In the last firmware you can set the parking timer.
Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware of that. However I see a couple posts about the latest V3 FW giving start-up problems and Viofo support recommending a rollback to earlier FW to solve that for now.
@sltwtr With a HWK whenever you start the car it will begin normal recording automatically. All dashcams with a HWK work that way.
Normally it takes about 15 minutes of driving to bring a car battery up to a near-full charge, which is the state of charge most car batteries function in. A truly full charge takes about an hour's drive. So for practical purposes a 15 minute drive is enough.
Either the parking mode timer function or the low voltage cut-off in the HWK will protect your battery equally well. Since you will be using a HWK I'd recommend detting it to 12.4V initially and see how long that gives you in parking mode. If it's not long enough set it to 12.2V which will most certainly give you 3-4 hours and likely more. With your 55A battery a 12.2V setting might lose around 10% or 15% of the battery service life but that's not significant- just a couple months of service. Roughly under $0.25 per day for parking protection if my early morning mental math is correct. You decide if the cost is worth it.
I've looked at the data table from Viofo and the numbers seem accurate. When you use watt-hours to calculate cam runtime you'll be more accurate. A car battery is considered filly depleted at around 12.0V. At a full state of charge when it's new you'll see around 13.8V fully charged. A battery near the end of it's service life will be far less when fully charged, maybe as low as 12.6V. Through all this the amperage number remains roughly constant, but the wattage changes considerably in it's exponential relationship to voltage as per "Ohm's law" of how these figures relate to each other. At lower voltages there's considerably less wattage available. I don't know why amperage is generally the figure seen for automotive work, in any other application such as home appliances and industrial motors you see wattage figures, not amperage.
As long as the circuit can supply enough amperage it's the wattage which determines runtime in cars.
My numbers are based on my real-world experience as well as what I read from numerous other members here and elsewhere who like me have been using dashcams for many years. There are a lot of variables involved with this such as battery quality, battery age, temperature extremes (both hot and cold) where the car is at, normal state of charge for the battery (roughly relates to usual driving times and driving/parking habits and how big the alternator is), and all these differences can change things considerably, maybe 30% or more between ideal conditions and worst conditions. So
no chart can really tell you much with good accuracy. And though Viofo is an honest company you must bear in mind that they would want to list optimistic numbers to enhance sales rather than worst-case scenario numbers which would look bad. I'm sure somewhere they have a disclaimer of accuracy for the chart telling you that your results may vary. If they didn't they would be flooded with cams being returned when the chart numbers couldn't be met. Some other dashcam and powerbank manufacturers give you estimated runtimes, and almost nobody ever gets them. You decide who and what to believe. Read these forums and other sites on dashcams and you'll see what is said. You can get the 3-4 hours you want without problems, but you won't get 24 hours without problems once the battery has aged.
Phil