a UK supplier for the A129

[mollydog]

It’s time for a replacement dual DVR, after some researching I’ve come to the conclusion that at this moment in time, the Viofo A129 will meet my present needs for my fun/Sunday car, (I’m using a variety of the Mini range in my other daily drives)

I’ve seen these as low as £93 off aliexpress and maybe a few (20 - 30) quid more off eBay, but as I don’t buy much that cost’s more that £30 - £40 (off eBay/internet) if it comes direct from China unless there’ no other choice for an item I’m after

I want to be buying this from a UK supplier (guarantee and VAT+ customer issues), I’ve seen many on eBay that say it’s supplied from the UK then you look at the address of the supplier and find it’s anywhere from China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore and a few other places, it’ll take ages if it needs posting back to them for service/repairs

I’ve looked on Amazon and see the same thing there, but I’ve also seen that Viofo sell this on Amazon as supplied by “Viofo but fulfilled by Amazon” now to my question, buying from Amazon as FBA, would that make Amazon the guarantor?

if not then anyone know another UK supplier with UK after sales service? any info would be most welcome

 

[Swin]

You can purchase it from Amazon by VIOFO.
For any after sales service, ask VIOFO directly.

 

[DashcamDPR]

I want to be buying this from a UK supplier (guarantee and VAT+ customer issues), I’ve seen many on eBay that say it’s supplied from the UK then you look at the address of the supplier and find it’s anywhere from China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore and a few other places, it’ll take ages if it needs posting back to them for service/repairs

With the Chinese sellers that say they ship from the UK, the feedback is the giveaway, whether people have said they received their item quickly. I think it's known as "drop shipping". Amazon's returns is usually very helpful if you buy from a seller on there (not sure about "marketplace" though). You could have a look at some UK uploaded user reviews on youtube and see if they've included links in their descriptions that say where exactly they bought their cams from.

and as said, @viofo on here may also be able to guide you

 

[Nigel]

I’ve looked on Amazon and see the same thing there, but I’ve also seen that Viofo sell this on Amazon as supplied by “Viofo but fulfilled by Amazon” now to my question, buying from Amazon as FBA, would that make Amazon the guarantor?

Viofo fulfilled by Amazon seems to be the best choice for UK purchases at the moment, and Amazon will then deal with any issues within the first 30 days.

After the first 30 days, I suspect your legal rights are not with Amazon, Amazon seem to avoid explaining this on their website. Since Viofo is not a UK company I'm not sure your legal 6 year manufacturing defect rights will be enforceable. I believe Viofo will provide a 1 year manufacturer warrantee but you may need to return the product to China.

In reality the A129 is very reliable, much better than the mini series has been, and any issues are likely to arise within the 30 days, so there is little to worry about as long as you test it out on delivery and if necessary return it to Amazon ASAP, not a month later.

I’ve seen these as low as £93 off aliexpress and maybe a few (20 - 30) quid more off eBay,

Don't forget to add the VAT if you are importing it, the cheaper ones on eBay are probably sold without UK VAT, it's not instantly obvious which Chinese sellers sell with and which without. They normally state a UK VAT number at the bottom of the listing if they pay the VAT.

 

[mollydog]

Thanks every one, I’ve just laced an order for one from Amazon, should be here for the 5th (March),

@Nigel

it’s one of the reasons for getting things from a UK providers if I can, as you say false economy ff you’re unlucky and the VAT, customs & currier bill pop up, let alone guarantee issues

looking forward to getting it



I liked the form factor of the mini range of DVR’s but I found their weak point was/is their mounts, was just too fragile and would make the DVR rock,



like in this video clip

this was on the day it came in the post and fitted to the car, so I had to adapt the mount by wedging a slither of f a cable tie



on the 0906, I even made an L shape bracket to keep it from rocking







so one could say, till they sort out the bracket, I’ll hold on thinking about one

The other issue I had with both the mini 0806 and the 0906 was on my last but on trip all the way to Italy with the 0906 I found that half the time the mini 0906 wasn’t recording due to the micro USB connection being very sensitive and would disconnect power to the unit, this had also happened to my mini 0806 the year before that driving down to Italy, and the heat wasn’t helping the bracket from flexing

so looking at this A129, if nothing else, it looks like I won’t be getting these bracket issues,

 

[kamkar]

The wedge cameras like the A129 will also suffer from a eventual slop in the mount, that's why they all ( to my knowledge ) come with several EVA pads you can put on the camera or mount to fill out a gap.
How fast this "rattle" develop in the mount depend on if you are taking the camera on and off the mount often, personally i only take my cameras off the mount about once every 3 months.

Your mini camera you could also have fixed that rattle bu putting a drop of CA glue somewhere on the mount and let it dry out and then provide a tighter fit in between the 2 parts.

 

[Nigel]

The wedge cameras like the A129 will also suffer from a eventual slop in the mount...

Not sure that is true with the A129, it is a bit different to the A119, I've never had any issue with my mount and it has been on and off a lot of times, I take it off rather than remove the memory card, much more solid than the mini series.

 

[kamkar]

I never had any issues either with any of my wedge cameras, but the problem are there, and most if not all have it covered by now

 

[DMW]

I had a transcend 220 and it was a poor designed mount where you had to push up and slide off the cam where as it seems the viofo a129 is just a slide off and as long as you match up the lugs then it's a slide on but never had a problem putting it on and off even in the dark

 

[jokiin]

The wedge cameras like the A129 will also suffer from a eventual slop in the mount, that's why they all ( to my knowledge ) come with several EVA pads you can put on the camera or mount to fill out a gap.
How fast this "rattle" develop in the mount depend on if you are taking the camera on and off the mount often, personally i only take my cameras off the mount about once every 3 months.

the A129 has a different mount design to the other models

 

[mollydog]

very surprised that Amazon delivered the Viofo A129 first thing this morning around 9am, it was scheduled to arrive here on Tuesday

I over the manual a few times, surprised it never mentioned the GPS, well it did once but that was only to mention that the gps mount was an optional extra

once I connected the A129 to a power pack I went through the menu to set it up, on the GPS I set it to show all, speed, co-ordinance, date and time

I placed it in the car and drove round the block, got back home and placed the card in the laptop, I was surprised to see no gps folder or gps files to be seen,



Datakam Player wasn’t showing any gps files and no map movement when playing the captured clip



as the other DVR’s we own that have gps, have gps files somewhere on the card

hearing that the A129 comes with and without gps mount, I thought I must have been sent one without gps and reading the back of the box it came in I resined myself to the face the gps module is an extra even though the Amazon add made it sound like it came with gps



I had no way of knowing if the mount had gps or not





so I thought I’d get back on Amazon and order the gps mount,

on my old laptop I had Dashcam Viewer, but since replacing and getting rid of my old laptop I never got round to asking Dashcam Viewer for my registration, so I thought while I had nothing better to do I’d download a demo of Dashcam Viewer and see what that made out of my trip round the block

well to my surprise I’m pleased to find out the mount has got the gps module in it and I’d imagine as the A129 doesn’t have it’s gps files separated (I wish something was mentioned in the manual) and knowing the developer of Datakam player sadly passed away in a motorbike accident a couple of years ago I can’t blame Datakam Player not being up to date and compatible with the A129 gps file system

I must say my first impressions are that this A129 looks well made, a couple of opinions on first use of this A129, I wish the front and rear files were in separated folders, I know it’s easy enough looking for the “F” and “R” files but just a neater way (I thought)

I didn’t order the bluetooth file lock fob, I would of done if it was like the one on the Mini 0906, every press of the fob on the Mini 0906 will take/save an image with both front and rear camera

I would of thought this feature is a better option/ use of a remote, I’m sure there will be more opportunities that need image capture (without talking your eye’s off the road and hand way off the wheel) to capture an image than the few times that one needs to lock a file

I see there’s firmware updates for this A129, mine has firmware A129: V1.5 and a Build:20181115, any suggestions/opinions on this and if I should which firmware update I should go for

 

[DMW]

V1.5 is the latest but there a lot of different mods from bchobbyist to play with if your interested in that...... When you press the Bluetooth remote to capture a video I'm sure it saves a jpg of that moment when you press the button.

 

[Nigel]

very surprised that Amazon delivered the Viofo A129 first thing this morning around 9am, it was scheduled to arrive here on Tuesday

Still eating your Sunday morning breakfast in bed?

 

[mollydog]

I’ll have a play with the firmware updates before fitting it in the car and see how I get on with them,

one can see why the high St here in the UK is finding it hard to compete with the internet on most things, we’d just got back in after taking the dogs for their morning walk, I was about to put some bread in the toaster when the doorbell rang, wondering who’d be calling at this time on a Sunday morning I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was the Amazon delivery guy, only placed the order on Friday afternoon

do I have to use Viofo parking hardwire unit with the A129 or could I use a generic one?

I don’t fancy taking out most of the car dash again to thread the hard wire parking unit cable up to the camera unit on the windscreen



instead make all the connection near the fuse box at the front of the car, with the power, GND and ACC cable


Edited to add: if the fob for the A129 also takes images once pressed I’ll put in an order for one, I’ll have to do some googling

 

[M A R K]

I'm confused

I thought the bluetooth button just locked the currently recording file when pressed in the same way as if you had pressed the button on the camera itself. Is that not the case?

 

[DMW]

I'm confused

I thought the bluetooth button just locked the currently recording file when pressed in the same way as if you had pressed the button on the camera itself. Is that not the case?

Yes..... What bit made it confusing

 

[M A R K]

Yes..... What bit made it confusing

When you said that every press of the button on the mini took an image. I was half asleep and read “image” rather than “file”

 

[Nigel]

When you said that every press of the button on the mini took an image. I was half asleep and read “image” rather than “file”

Confusing! Did you mean "every press of the button on the remote"?

My expectation is that a press of the remote button locks the current file and takes a frame grab stored as a jpg image so that you have an image of the event without having to search for it in the 3 or 10 minute files, and also have the exact time the button was pressed on the image file's timestamp which can be used to quickly find the event in the video files. I don't actually have a remote button so can't confirm that DMW was correct.