Continuous Recording In The Dark

golden99

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I moved my VIOFO A119s from a car I sold to a new (to me) car. In the other car I had it connected via a USB outlet that was accessory/key-on powered. The new car only has "always on" outlets so I decided I'd like to try the parking mode.

After setting everything up it works as expected, goes into standby after about 90 seconds of no activity and when something moves in its FOV it comes on.

The odd thing is that when its parked in our garage it doesn't stop recording when it's dark. In the daytime or when the lights are on, no problem. However if the lights are out it continues to record and never goes into standby mode.

I tried switching to motion detection only and the same thing happens. In the daylight or when the lights are on it works as expected. But if it's dark it continues to record, never going into standby mode.

There's no movement of the car or in the FOV in the dark.

I'm using the GPS mount with the USB cable connected to the GPS mount. The firmware is up-to-date v4.0.

I can hardwire it to an accessory fuse but I like the idea of parking mode or motion detection, but not hours and hours of recordings of our dark garage. Maybe I'm missing something?

Welcome any of the expert's thoughts.

TIA!
 
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Any lighting changes within the ~90 seconds it takes the cam to go into parking mode will cause a recording. It can be as simple as a car driving up your street where it's headlights shine on a window curtain in the garage. It can be lights from a glass door going into your house; anything different within that ~90 seconds will do it. Parking in the dark makes it easier for the cam to sense lighting changes, while there is less lighting changes during the day.

If you can't find and correct the cause, you can just turn the cam off when in your garage as your car is probably safe there.

Phil
 
I moved my VIOFO A119s from a car I sold to a new (to me) car. In the other car I had it connected via a USB outlet that was accessory/key-on powered. The new car only has "always on" outlets so I decided I'd like to try the parking mode.
After setting everything up it works as expected, goes into standby after about 90 seconds of no activity and when something moves in its FOV it comes on.
The odd thing is that when its parked in our garage it doesn't stop recording when it's dark. In the daytime or when the lights are on, no problem. However if the lights are out it continues to record and never goes into standby mode.
I tried switching to motion detection only and the same thing happens. In the daylight or when the lights are on it works as expected. But if it's dark it continues to record, never going into standby mode.
There's no movement of the car or in the FOV in the dark.
I'm using the GPS mount with the USB cable connected to the GPS mount. The firmware is up-to-date v4.0.
I can hardwire it to an accessory fuse but I like the idea of parking mode or motion detection, but not hours and hours of recordings of our dark garage. Maybe I'm missing something?
Welcome any of the expert's thoughts.
TIA!
Easier to determine the issue if short clip or screenshot posted.
Very common for owners parking their car in garage only to discover Parking Mode continuously records from false event trigger.
Can be caused by garage door overhead light flickering or total darkness forcing A119S over compensation of brightness and expose producing continuously moving interference snow patterns until more light is available.
Suggest installing automatic indoor nightlight. The cause would be very obvious by viewing recorded video.
 
Thanks for the fast feedback everyone! (y)

I forgot to mention that I have WDR set to "on" if that might make any difference.

So as mentioned, it's in the garage, overhead garage door light, overhead fluorescent light and workbench LED light are all off so it's pretty much pitch dark. There's absolutely nothing moving and the car is still. It's a convertible and the top is down so it's easy to see what the cam is up to. I stood behind it in the dark and watched it for more than 10 minutes... happily recording away (double checked the recording on the computer later). So I think it's safe to rule out any type of physical motion trigger.

jokiin, there is a small red flashing LED in the dash (typical security alarm type) but it's completely behind the cam and inset so no reflection or anything on the windshield.

However there is one tiny fairly dim light from the garage door opener on the wall in front of it; in its FOV. That's the only thing with respect to lighting. I can't tell if it's an LED or incandescent. It's fairly new so I'd assume an LED. I know LEDs actually cycle on/off at a very high rate of speed, so I wonder if that's the culprit? I'm going to put some electrical tape over it tonight and see what happens.

BCHobbyist, you may be on to something as well. As you can see from this clip there is definitely a "snow pattern" of sorts, the kind you get when using a regular digital camera in the dark. So that might be the issue? Seems like everyone in this common situation would complain about that. If I can't get it to behave with the garage door opener covered up I'll give the nightlight a try. Maybe it's just scared of the dark. ;)


SawMaster, turning it off would probably work fine, but I'd likely forget to do that more often than not. I'm more of a "set it and forget it" guy. :D

I may just end up hardwiring it to an accessory/key-on connection if I can't get this sorted out... not a big deal, but it seems like the options are nice.

In the meantime, any other thoughts are always appreciated.

Thanks again!
 
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jokiin, there is a small red flashing LED in the dash (typical security alarm type) but it's completely behind the cam and inset so no reflection or anything on the windshield.

However there is one tiny fairly dim light from the garage door opener on the wall in front of it; in its FOV. That's the only thing with respect to lighting. I can't tell if it's an LED or incandescent. It's fairly new so I'd assume an LED. I know LEDs actually cycle on/off at a very high rate of speed, so I wonder if that's the culprit? I'm going to put some electrical tape over it tonight and see what happens.
the dashlight doesn't need to be in the field of view to still be a problem, in total darkness the flash of an LED will easily keep tripping the motion detect, try covering it and see if you get the same result or not
 
To one degree or another all digital camera sensors create "image noise" in near dark or totally dark conditions. The effect looks similar to traditional analogue film grain that is "swimming around" very quickly.

I wonder if such noise in a pitch dark garage could trigger a camera set for motion detection? If I can make some time perhaps I'll try an experiment to prove or disprove this hypothesis. Or perhaps someone else might like to see if this effect will trigger motion detection if I can't get to it soon enough?

Digital image noise in low light looks like this. This is usually caused by the cameras AGC (automatic gain control) cranking things up the darker it gets. Some sensors are more prone to this than others.
imagenoise.jpg
 
quite possible, a small amount of (constant) light in the area could prevent that happening, the same stops an LED setting it off as well
 
Thanks very much for all of the feedback everyone, much appreciated!

It will forever remain a mystery, at least for me. Rather than continuing to take up your valuable time I went ahead and wired it to an accessory/key-on source. So now it's working like it did before. I've gotten this far without the other niceties, and that's okay.

I'll check back periodically to see if anyone else was able to replicate this.

Otherwise, thanks again!
 
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