ARC 900 initial thoughts & images.

[Onetenner]

The Arc 900 I ordered from Canada finally turned up yesterday, a quick test in the house followed by the inevitable firmware update after pairing with my phone last night after work, followed by installation this afternoon.
Points noted so far:-
Unlike other cameras, you have to pair each time by scanning a QR code using the app, I suppose this is a 'benefit' of having a screen - personally I'd prefer if it just remembered and paired once the wifi was activated.
The front-to-rear cable has a micro-USB connector, as does the Q850 I'm replacing. The rear connector is snug, as expected, using the existing cable, but the camera end is quite sloppy, and the rear camera will not connect. Despite the connector exterior being dimensionally the same, the new cable is a lot more snug in the camera port and , as expected, connects the rear camera reliably.
As I have a Blackvue Elite 9 on order, I plan to temporarily fit the cable as pulling it through the cable flexible sheath between the body and the liftgate is non-trivial and I'd rather install (and deinstall the old cable) in one go rather than do the job twice.

Thankfully, the screen turns off after 30 seconds, I'm not a fan of screens, to me they can be a distraction and take up more room than I want a dashcam to occupy - I did try a U3000 Pro briefly but the form factor meant the rear view mirror and it's associated camera extension impeded the camera view - unless I was willing to move it out to the side and down the screen, which looked ridiculous. The Q850 has the lens much closer to the screen than the U3000 Pro and the ARC 900, the ARC 900 is not as far back, but could do with being closer for me.

I configured the settings using the phone app - mostly left as default, only changing parking sensitivity, volume to off and memory card usage to parking priority. I was surprised to find that the settings didn't 'take - there is no save button in the app, so I re-did the settings using the touch screen which does have a save icon.

Parking recordings are around 41MB each, whereas driving recordings are around 240MB each, driving mode appears to be activated once the accessory voltage is seen.
As you will notice from the screenshots, I definitely need a polarising filter, Thinkware do not currently offer one. I also noted a lot of 'flare' from headlights & streetlights. I won't be able to do any daylight driving until the weekend, so for now I've got the moonlight / streetlight videos to ponder over....

Firmware update - that's some file size!

These two images are from parking recordings, there is a lot of noise and artefacts - I opened the files directly from the SD card using an up-to-date version of VLC, the walls with the artefacts are brick built.

Screenshots from driving recordings pick up rear registration plates very well - I was still moving at about 12mph when this was recorded. I'm using the Thinkware PC viewer to give the best chance of favourable images.

Oncoming traffic, not so good however - maybe due to motion, maybe due to the white reflective plates we have in UK overloading the sensor - I have no idea, but even stationary vehicles are blurred, moving vehicles you can sort-of expect as the closing speed will be up to 60mph.

Maybe the colour is the clue? this white car, although stopped, gives a good image of the registration plate, even before I zoomed in, the image still seems 'noisy' though.

Here is one using the Thinkware viewer, zoomed in.

This one has two cars facing the camera, the stationary one gives no better registration plate resolution, even though it is mainly out of my headlight range. The rear registration plate on the left of the picture is clearly visible, speed was around 25mph, probably a closing speed of 45mph with the moving vehicle.

Overall I'm reasonably happy, for the money, it could be better - and probably should be better. Maybe firmware updates will address some of the issues, maybe testing should be done in the wider sales market to account for regional variations?

 

[Onetenner]

A few more parking images.
This is the Q850, earlier in the day - the image quality is lower but there are no artefacts, the weather was quite overcast though.

ARC 900 using the PC viewer

Using VLC

Obviously the registration plates on the cars to the left of the picture are easily read, unlike the Q850, the noise and artefacts are still there, even with the Thinkware viewer. No obvious noise from the Q850 image though.

 

[Onetenner]

A quick update, I've completely uninstalled VLC, including clearing all registry references, UserData etc. Reinstalled and it's now no more 'noisy' than the Thinkware PC viewer software, some of the artefacts are slightly different, but it is no longer worse.

 

[Onetenner]

Another point worth of note, there is no 'live view' on the phone app, presumably as there is a screen. Unfortunately it makes alignment of the rear camera an absolute pain, with much to-ing and fro-ing to check the image, it's so much easier if you can use the phone screen in the back of the car...

 

[Kuya]

Another point worth of note, there is no 'live view' on the phone app, presumably as there is a screen. Unfortunately it makes alignment of the rear camera an absolute pain, with much to-ing and fro-ing to check the image, it's so much easier if you can use the phone screen in the back of the car...

Can confirm the lack of live view makes installation a bit of a pain. As I feel the screen on the dash cam doesn't give me the whole recording view.

I installed it for a customer yesterday and also had problems with parking mode. The only parking mode that seemed to work was motion detection(both motion and g-sensor triggering worked). Whenever I enabled energy saving parking mode it would says that it's going into parking mode but no matter how I tried to trigger the g sensor it would not wake up and there would be no files created during the test. I even updated the firmware with the customer and still the same issue. I advised them to contact Thinkware directly and we'll see from there.

Has anybody else had this issue?

 

[Onetenner]

I don't have any energy saving mode enabled, the car has a big enough starter battery (110Ah) and is in daily use so a few more mA on top of the ~30mA quiescent draw isn't going to bother it - I do agree, it should work - might be worth testing the starter battery on the customers vehicle to make sure that a) it's in good condition, and b) it is not in a low state of charge.

With regard to the lack of live view, I've re-engineered an aftermarket CPL to fit the rear camera, I had to resort to an 'assistant' (i.e. the Mrs.) sat in the front shouting instructions whilst squinting at the screen on the ARC 900 to get it aligned properly. We were both less than impressed as it's something that should take seconds, not minutes.

On a separate note, I did discover that the WiFi connection between phone & camera would be dropped after about 20 seconds if there is another known WiFi within range that has internet connectivity, I suppose it's more of a 'phone thing' than a camera problem, temporarily disabling the auto connect to that network solved the issue.

 

[DashGuard]

Going from a q1000 to the ARC900, I get really irritated by having to scan qr code, camera is mounted behind my rear view mirror, enjoy scanning under sucker every time.

They should change that.