522 parking mode and battery

[jmc123]

I have a 522 together with the rear camera.
I would like to share my experience on this dash cam and see if others have similar issues or solutions.

1) The parking mode cannot last long. The internal battery can only last for ~1d, or less in parking mode even fully charged by USB charger at home. As I am not using the car everyday, it also prompt me low battery when start up.
2) As my average driving mileage is not long (less than 15 miles every trip), it seems the cam can't enough during my driving.
3) My car has auto start stop. It seems the power to the cam is stopped when engine off. Is it normal? As the cam is always low battery, when my car and engine stop (say, in front of traffic light), the cam is lack of power and switch off!! When engine start, the cam just power up again! Very annoying.

Any one has similar experience?

 

[Kremmen]

Start/Stop vehicles are a special case and if you are losing power to the cam, which is usually when the starter motor kicks in, then it's wired wrong.

You need a ACC circuit that doesn't lose power under stop/start.

Parking mode is rarely successful with cams that rely on internal batteries and a hardwire kit that has no third permanent power wire.

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hello,

The Series 2 Cameras have an internal lithium ion battery for emergency uses, such as the loss of power during an incident. This will allow the camera to continue recording to the end of the clip before switching off.

This internal battery has around 10-15 minutes of battery life.

However with the Rear Camera added, the battery life is drastically reduced due to the additional power draw. This is usually 1-3 minutes if fully charged.

If you intend on using Parking Mode on your camera, then we'd instead recommend using a Hard Wire Kit, not the Cigarette Lighter Cable. The Hard Wire Kit will allow the camera to draw nominal current from the car's battery, preventing the cam's battery from being drained. The Hard Wire Kit has an in-built voltage cut off which protects the car's battery from being drained below 11.2V. For a Stop/start vehicle, we'd recommend using a Permanent Live fuse with Parking Mode enabled on the camera.

Here's more information:
https://www.nextbase.com/en-gb/accessories/series-2-hardwire-kit/

Here's how to install:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wml4-DJ0YuM&t=

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support

 

[jmc123]

Nice to see official reply from Nextbase. Yhanks.

My cam is using hardwire kit to connect to the fuse box. But I think it is connected to a fuse that will cut off the power after ignition off.
It seems connecting the wire to a permanent on fuse is a solution. But by connecting like that means I have to manually power off the cam every time I leave the car. Seems quite troublesome.

An alternative is to forget the parking mode function and completely turn this function off. Sad.

A better design should be using permanent on fuse as power plus using a on/off fuse linked to ignition for relay on off.

 

[Nextbase Support]

There's two different type of fuses in a vehicle- switch live fuses and permanently live fuses.

A Switch Live Fuse provides power to the ports only when the car's ignition is turned on. When the car is switched off, the ports will also be turned off and the camera will not receive power.

A Permanently Live Fuse will provide power to the ports at all times, whether the car's ignition is on, or off. You'll be able to identify this as the camera will be permanently on (if Parking Mode is turned off). .
You won't have to turn the camera on and off if you use a permanently live fuse with parking mode enabled.

For Parking Mode, if the camera is completely still for five minutes (the car is parked), then the camera will 'hibernate' in Parking Mode.

If your car is bumped and the G Force sensor registers movement then the dash cam will automatically turn on, record for 30 seconds and then shut back down again. If you are unlucky enough to be hit twice in a row then the dash cam would automatically record again and capture both events.

Here's some more information about Parking Mode:
https://www.nextbase.com/en-gb/dash-cam-features/parking-mode/

Kind regards,
Millie
Nextbase Technical Support