320XR parking mode/battery issues

[23deano]

Hi all, new member here posting because my Nextbase support chat has suddenly gone very quiet.

I have a Nextbase 320XR that seems to be recording permanently. I had to set a recurring reminder to format my SD card every two weeks otherwise the camera would not power on and would loop the start up screen.
I recently had an issue where I needed the footage. I had pressed the "Nextbase" button to protect the footage, but the portion that had saved missed the event. Unfortunately, throughout the day the camera had overwritten the event by the time I got home after work.

I then checked the camera settings. Parking mode is OFF as I found that the slightest wind or rain would make the camera record. Auto power off is set to 10 seconds. I then updated the firmware to the latest from the website and formatted the card. Upon checking three days later, I can see that the only footage on the SD card is from today, starting at 4:16am and finishing when I arrived at work at 7:32am.

The hardwire kit is on a permanent live fuse. I have noticed that the blue LED flickers. As I understand, the blue LED should only appear when the battery is charging.

I've since discovered on this site that if the camera is hardwired on a permanent live with Parking Mode OFF, the camera records 24/7 despite the auto power off settings. I have car battery issues and I think this is a contributing factor.

I connected the camera up in the house. After 6 minutes the camera did not shut down. I then turned Parking Mode ON. The camera shut down after a couple of minutes, I didn't notice when it did. When I moved the camera, it started recording for around one minute and shut down again. That looks to be working correctly.
However there was no blue LED at all. I turned off the power to the camera and moved it. The camera did not start up.
I switched on the power again, the camera did not start up. I moved it, The camera started up and began recording. I switched off the power and the camera shut down immediately. It looks like there is no battery supply in the camera.
According to the camera status, the battery is fully charged.


So I have the following questions:

• What does the camera battery actually do? The blue LED is illuminated if it is charging, so no LED and the camera saying it is full sounds correct. But if the camera is recording and the power supplied by the car is cut, shouldn't it carry on recording using the internal battery?
• What does the auto power off setting control, especially if parking mode is in use?
• Can parking mode sensitivity be changed to make it less susceptible to false triggers by wind and rain?

And finally, the information given in the manual for Parking Mode is pretty bad. It should explicitly state that if you are hardwired on a permanent live, parking mode needs to be on. Setting it to off and it not actually doing anything is very misleading and not a very good design.

 

[kamkar]

Welcome to the forum 23deano.

The power source inside dashcams, that is solely there to finish the last recording in case of a severe event where power get dislodged, some modern cars also cut battery power automatically, it is not for any kind of recording in general.
Not familiar with this brand, when using parking guard you want to make sure the system can not drain your car battery, his is most often done by a switch on the hard wire kit selectable cut off voltages are most often 11.8 - 12.0 - 12.2 - 12.4 Volts.
Some 12V cameras will have this feature in the camera itself VS in a hard wire kit, this of course mean the system must be wired up to a always on power source.

There are a range of parking guard modes, most often motion detect is useless as it take very little to trigger it, next is G-sensor, this is rarely too sensitive but also have its challenges. So some systems will use a memory buffer so you have a few seconds from before the actual trigger event, yet others will save the current segment, so this could be 1-2-3-5-10 minute large depending on the segment size / duration you have chosen / are forced to use CUZ some done allow you to choose this.
And there is my preferred mode low bitrate, this always record when parked but in low bitrate meaning the system use less power making the video and the files are much smaller, this mode also record sound.
Some also have time lapse recording, this also record all the time but at lesser frame rate, most often user selectable between 5 - 10 - 15 frames every second.
Finally some offer some kind of hybrid mode, i think this have caused some problems for some brands.

Anyway if you use a hard wire kit like some cameras require ( most often 5 V cameras with a USB plug for power to the camera ) The systems that have 12 v to the camera, as i said then the cut off are in the camera most often.

Another option to stop parking mode recording is a timer, this cut off timer can often be set from 1 hourt and up to a whopping 48 hours, though that long and the battery will probably be flat or low voltage safety kick in.
I personally use the timer and set to 3 hours, this cover all my little stuff, and at home and most other places there is CCTV on my parked car

Additional me using the low bitrate mode for parking guard, this record all the time but the files are not protected, so to get that and some kind of indication if something have happened while parked i also have the G-sensor on, with that the system will save the footage in the event folder.

Most of all though using parking guard, you will want to have a big memory card, if the system support it 256 GB

Mind you Nextbase are memory card fussy, so be damn sure you go and buy the right card for those, many other brands more or less work with just about any memory card you put in it, for instance i currently test a vantrue system it have 2 cards it did not like out of the 10 i have tested in it so far.