Auto Record Facility

MarteeBee

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Renfrewshire
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Dash Cam
522GW
Should 552GW Dash cam record automatically if involved in an accident..?
 
should be recording anytime you're driving, depending on your G-Sensor settings it may lock a file to prevent it being overwritten if you are involved in an accident
 
As jokiin say a dashcam should be recording as soon as you have started your car, and so it will then record anything that happen.
Some prefer to then have G-sensor active to lock a accident in a read only state so it can not be deleted as part of the dashcams routine of deleting the oldest files when the memory card are full.
And that's sort of just fine, but the problem is the G-sensor can also pick up you driving over a railroad track or a hole in the road, and think that was a event and then create a read only file ( of nothing )
And these G-sensors are often hard or impossible to tune so it is fool proof.
So i argue if you have a large enough memory card you don't really need this, cuz say you have a 64 GB memory card ( which are the smallest i would recommend for 1 dashcam video channel )
Then you have 8 hours of recording time before the oldest files are getting deleted, and i am sure in a bad event you will not drive more after such a event, and for smaller events you can always use the manual event button, which pretty much do the same as the G-sensor do and save your event in a read only state so the only way to get rid of that is to format the memory card in the dashcam or doing the same on a computer.

In my opinion the way of using some form of sensor to lock events are only a good idea if you run a really small memory card, and then you still have to be careful cuz a lot of locked files on your memory card mean there are less memory space for the regular recordings, and at least in the old days you could end up with a card full of protected files and so have no room for more, not even more read only event files.
So in my opinion the G-sensor are only of some use if you are using parking mode, but even then it will have to be able to be adjusted properly to not generate too many false positives or even worse not enough.
A G-sensor will probably not be able to detect someone keying the side of your car while parked ( if you use parking mode ) as this are really not a event big enough for the G-sensor to pick up.

Newer dashcams also have a limit on how many read only files or how large memory space that can be used for events, so you can not end up with a memory card full of read only event files.
So like for normal operation when the number or memory space for read only files are reached the camera will also delete the oldest event files, so this mean you can not have a event on the camera memory card forever, and you can not have a too sensitive tunes sensor as that will generate a lot of read only files that will fill up and then start to recycle those, and so you could actually loose one of those that actually matter to a recording of you driving over a pothole.
So by not using things like G-sensor your only problem are how many hours of recording your camera have room for, and for a 64Gb card that's around 8 hours, so for a event where you don't use sensor but have a major accident, you will have to drive off the road into a place where you will not be seen for over 8 hours, and your car will have to be running or at least have the key turned so you have power to the camera.

And i am sure you will agree with me that, something like that will probably not happen to you.

Your camera should also have a LED flashing indicating it is recording, and also a flashing red dot on the image on the LCD screen, + i also think your brand / model camera will sound a alert if it is not recording due to bad memory card or maybe you forgot to put memory card after reviewing footage on the computer.

Which you should do now and then, dashcams are not set and forget devises just yet, so you be wise to keep a eye on how it perform.
I use 128 GB memory cards and on the computer with the memory card in a card reader it take me 5 - 10 minutes to verify everything are fine ( looking at first and last file in each drive sessions and see if the start and end in the right places )
So you just have to look at a few seconds of every file you want to inspect, if you should look over it all it would of course take as long as it did recording it,,,, and that would be a colossal waste of time.

I inspect my memory card like that every 1-2 months, so 10 minutes spent doing that are nothing, but mean a lot to ensure you are good to go when you have a accident.
And trust many have come in here saying " i put a cheap dashcam and memory card in my car 4 years ago and now i had a accident which it have not recorded"
 
@MarteeBee
Presumably you are concerned about 'preserving the evidence' in the case that you are involved in an accident?
In addition to jokiin's post #2, I can also offer the following.
Although the camera may or may not lock the file when/if the 'g' sensor is triggered, the absolute surefire method is to have a spare SD card in the car and immediately in the aftermath, remove the card with the 'evidence' from the cam and insert the spare (if you are able to continue your journey).
This will ensure that:
a. the 'evidence' does not get overwritten.
b. the card is not subsequently corrupted for whatever reason making it impossible to recover any data from it,.
 
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