A139 Firmware

HonestReview said:
But your solution doesn't address this concern. Say you are driving and someone hits your car. Even with Wifi, there's no event based cloud service. So you would still need to be driving with Station Mode Activated. And you'd need inbound connections permitted, to be able to access the files from afar. Meaning a rooted cell phone hotspot or router with a sim card that permits such activity.

So I am not sure what your configuration does to address this matter. As the event could be "erased" or "glitched" in some rare off chance between the accident and pulling video off the card taking what you said "What if my SD Card fails and I lose some footage I actually NEED".

And then in parking mode (where camera overheats in hot weather), the same as above applies. What happens if there's an event? Running Station Mode could overheat the camera, meaning it might not be capturing events, if the thermal settings instruct camera to shut down.
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I can have a backup when I get home, if someone hits my car. No urgency to backup right at the moment of impact lol. Backing up to cloud is a luxury secondary backup. I backup all my data. I am sure you would know, what's the best solution to say data loss/hard-drive failure in a computer? backup. Ransomware? Backup. Sure an SD card is not getting any ransom but it definitely can fail one day. What if it fails today and I suddenly need footage from 1 week ago? If it failed today and I need footage from today morning, then yes my script cannot do anything - that is bad luck, but you see how a BACKUP MINIMISES my chances of dissapointment? Nothing is 100% but a backup just maximises chance of security.

Sometimes my friend had this issue, someone scratches his bottom bumper, he did not even look at it until 3 weeks. When he saw it one day suddenly, it was all too late as his camera had long overwritten the file. So if I have a cloud backup, it's extra benefit.

If the SD card is erased whilst me coming home from some event, then bad luck. But can you see how a secondary cloud backup is useful? If the camera shuts down in parking mode due to heat, then I would be disappointed, as Thinkware or Blackvue never did that to me, once in few years of owning them. I do not use 3CH btw, I only bought the 2CH so I hope it is similar to my Thinkware U1000 & Blackvue DR750X. And how would my camera HEAT in parking mode? This is how the mode should be applied;

  • Enter parking mode: Turn on Station Mode (or at least Wi-Fi AP I guess) AUTOMATICALLY. Currently we can turn on Wi-Fi AP by pressing a button and it turns off after 5 minutes of inactivity.
  • If connection within 5 minutes established; continue it, else turn wi-fi OFF.
  • If a connection was established, then after disconnection, then we revert to point 1. If no new connection in 5 minutes, Wi-Fi is turned off.
I don't think this will generate heat as much as to turn off a camera fully.

Technically if you want to look at small details, Thinkware/Blackvue instant cloud service is not secure either. What if the 4G service they rely on for "instant" backup, the 4G tower fails and it has no signal? That doesn't work either then, but that doesn't mean Blackvue remove the 4G LTE they sell altogether because of a rare occurences.

I feel Wi-Fi on in parking mode has more benefits than negatives (as long as heat is managed).
 
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Indeed the little things are hard to catch even if you have parking guard, and CCTV

For instance last time i was at my friends place and spending the night, my car was just left parked ind in the field where we had been working all day.
BUT ! i only had parking guard on for 1 hour, and where my car was parked it was out of view from my friends CCTV camera.
But i am pretty sure some deer had become offended by my cars presence overnight cuz the day after i had severe scratched on the side just behind the driver door handle.
One of the scratches are even white, which i assume are the primer on my red car.

I will grab a pic of the scratches on my next drive.

With a 256GB card and me just using 1 hour of low bitrate parking guard, and with as little as i drive, i still have many days back catalog, if i did not use parking guard it would be weeks back.
 
ChampaRando said:
I can have a backup when I get home, if someone hits my car. No urgency to backup right at the moment of impact lol. Backing up to cloud is a luxury secondary backup. I backup all my data. I am sure you would know, what's the best solution to say data loss/hard-drive failure in a computer? backup. Ransomware? Backup. Sure an SD card is not getting any ransom but it definitely can fail one day. What if it fails today and I suddenly need footage from 1 week ago? If it failed today and I need footage from today morning, then yes my script cannot do anything - that is bad luck, but you see how a BACKUP MINIMISES my chances of dissapointment? Nothing is 100% but a backup just maximises chance of security.

Sometimes my friend had this issue, someone scratches his bottom bumper, he did not even look at it until 3 weeks. When he saw it one day suddenly, it was all too late as his camera had long overwritten the file. So if I have a cloud backup, it's extra benefit.
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My 2015 Volvo I bought new has some nice scratches from A-Holes. However, the issue is unless you notice the scratch, then you don't know when it happened. Could be month ago, weeks ago, days ago. At the time of the main big scratch, I didn't have interior camera, only front and rear. Someone had gotten my door good, but of course, the camera wasn't going to help in this instance.

Now with 3 channel, I can at least see out of the sides. But I mean if you don't notice something happen relatively soon, then it could have happened "any time". You could watch months of footage and never find that instance. As someone dinging your door with their door is unlikely to trigger a saved event unless they really clobbered your door.

ChampaRando said:
If the SD card is erased whilst me coming home from some event, then bad luck. But can you see how a secondary cloud backup is useful? If the camera shuts down in parking mode due to heat, then I would be disappointed, as Thinkware or Blackvue never did that to me, once in few years of owning them. I do not use 3CH btw, I only bought the 2CH so I hope it is similar to my Thinkware U1000 & Blackvue DR750X. And how would my camera HEAT in parking mode? This is how the mode should be applied;

  • Enter parking mode: Turn on Station Mode (or at least Wi-Fi AP I guess) AUTOMATICALLY. Currently we can turn on Wi-Fi AP by pressing a button and it turns off after 5 minutes of inactivity.
  • If connection within 5 minutes established; continue it, else turn wi-fi OFF.
  • If a connection was established, then after disconnection, then we revert to point 1. If no new connection in 5 minutes, Wi-Fi is turned off.
I don't think this will generate heat as much as to turn off a camera fully.

Technically if you want to look at small details, Thinkware/Blackvue instant cloud service is not secure either. What if the 4G service they rely on for "instant" backup, the 4G tower fails and it has no signal? That doesn't work either then, but that doesn't mean Blackvue remove the 4G LTE they sell altogether because of a rare occurences.

I feel Wi-Fi on in parking mode has more benefits than negatives (as long as heat is managed).
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2 Channel only sees front and rear. If someone sideswipes your car, hits your door with their door, etc you won't have any proof of impact.

FYI: It's the 3 channel overheating and not the 2 channel as far as I know (A139). I have only tested overheat on the 3 channel and gotten shutdowns in direct sun.

The Blackvue would the event to an SD card, but also send it to the cloud if an event is triggered. So there is redundancy in their configuration.

I'm not advocating against Station Mode. I'm inquiring upon what people's intent / uses are. So consider this me playing devil's advocate (and not being rude, or contrite, etc).

I do agree that station mode has uses. But I think a cloud based option or Viofo releasing a modem would probably be the most ideal solution. Second best would be a rooted cell phone acting as a hotspot so it isn't natted or a sim card router that allows for inbound connection. I am sure a script could be written to connect to the camera anytime internet is found and pull off videos. Although that might lead to lots of heat if videos are constantly being uploaded from the camera as they are written.
 
A little off topic, but if overheating is actively discussed here, I will tell you my opinion. Overheating must be fought not by reducing the functionality, but by an effective cooling system. The radiator used in the A139 is very small both in weight and in surface area. From here all the difficulties.
 
ras07 said:
A little off topic, but if overheating is actively discussed here, I will tell you my opinion. Overheating must be fought not by reducing the functionality, but by an effective cooling system. The radiator used in the A139 is very small both in weight and in surface area. From here all the difficulties.
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@jokiin stated, and I agree, that the cooling and technology on 3 channel hasn't quite caught up to one another. Perfect example, Zenfox T3 overheated. Their stop gap was to disable interior camera to bring camera to 2 channel, but that still didn't ultimately resolve.

Viofo A139 takes another approach. When it hits 65-70C the camera shuts off (advertised thermal max), the two units I have both shut down. Corrupting the last files (Front / Rear / Interior) being written before the unexpected hard shutdown.

The issue we have is that processors run too hot and cooling is inadequate to keep the system from overheating. So until better processors and cooling methods devised, I believe the only solution is to have a main unit mounted in shade (say under glove box / carpet) and then 3 individual cameras. And then a Bluetooth button to press for say events or pausing recording or enable wifi, etc.
 
HonestReview said:
The issue we have is that processors run too hot and cooling is inadequate to keep the system from overheating. So until better processors and cooling methods devised, I believe the only solution is to have a main unit mounted in shade (say under glove box / carpet) and then 3 individual cameras. And then a Bluetooth button to press for say events or pausing recording or enable wifi, etc.
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Yes, a 3ch unit with the main unit seperate from the cameras would be nice (y)
 
I sent a design sketch suggesting having the main unit separate from the cameras to someone 18 months ago, but it appears a tough option to build that way...

Paul.
 
HonestReview said:
I do agree that station mode has uses. But I think a cloud based option or Viofo releasing a modem would probably be the most ideal solution. Second best would be a rooted cell phone acting as a hotspot so it isn't natted or a sim card router that allows for inbound connection. I am sure a script could be written to connect to the camera anytime internet is found and pull off videos. Although that might lead to lots of heat if videos are constantly being uploaded from the camera as they are written.
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Haha a cloud facility would be cool to have in Viofo as well, but to even do that, the first step is to have Wi-Fi / Station Mode in parking mode, you're jumping too far ahead of the story! :p
 
ChampaRando said:
Haha a cloud facility would be cool to have in Viofo as well, but to even do that, the first step is to have Wi-Fi / Station Mode in parking mode, you're jumping too far ahead of the story! :p
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Cart before the horse. Yes. But we were discussing practical uses here. Personally (me only), I don't see much practical use in backing up parking files or locked files. Unless there's a reason, surfing through weeks of captured video seems to have little value.

If you don't notice a problem in a few days (car was hit or damaged while parked), then not sure what you'll gain from weeks and weeks of parking files. Sure, there's an off chance that it was captured. But in your case, you only have front + rear cameras. So if anyone slams into your door, there's nothing to be had. Only thing you'll pull off is someone backing into your car. Which is quite noticeable!

Even with the interior cam, which can see out the windows, it is unlikely to capture a door swinging into your car or other event in great detail. Whole point of the side cams is mainly to see interior and then if someone hits your car from other side. Again, noticeable events.

Maybe I'm looking at things the wrong way, but with cloud support, event files are automatically saved and stored. Really no different than what the SD card is doing. Except, cloud storage gives redundancy. As SD cards WILL and DO Fail.

How do I know? I had some crap cards early on that I saved memorable trip photos to, and like a moron, didn't back up. And when the cards didn't want to read any longer, I lost a considerable amount of files. I knew of backing up, I was just "complacent" and lazy.

Sure, the data off the SD cards could be read by pulling it direct from the memory for "unreadable cards", but not worth it for me. I've seen the process on YouTube where expose the chip and hook leads direct to the memory via soldering. As this would be a considerable expense, and no one but me cares about my trip photos, I sucked up the loss and moved on. Still have the cards though.

Now, I back everything important up in multiple places!!
 
I started to work on firmware for 139 and the first thing I encountered was that, on firmware v1.6 0708, 139 does not switch to card reader mode, but on the official v1.5 everything is ok !!
Is that so for everyone?
 
Viofo had asked I try turning off loop record. In my tests, this seems to result in my Sandisk High Endurance Corrupting the Card and/or failed recordings. Problems I don't have when I use Loop Record set to 5 minutes. In Heat test with Loop Record On, Only last files being written corrupt on overheat shutdown. Firmware 1.2
 
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I'm waiting on Viofo to release their new firmware so I can test overheating shutdown. Not sure what changes they are making based upon my recommendations.
 
@vvs49 I assume you run it in 1Ch setup, any chance of modification 2Ch? (I mean, increasing bitrate also for a remote camera?)

Btw: Why is the bottom left zoomed in? Is that also 1440p, considering it looks like your car haven't moved in compare to the one at the top?
 
HonestReview said:
Ugh. I have been considering getting a matte surface to put over my console.
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Yes, that's possible, but not for me, there are speakers in my car!
I measured the CPL filter, it naturally does not completely remove glare, but still much better !!
Nath said:
I mean, increasing bitrate also for a remote camera?
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I did not understand the whole post, the translation is not very good.
The bit rate can be changed for any camera, but I do not know how it will affect the parking mode.

So far I just started experimenting and am still waiting for news from VIOFO !!
 
vvs49 said:
I did not understand the whole post, the translation is not very good.
The bit rate can be changed for any camera, but I do not know how it will affect the parking mode.
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Ok, you did get the question about bitrate.

That btw part was meant for the attached image. You've mentioned that all the pictures are in 1440p but the bottom left (56Mbps, 120fps) seems like "zoomed in"/ cropped in compare to the top left one (36Mbps, 30fps).
 
Curious,

Why would Viofo now enable the power button in parking mode on Firmware Version 1.6 Beta? If you use the lock, isn't the whole point NOT to allow someone to turn off the camera?
 
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