Blackvue DR650GW questions

Phil-1

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I've been looking for a Dash Cam for a long time now and I have decided that the DR650 fits my requirements, but I have the following questions before I get one.

1. As the car is only used for 15 mins every morning and evening will it run the battery down?
2. Will the stop start affect the camera?
3. As I have tinted windows will the rear camera still work ok?
4. The camera is mainly to keep an eye on the car whilst parked, what are the best settings for parking mode and G-shock?

Thanks
Phil.
 
1. As the car is only used for 15 mins every morning and evening will it run the battery down?
Depend on the performance of your battery. If I can recall, DR650 drawing 4.8W/hour.

2. Will the stop start affect the camera?
Generally yes (base on a electrical motor concept where start stop affects the life of the coil). To prevent this , use a Power Magic pro installed, it will minimized your start and stop.

3. As I have tinted windows will the rear camera still work ok?
It depend on the class of the tint. I have a (3M) medium tint for front and (3M) heavy tint for my rear. So far my both cam outcome are ok. This depends on the user preferences.

4. The camera is mainly to keep an eye on the car whilst parked, what are the best settings for parking mode and G-shock?
Please kindly take not that you need a constant power source to have the parking mode works. For me, the setting will be 80 for all in the G-Sensor. And since the motion sensor is relatively very sensitive, I put it into 0 to 2.

Please kindly take note that this is from personal observation and preferences, I suggest you talk to the local dealer for their suggestion.

Thank you
 
Thanks for the reply. Was planning on getting the power magic pro with the camera. The tinted windows are factory 35%.

Phil
 
Cellink B is a much better solution than the Power Magic Pro.....but more expensive
 
I did read about the Cellink B but couldn't find it for sale in the UK.
What other UPS could I use?
 
You can buy the cellink from elite electronics on ebay uk. Total cost, including custom charges, works out to about £220! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181896289321
I purchased the Blackvue and Cellink combo chiefly for parking protection, as well. Unfortunately, as others have found here, because the Blackvue motion sensors are so sensitive the cam records continually. Aside from the strain this may put on the cam itself, for me it means that the battery has to be taken out and home charged nearly everyday since I have a only short commute by which to charge the battery.

So, if you are looking to purchase a dash cam principally for its car parking feature, then unless you were looking to use the feature only infrequently I would strike the BV off your list.
 
You can buy the cellink from elite electronics on ebay uk. Total cost, including custom charges, works out to about £220! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181896289321
I purchased the Blackvue and Cellink combo chiefly for parking protection, as well. Unfortunately, as others have found here, because the Blackvue motion sensors are so sensitive the cam records continually. Aside from the strain this may put on the cam itself, for me it means that the battery has to be taken out and home charged nearly everyday since I have a only short commute by which to charge the battery.

So, if you are looking to purchase a dash cam principally for its car parking feature, then unless you were looking to use the feature only infrequently I would strike the BV off your list.

It sounds like you're under the impression if the camera isn't savings recordings then it isn't drawing power? All dash cams actually run ON and draw current in parking mode, irrelevant of how many files they decide to save based on pixel movement sensitivity.
 
Surely they use more power whilst recording to the memory card?

I planned to install mine and turn the motion sensor off completely - Will this run the battery down as much as a camera that is constantly recording files?
 
What camera would you recommend, parking mode is very important and high on the list of must have?
How good is the G-Shock, could I turn the motion sensor down to its lowest and up the G-Shock?

I like the Blackvue as its small, discreet and has front and rear cameras.
 
What camera would you recommend, parking mode is very important and high on the list of must have?
How good is the G-Shock, could I turn the motion sensor down to its lowest and up the G-Shock?

I like the Blackvue as its small, discreet and has front and rear cameras.
The "motion" sensor on the Blackvue DR650 series is a bit of a cruel joke. In practical terms, it is on continuous record (unless you are parked in a closed garage) or turned off completely. The sensitivity is so high that even a bug flying 100 yards away will trigger it, there is no way to trigger a large event only.
 
@jokiin - Do you have the figures for wattage drawn for motion sensing only vs motion-sensing + recording? I would have thought they'd be quite some difference.

And it's not simply about battery use, it's about the potential of having required recordings written over. If I were to park my car overnight, say from 17.30 hours to 08.00 hrs, then the only way I would be able to guarantee the capture of all parking instances would be to use normal quality on a 64GB card, bearing in mind that the BV isn't noted for the excellence of it vid.

Sorry, but the BV parking feature is junk.

@ Phil - As Ralph has said, changing the G-sensor won't have any effect on the motion sensitivity on the BV, even when the MS is on its very lowest setting.

Regards alternatives, the Thinkware F750 looks interesting - see Thinkware F750 sub forum/thread. I'm currently researching, with view to offloading my BV on eBay! Clearly, I need to research longer and harder than when I purchased the BV! There is some suggestion at present that the F750 parking mode only works with a hardwire solution - again, need to fully investigate.
 
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Thanks samsara. Looks like I need to look into this a bit more [emoji45]
 
@jokiin - Do you have the figures for wattage drawn for motion sensing only vs motion-sensing + recording? I would have thought they'd be quite some difference.

from a selection of cameras I've tried the difference between motion detect recording and not recording is less than 100 milliamps in most case, camera is still on and working, the differences are truly negligible in most cases
 
Interesting - thank you.

Do you know whether event recording on a blackvue are 'protected' or merely marked/tagged? If the former, this would very much negate the recording capacity issue.

edit: in contrast to the motion sensor, the g-sensor on my BV appears to have good adjustment. I'm thinking that if event files are protected, I could play around with the setting, possibly moving up to a 99 setting to catch - and save - even the most minor of bumps. I wouldn't then have to worry so much about running out of memory capacity.
 
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Ok, so a quick google supplies the answer - events are tagged, not protected. So, bottom line, given the recording capacity limits (on most cams), is that is that the BV parking feature is indeed rubbish!

And as the Thinkware F750 triggers off ACC rather than G-sensor, that isn't the solution either, if you don't want a hardwire solution (I have a BMW). All I want is a discrete, decent image capturing dual cam with a working parking feature and which I can run off an independent battery when parked - not sure that there's one out there.
 
Ok, so a quick google supplies the answer - events are tagged, not protected. So, bottom line, given the recording capacity limits (on most cams), is that is that the BV parking feature is indeed rubbish!

And as the Thinkware F750 triggers off ACC rather than G-sensor, that isn't the solution either, if you don't want a hardwire solution (I have a BMW). All I want is a discrete, decent image capturing dual cam with a working parking feature and which I can run off an independent battery when parked - not sure that there's one out there.

Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion and we recommend sending any feedback directly to BlackVue as well. I agree with you in some points - but the Parking Mode feature is not complete rubbish.

A lot of customers use the Parking Mode as an option to give surveillance when they are parked at a shopping centre. So if you install a hard-wire kit and then set it for cut-off at 2 hrs you will have recording when you go to the shops. They can then chose to flick a switch and disable Parking Mode when they go home, we use the DR650-2CH and find the Parking Mode stops the camera from savings files when the garage door is closed.

A lot of crime has been captured on dash cam purely as a result of the camera recording motion ie. police car chases, robbery, suspicious unlawful behaviour and more. None of which would have been captured if the camera only recorded when someone was 2 metres from the lens.

For example: look at the latest post on Dash Cam Owners Facebook page (NOT captured on BlackVue)
The above video was capture in 'Park Mode' and the camera was recording general traffic... useless a lot of the time as you described, but in this case it captured vital evidence.

It would be nice if the camera could tell the difference between a moving branch and a person but the files saved are based on pixel movement so a pixel is a pixel whether it is a tree or person.

Keep in mind that recording times with the Thinkware are 1/3 (third) of what the Blackvue offers due to the difference in bitrate and compression.

BlackVue will soon have 128gb cards available that on the highest setting will give ~58hrs in Parking Mode (as it recordings at 15FPS) recording time. So chances are your battery will go flat before the camera runs out of data.
 
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