I've owned FineVu CR-500HD dash cameras for several years now, and while the video quality is very good, and the design meets my specifications (no GPS, wifi, or LCD screen- very low voltage draw for prolonged parking mode use), I think it's clear I have to find another option. My first unit had a faulty motion sensor, my second unit had an internal battery failure in less than a year, and now my third unit has begun to malfunction (randomly beeps, a couple corrupt Motion mode video files, announcing "video recording starts" even though I've already been driving for 20 minutes, etc.) DJ at FineVu USA has provided excellent support and replaced the unit twice before, but this last dash cam fault appears to have caused my car battery to fully drain, stranding me this morning.
I went thru the video footage (which conveniently records the car battery voltage); the last video is intact, without corruption, and is in Normal mode. The car battery had plenty of charge, and then no subsequent video files are recorded after ~1130a yesterday morning, despite the memory card only being 60% full. My car was parked in my building garage for the rest of the day, so typically there would be multiple Motion video files captured; I accessed the trunk in the evening, which should have been captured on video. I suspect when the dashcam tried to switch into Parking or Motion mode around 1130a, it experienced some type of fault which then fully drained my car battery. If there was some type of parasitic drain from the car itself, I would expect the dash cam to have continued recording and capture the dropping voltage on video. Likewise, if there was a sudden car battery failure at 1130a that prevented any further video recording, I would not have been able to access my trunk via remote key yesterday evening.
Has anyone experienced this type of dash cam fault? I'm not eager to start shopping for a new camera and bin my FineVu, but I don't see any other explanation for what happened. Thanks in advance for your advice.
I went thru the video footage (which conveniently records the car battery voltage); the last video is intact, without corruption, and is in Normal mode. The car battery had plenty of charge, and then no subsequent video files are recorded after ~1130a yesterday morning, despite the memory card only being 60% full. My car was parked in my building garage for the rest of the day, so typically there would be multiple Motion video files captured; I accessed the trunk in the evening, which should have been captured on video. I suspect when the dashcam tried to switch into Parking or Motion mode around 1130a, it experienced some type of fault which then fully drained my car battery. If there was some type of parasitic drain from the car itself, I would expect the dash cam to have continued recording and capture the dropping voltage on video. Likewise, if there was a sudden car battery failure at 1130a that prevented any further video recording, I would not have been able to access my trunk via remote key yesterday evening.
Has anyone experienced this type of dash cam fault? I'm not eager to start shopping for a new camera and bin my FineVu, but I don't see any other explanation for what happened. Thanks in advance for your advice.