely jinxed myself now

 

[viofo]

• Capacity: 128GB
• Read Speeds: Up to 95MB/s
• Write Speeds: Up to 90MB/s
• Operating temperature: -25℃ ~ 85℃
• Storage temperature: -40℃ ~ 85℃
• Size: 15mm(L) * 11mm(W) * 1mm(T)

I assumed based on the specs of your card, the card is a rebranded Samsung Evo+ or Samsung Pro+? The specs eerily seem similar.
I don't think I've ever seen an "endurance" card write from Samsung Pro Endurance, SanDisk High/MAX Endurance, or WD Purple line write that fast...certainly not at the consumer level.

If it's more closer to the SanDisk Max Endurance or better, that's certainly good to know.

It is not a rebrand Samsung. It is very hard to tell a memory card's quality just by checking the spec.

The memory card manufacturer tests the cards with our products and has a full report about the memory card's lifetime.

Recently we are do more testing with VIOFO cards, and checking if we need optimize firmware, this can also help to compatibility with other brand cards.

 

[Lothar]

It is not a rebrand Samsung. It is very hard to tell a memory card's quality just by checking the spec.

The memory card manufacturer tests the cards with our products and has a full report about the memory card's lifetime.

Recently we are do more testing with VIOFO cards, and checking if we need optimize firmware, this can also help to compatibility with other brand cards.

Thank you for explaining that.

I do have a question though...
Most memory cards are rated based on the total number of hours of Full HD Video recording or the TBW (Terabytes written) calculated using JEDEC client workload (JESD219)
Did the manufacturer tell you or inform you of the report about the 128GB Viofo memory card's lifetime performance, and if so then what is the Viofo 128GB memory rated for in terms of TBW or the number of hours of Full HD Video recording?

See examples below from other manufacturers (SanDisk Max Endurance, SanDisk High Endurance, Western Digital Purple, Samsung PRO Endurance) on their rated memory card's lifetime performance and also warranty:




I just find it interesting that the manufacturer of your memory is only going to warranty Viofo memory for 1 year. Most endurance cards from other manufacturers are warranted for more than 1 year.
Why does the memory card manufacturer for 128GB Viofo only warranty the card for 1 year despite it being rated as a high quality "Industrial grade" MLC memory card that maybe better than some of the memory cards listed above?

If your memory card manufacturer does not give the information of lifetime performance rating, then the only way for us to guess is to do some mental mathematics gymnastics using back of envelope/napkin estimate to calculate the total number of hours of Full HD Video recording or the TBW (Terabytes written) that the 128GB Viofo card could be rated for using the "1 year warranty" as the base figure.

 

[Nigel]

I do have a question though...
Most memory cards are rated based on the total number of hours of Full HD Video recording or the TBW (Terabytes written) calculated using JEDEC client workload (JESD219)

It is a bit more complicated than that.

A card with 3000 write cycles rating may work fine in a Viofo A129 Pro when the card is new, but over time it will slow down, and at some point it will become too slow to keep up with the data rate from an A129 Pro Duo set to maximum bitrate. That may come after 800 write cycles, or maybe after 2800, and after it stops working, the card may still work fine in a computer that is just copying files to the card at whatever speed the card can cope with. So the card manufacturer can rate that card at 3000 write cycles even if it becomes too slow for the A129 Duo at max bitrate after only 800 write cycles, and too slow for an A119 Mini set to Normal bitrate after 2500 write cycles.

So the specifications for write cycles and TBW do not give the full story, and the U3 rating also doesn't give the full story, since U rated cards don't have to guarantee any write speed, only an average write speed, given that the writing device can buffer data at times when the card is running slowly because it is busy doing something.

A good card doesn't actually need to be as fast as U1, a class 10 card is fine for current dashcams, but it does need to maintain the write speed without long delays, even when the memory cells have slowed down through use, and even when it is handling a few failed cells, and even when it is busy deleting files (blocks) because the dashcam has been recording continuously for hours, never giving the card time for maintenance, emptying the delete queue or carrying out wear leveling!

Why does the memory card manufacturer for 128GB Viofo only warranty the card for 1 year despite it being rated as a high quality "Industrial grade" MLC memory card that maybe better than some of the memory cards listed above?

Most consumer cards have warranty for x number of write cycles, very few will warranty flash memory for 1 year. Some of them will honour a warranty claim after several years, if it is still below ? write cycles. They never tell you what ? is, and if you reach ? after 3 months then the warranty is void after 3 months.

I think Viofo warranty their cards for 1 year on the basis that when used in their dashcams, it will last over 1 year, even if the dashcam is recording continuously. For most customers, that is much easier to understand than using write cycle counts or hours of FHD video (Viofo don't make many FHD dashcams). It is also something that can be tested, and I guess Viofo's supplier has done the necessary tests, and that Viofo ensure that their cameras don't exceed a specified write count within a year.

Dashcams do make life difficult for the memory cards, they write continuously, don't provide big buffers to allow the cards to carry out maintenance tasks, do write to multiple files simultaneously, do delete files while recording new ones, etc.

 

[Lothar]

I'm a pharmacist so help me understand something...
When a drug manufacturer has an expiration date(or shelf life) on a medication, it means that is defined as the time necessary for the drug to decay to 90% of its original concentration, also known as T90.
So of course if I see 2 different medications of Tylenol, Paracetamol, or Acetaminophen 500mg on the shelf...I will always purchase the one with the latest expiration date because on the date of expiration that 500mg tablet will be performing at the 450mg level even though it might still be sitting on the shelf pretending to be a 500mg tablet a few days prior to expiration.

So if I see several cards(SanDisk Max Endurance, SanDisk High Endurance, Western Digital Purple, Samsung PRO Endurance, etc...) all rated for continuous video recording and warrantied for dashcam/CCTV use, and they're also an endurance (or in this case an industrial) card, I will always go based on what I consider to be the best available at the reasonable price and memory size that I am looking for taking read/write speeds of the memory and what I will be using it for(whether a drone or a dashcam) also into consideration. Obviously I won't pay $245 just because a card is warrantied for 50 years or 1 million hours of continuous video recording because that is out of my price range, and also both the dashcam and I may long be dead by then.

It is a bit more complicated than that.

A card with 3000 write cycles rating may work fine in a Viofo A129 Pro when the card is new, but over time it will slow down, and at some point it will become too slow to keep up with the data rate from an A129 Pro Duo set to maximum bitrate. That may come after 800 write cycles, or maybe after 2800, and after it stops working, the card may still work fine in a computer that is just copying files to the card at whatever speed the card can cope with. So the card manufacturer can rate that card at 3000 write cycles even if it becomes too slow for the A129 Duo at max bitrate after only 800 write cycles, and too slow for an A119 Mini set to Normal bitrate after 2500 write cycles.

So the specifications for write cycles and TBW do not give the full story, and the U3 rating also doesn't give the full story, since U rated cards don't have to guarantee any write speed, only an average write speed, given that the writing device can buffer data at times when the card is running slowly because it is busy doing something.

A good card doesn't actually need to be as fast as U1, a class 10 card is fine for current dashcams, but it does need to maintain the write speed without long delays, even when the memory cells have slowed down through use, and even when it is handling a few failed cells, and even when it is busy deleting files (blocks) because the dashcam has been recording continuously for hours, never giving the card time for maintenance, emptying the delete queue or carrying out wear leveling!

In this case though we have something to go by...even if it does not tell the full picture as you stated but those other numbers also help in the calculations.

I guess my point here is that at the end of the day in most cases, a warranty is how confident the manufacturer of that product believes that it will perform at it's rated specifications which is why I tend to lean more on the warranty angle than quoted write cycles or video hours recording...But those other numbers are important too if cited by the manufacturer.
In this case I can only compare "1 year" of warranty quoted by the Viofo memory manufacturer for vs. "X years" of warranty of a SanDisk, Western Digital, or Samsung working in the same dashcam at the same maximum bitrate setting.
The same for BlackVue which only offers a "6 month" warranty on their memory cards which I assume is based on continuous recording? I have no idea if theirs is considered an industrial or a consumer card...but it speaks volumes about how long they expect the product to last performing at their defined specification for dashcam use?
Yes, in a lot of these cases nobody records 24/7 in a dashcam...but if you have a CCTV camera and you switch memory between both devices regularly then it all of a sudden might become relevant. This of course may not apply to cloud cams like Google Nest or Ring cameras since everything with them is all about the cloud.

It's true that the cards do not guarantee a specific write speed, they usually say "up to" xyMB/s. One thing I do is test any card I receive immediately using CrystalDiskMark, H2testw, and other software multiple times to check file allocation and if it is also not performing anywhere near the cited read/write MB/s specification, then it gets returned.

Most consumer cards have warranty for x number of write cycles, very few will warranty flash memory for 1 year. Some of them will honour a warranty claim after several years, if it is still below ? write cycles. They never tell you what ? is, and if you reach ? after 3 months then the warranty is void after 3 months.

I think Viofo warranty their cards for 1 year on the basis that when used in their dashcams, it will last over 1 year, even if the dashcam is recording continuously. For most customers, that is much easier to understand than using write cycle counts or hours of FHD video (Viofo don't make many FHD dashcams). It is also something that can be tested, and I guess Viofo's supplier has done the necessary tests, and that Viofo ensure that their cameras don't exceed a specified write count within a year.

Dashcams do make life difficult for the memory cards, they write continuously, don't provide big buffers to allow the cards to carry out maintenance tasks, do write to multiple files simultaneously, do delete files while recording new ones, etc.

My understanding is that manufacturers warranty their memory cards based on the X number of write cycles or the number of years since purchase as cited in the warranty terms...Whichever happens first. I don't really see anything ambiguous about that.
If a card manufacturer decides to still honor it after one of the numbers has been reached but the other has not, then kudos to them. But I will always assume in my calculations that it is whatever is reached first...The number of years warranty since purchase, or the number of write cycles/hours of FHD video...Not both.

Whether the manufacturer quotes hours of FHD video, we can do the math to 2K, 4K, and so on...If that is what the dashcam one uses to record.
Things like bitrate are not relevant(and if they are, then they can easily again be calculated & converted using mathematics just like resolutions and the number of camera channels) because regardless of what memory I pick, I will only be using it in one dashcam running at the maximum bitrate setting possible.
The same with using "normal" or "maximum" bitrates in the dashcam, we can also do the math if we know the fine print of what the FHD video is recorded at which is usually always noted by a footnote, subscript, superscript, or asterisk in the manufacturer specifications datasheets.

Those same manufacturers also use warranty years for any customer that is confused by write cycle counts, hours of FHD video, or does not want to bother doing the math can also make a safe choice by just going by the warranty years specified by the manufacturer for continuous recording then since all these memory cards are rated for continuous recording anyway?

 

[Nigel]

any customer that is confused by write cycle counts, hours of FHD video, or does not want to bother doing the math can also make a safe choice by just going by the warranty years specified by the manufacturer

For a lot of the normal consumer cards, the write cycle count is going to expire before the years when used in a multi-channel dashcam, so most dashcam users can't "make a safe choice by just going by the warranty years specified by the manufacturer".

It is not that easy to convert hours of FHD into hours of A139 video, first problem is finding out what bitrate they were using for their FHD... Some of the manufacturers do tell us, others it is possible to work it out because they also give max write cycle count and capacity, but not all give enough information.

Easiest to use is the write cycle count, and then do the maths based on your bitrate settings and channel count, but most people won't actually do that, so I think Viofo's simple 1 year warranty is the best way to do it.

I'm a pharmacist so help me understand something...

The problem is that Samsung, Sandisk, Viofo, etc. all specify their warranties in different ways, so it is very hard to work out which is the best warranty.

And then the cards are all different, some slow down faster than others, so while Viofo's may still be running fast enough for an A139 3 channel at 3000 write cycles, the Sandisk High Endurance has become too slow at 800, and loses its warranty at 1200? (I might be wrong on those figures, possibly very wrong. I haven't checked the specs of those cards for a while, or tested sufficiently. Wouldn't be surprised if I was correct though.)

 

[Lothar]

For a lot of the normal consumer cards, the write cycle count is going to expire before the years when used in a multi-channel dashcam, so most dashcam users can't "make a safe choice by just going by the warranty years specified by the manufacturer".

It is not that easy to convert hours of FHD into hours of A139 video, first problem is finding out what bitrate they were using for their FHD... Some of the manufacturers do tell us, others it is possible to work it out because they also give max write cycle count and capacity, but not all give enough information.

Easiest to use is the write cycle count, and then do the maths based on your bitrate settings and channel count, but most people won't actually do that, so I think Viofo's simple 1 year warranty is the best way to do it.

Possible, but that only applies to cards that have an advertised TBW rating, so even if we eliminate that then we're left with Viofo and SanDisk. I'm sure that every memory card has a TBW rating...whether published or unpublished. It is very possible that both Viofo and SanDisk does not evaluate TBW rating on warranty claims since that is not a published figure for their Industrial/Endurance line of cards nor is it outlined in their warranty documents. Does not mean that they cannot check if they wanted to.

• Samsung PRO endurance: 256GB model up to 140,160 hours, 128GB model up to 70,080 hours, 64GB model up to 35,040 hours, 32GB model up to 17,520 hours. Based on Full HD (1920×1080) video content recorded at 26Mbps (3.25MB/s). They also cite TBW rating for all their cards if one wants to use that.
• SanDisk Max/High Endurance: Card life is based off of recording Full HD video at 26 Mb/s to one device. Not sure why they don't specify or mention TBW rating, but then again neither does the Viofo memory card so I guess that's not important? It is reasonable to think that some of these products have some additional NAND flash for overprovisioning and, perhaps, extra controller capabilities giving they are warranting some of them for 10 or 15 years?
• Western Digital Purple: They don't specify video recording hours, but they cite TBW rating for their cards.

A139 H.264 Maximum
Front: 27.8Mb/s
Rear: 17.0Mb/s
Interior: 17.0Mb/s (I would only use front and rear for my personal calculation since I have no need for an interior camera for my purposes, but I included this figure for those that want to see it?)

It seems easy to convert the number of hours to account for resolution and number of channel differences as long as we know the numbers?

I'm not really convinced that is the best way to do it either.
Since Viofo's card is only warrantied for 1 year, and BlackVue for 6 months, are we to assume that it will be fine regardless of if whether Viofo decides to release A459 4K 5CH dashcam providing 360 coverage+interior in 4K that it will still be warrantied for the same 1 year(Viofo) or 6 months(BlavkVue) regardless of TBW rating, resolution, number of channels, and number of continuous recording hours?

The problem is that Samsung, Sandisk, Viofo, etc. all specify their warranties in different ways, so it is very hard to work out which is the best warranty.

Samsung warranty: Number of years since purchase (5 years), or number of TBW the card is rated for...whichever comes first.
SanDisk warranty: Number of years since purchase (depends on size/model...2 years for High Endurance, 10 years for 128GB Max Endurance, 15 years for 256GB Max Endurance).
Western Digital warranty: Number of years since purchase (3 years), or number of TBW the card is rated for...whichever comes first.
Viofo warranty: Number of years since purchase (1 year).

I do wish these memory manufacturers would settle on one standard so we won't have to do these mental gymnastics...

 

[SawMaster]

On smaller cards (or any cheapish goods really) neither I nor anyone I know bother with using a warranty. If it's something you really need there's no time to wait, and you have better things to do with the time it would take to deal with it. "Cheapish" is relative and subjective so that will vary from person to person. On warranty periods, with most things any defects will show up quickly so 3 months would be about the same as 12 months. It's just a number most people are comfortable with, so don't "read" too much into it, especially if other manufacturers of similar products have that same warranty period.

On dashcam cards I always recommend you research what others have experienced with that exact card in that exact cam as the best determinant of what you can expect. Things don't always work as numbers and specs might indicate so I see little point in risking what might be extremely important data on something unproven IRL.

Phil

 

[Nigel]

SanDisk Max/High Endurance: Card life is based off of recording Full HD video at 26 Mb/s to one device. Not sure why they don't specify or mention TBW rating,

You can calculate it since you have the Mb/s being written and how many seconds it lasts. Remember that Mb/s = MB/s / 8.
SanDisk was not impressive last time I bothered to work it out, which is probably why they don't tell you directly!

It seems easy to convert the number of hours to account for resolution and number of channel differences as long as we know the numbers?

Easier just to record a typical journey for an hour using your normal setup, and see how much card space was used, then you have the MB/h, which you can easily turn into Mb/s if that is what you need. (Mb/s = MB/h * 8 / 60 / 60)

Since Viofo's card is only warrantied for 1 year, and BlackVue for 6 months, are we to assume that it will be fine regardless of if whether Viofo decides to release A459 4K 5CH dashcam providing 360 coverage+interior in 4K that it will still be warrantied for the same 1 year(Viofo) or 6 months(BlavkVue) regardless of TBW rating, resolution, number of channels, and number of continuous recording hours?

I think you are safe to assume that the promise is valid at the time of purchase. If Viofo release your 4K 5ch 360 degree dashcam after purchase then they will probably update the warranty on their new cards!

I'm not sure why they don't give a TBW figure, maybe so that they can easily change suppliers if they want, or need because of lack of supply, but their cards are very high TBW cards, made using industrial grade MLC memory, so you can expect 3000+ for a TBW figure, and the MLC memory tends to be reliably faster than most consumer cards, so will maintain sufficient speed until the TBW figure is reached, which may not happen with other cards.

 

[Lothar]

On smaller cards (or any cheapish goods really) neither I nor anyone I know bother with using a warranty. If it's something you really need there's no time to wait, and you have better things to do with the time it would take to deal with it. "Cheapish" is relative and subjective so that will vary from person to person. On warranty periods, with most things any defects will show up quickly so 3 months would be about the same as 12 months. It's just a number most people are comfortable with, so don't "read" too much into it, especially if other manufacturers of similar products have that same warranty period.

On dashcam cards I always recommend you research what others have experienced with that exact card in that exact cam as the best determinant of what you can expect. Things don't always work as numbers and specs might indicate so I see little point in risking what might be extremely important data on something unproven IRL.

Phil

I've never had to use the warranty claim on a MicroSD card because in all cases that I have used them, they outlast the product(GPS, Camera, Phone) that I've using them in and therefore become obsoleted. That is my personal experience. Whether that is pure luck, or because I'm a person that has a penchant for researching things before purchase (some tell me that I do this a bit too much) and therefore avoid future problems by selecting good products initially based on my research, or because none of those products that I used them in are as writing intensive as a dashcam is, or because of a combination of some of these, or something else I don't know. Very possible that I would have upgraded to another dashcam in 2-4 years(depending on technology improvements) which will likely require an even bigger card anyway before I get to use the warranty of my current cards.

The only thing I've done is testing them after purchase (CrystalDiskMark, H2testw, and other software multiple times to check file allocation tables and read/write performance) and if I don't feel that it meets the advertised specifications I return it within 30 days or less to the original seller(Amazon.com, BestBuy) that I bought it from.
If I had to do a warranty claim though, I already have spare ones(and I would imagine most people here do as well?) so it's not really an issue of time or waiting for the entire process and the replacement card.

True on that last point. I'm definitely not one of those that will be purchasing a 1TB card like in that A139 memory card thread and expect it to do wonders.
I guess that also indirectly makes an argument for manufacturers that bundle memory cards as I would expect that the products they sell have been tested with the card that they bundle them with.

 

[Lothar]

You can calculate it since you have the Mb/s being written and how many seconds it lasts. Remember that Mb/s = MB/s / 8.
SanDisk was not impressive last time I bothered to work it out, which is probably why they don't tell you directly!


Easier just to record a typical journey for an hour using your normal setup, and see how much card space was used, then you have the MB/h, which you can easily turn into Mb/s if that is what you need. (Mb/s = MB/h * 8 / 60 / 60)


I think you are safe to assume that the promise is valid at the time of purchase. If Viofo release your 4K 5ch 360 degree dashcam after purchase then they will probably update the warranty on their new cards!

I'm not sure why they don't give a TBW figure, maybe so that they can easily change suppliers if they want, or need because of lack of supply, but their cards are very high TBW cards, made using industrial grade MLC memory, so you can expect 3000+ for a TBW figure, and the MLC memory tends to be reliably faster than most consumer cards, so will maintain sufficient speed until the TBW figure is reached, which may not happen with other cards.

The way I see it is that they will outlast the product that I'm using them in based on the warranty. I only expect to use my current dashcam for 2-4 years(depending on technology improvements) which will likely require an even bigger card anyway before I get to use the warranty of my current cards.
I have a 256GB High Endurace card which I bought early last year in preparation for my future dashcam use, and also an extra 256GB Max Endurance card I bought in December last year after I had made a choice of which dashcam to get.
The 2 year warranty on the High Endurance model is nothing special and very much in line with other endurance models from other card manufacturers that provide the same 2-3 years warranty. Not that impressive.

The 256GB Max Endurance model though seems worth it though as I expect it to have additional NAND flash for overprovisioning and, perhaps, extra controller capabilities based on the numbers that they are referencing.
Paying $20 more for a 256GB Max Endurance ($53 vs $35 over the High Endurance) was worth it in my book for my peace of mind as it is not that expensive and I'm getting at least 6x more longevity based on their continuous video recording hours(120,000 hours vs 20,000 hours) rating or warranty(15 years vs 2 years) over the High Endurance model...whichever metric measure one decides to look at.

 

[TakeMyCash]

I've pre-ordered as this looks to be the best bang for bang front+rear set specs wise.

Anyone have a guess as to when they'll start shipping these?

 

[CliveR]

I notice that the pre-order offer comes with a 128GB SD card. Is this considered big enough for a dual channel 2K + 2K dashcam

 

[Karagandinez]

I notice that the pre-order offer comes with a 128GB SD card. Is this considered big enough for a dual channel 2K + 2K dashcam

Enough. If during operation it will not be enough, buy in addition for 256GB.

 

[Karagandinez]

I've pre-ordered as this looks to be the best bang for bang front+rear set specs wise.

Anyone have a guess as to when they'll start shipping these?

The manufacturer's website states:

For Pre-sale, a free 128GB card is included in all the bundle types.
The promotion will end on 31st May. All the paid orders will be shipped on 1st June.