Dashcam with low power consumption in parking mode / timelapse?

[j_o_e]

Hi,

I am looking for a new dashcam with a particular focus on the parking mode.

I intend to hardwire the cam. However, I frequently park the car for a week without driving. Accordingly, I am looking for a camera that won't uneccessarily drain my battery and enable long operation times.

When looking at many camera manufacturers, it seems like 400 - 600 mAh appears to be common during parking mode (which I consider to be high).

I saw that the Thinkware U1000 offers a superb low power parking mode (although it comes at a rather high price). I would be particularly interested in finding a dashcam with a low power consumption in timelapse mode, which would allow me to also record minor bumps / scratches, that won't always trigger the G-sensor.

Do you have other recommendations? Do you know, how much power your particular model uses in parking / timelapse mode?

Best regards,

J.

 

[dashcamateur]

I intend to hardwire the cam. However, I frequently park the car for a week without driving. Accordingly, I am looking for a camera that won't uneccessarily drain my battery and enable long operation times. ...
I saw that the Thinkware U1000 offers a superb low power parking mode (although it comes at a rather high price). I would be particularly interested in finding a dashcam with a low power consumption in timelapse mode, which would allow me to also record minor bumps / scratches, that won't always trigger the G-sensor.

Do you have other recommendations?

With the U1000, you're probably thinking of the energy saving parking mode in conjunction with Thinkware's Radar accessory. See @Vortex_Radar's review of the U1000 for a good explanation.

Thinkware's Q1000 and X1000 have similar parking modes, and are likewise compatible with the Radar.

AFAICT, Thinkware's energy saving parking mode, when used with the Radar accessory, is the only game in town for low-current parking mode with a reasonable likelihood of capturing the moment of impact if another vehicle collides with your parked car. If your car has a decent starter-motor battery, and/or if you put a 30W or so OBD solar panel on the dashboard and park your car where it will catch good sunlight, then I think you have a chance of those cameras lasting a week without triggering the hardwire kit's low-voltage cutoff.

Do you know, how much power your particular model uses in parking / timelapse mode?

Power Core have collated some statistics. Go to https://www.power-core.co.uk/installation_support.html . Click on the dashcam manufacturer of interest, then scroll down the page to look at the power consumption figures.

 

[j_o_e]

Thanks a lot. The link to power core is quite helpful.

I am just wondering about their data, as it seems that some cameras are rated below the power consumption reported by the manufacturer.

Still tending towards the Thinkware U1000, although I find it quite pricey for a 3 year old dashcam and in comparison to its competitors...

 

[dashcamateur]

Thanks a lot. The link to power core is quite helpful.

I am just wondering about their data, as it seems that some cameras are rated below the power consumption reported by the manufacturer.

The only comparably comprehensive source of dashcam power consumption statistics that I have encountered is @rcg530 . His dashcam review videos (and his threads here, IIRC) usually include current or power measurements. I'm not sure if he has a web page anywhere where he has collated all of those statistics in one place for easy browsing, but perhaps he will chime in here?

Still tending towards the Thinkware U1000, although I find it quite pricey for a 3 year old dashcam and in comparison to its competitors...

At this time, the kind of parking mode with the lowest consumption is the kind where the camera goes to sleep until woken by either a shock or a radar accessory.

If you're happy to rely on the camera sleeping most of the time, and waking (and starting to record) only when a shock (momentary high acceleration) occurs, then you aren't restricted to Thinkware. Nextbase cameras, for instance, can also do that. But even if the camera only takes a second or two to wake and start recording, it will still miss the approach (which could be crucial for recording license plates) and the moment of impact (which could be crucial for proving that the culprit crashed into your car, rather than the other way around).

That leaves the Thinkware X1000, U1000, and Q1000, whose radar/lidar accessory power-efficiently detects approaching vehicles (within its field of view), and wakes the camera and tells it to start buffering before such vehicles are close enough to collide with your car.

Given that, to my knowledge, no other cameras on the market offer this, and also given that the Thinkware cameras seem to be quite reliable, with decent image and sound quality, I don't think Thinkware prices are unreasonable. But that's subjective.

Anyway, if you find anything else that has similarly low average power draw and a chance of recording the moment of impact, please update the thread. I'd be interested!

 

[j_o_e]

Thanks again for your thoughts. I agree that timelapse or a buffered parking mode would be preferable to pure motion / shock detection modes.

However, it appears as if these modes will unlikely last for a week on the car's battery supply due to their power consumption. At least the cameras that I took a look at will at least use 3-4 W when in timelapse or other parking modes, which will unlikely allow me to leave the car for a week.

Accordingly (and unless I want to invest significant amounts in additional batteries, that need to be regularly charged), I assume that I have to choose between the better surveillance mode which won't last for the whole parking duration and a motion-based energy saving mode.

The latter appears more reasonable to me, as I consider a recording one second after the incident to be preferable over the risk that the camera is completely off due to a power-cutoff (which will leave me with no video at all).

My comment regarding the Thinkware pricing was not supposed to call them unreasonable. I just noticed that I would probably get the same video quality and everything except for the low-power parking mode for around half the price (e.g. from Viofo). I probably wouldn't think twice if the U1000 had the Starvis 2 sensor. ;-)

 

[rcg530]

I scanned through the various spreadsheets I have from the power consumption testing that I've performed and I collected the low power consumption, time-lapse, low bitrate and/or low frame rate Watt values. For the low power consumption parking modes, I included the number of seconds it takes for the dash camera to power up and start recording after the impact event. I don't have a Thinkware dash camera with a radar unit, so I don't have power consumption data for that configuration.

• BlackVue DR750X-3CH Plus
  • Time-lapse 1fps: 5.29 Watts
• BlackVue DR900X-2CH DMS Plus:
  • Time-lapse 1fps [with DMC200]: 7.09 Watts
  • Time-lapse 1fps [with DMC200 + with CM100LTE]: 7.69 Watts
• BlackVue DR970X 2-Ch
  • Time-lapse 1fps: 4.07 Watts
• FineVu GX1000 2-Ch
  • Smart Time Lapse @ 2fps: 4.42 Watts
  • Power Saving: 0.05 Watts, 5.6 seconds
• MIOFIVE Dash Cam Dual
  • Time-Lapse @ 1fps: 4.37 Watts
  • Power Saving Parking Guard: 0.10 Watts, 10 seconds front video, 16 seconds rear video
• Nextbase 522GW w/Rear Window Cam
  • Intelligent Parking Mode: 0.14 Watts, 6 seconds
• Thinkware F200 Pro 2-Ch
  • Energy Saving Mode: 1.85 Watts, 1 to 2 seconds
  • Time-lapse @ 2fps: 2.71 Watts
• Vantrue E1
  • Collision Detection: 0.10 Watts, 9.5 seconds
  • Low Bitrate: 1080p 15FPS [tested] or 720p 15fps: 1.68 Watts
  • Low Frame Rate (1fps/5fps [tested], 10fps, 15 fps): 2.04 Watts
• Vantrue E1 Lite
  • Collision Detection: 0.21 Watts, 9 seconds
  • Low Bitrate: 1080p 15FPS [tested] or 720p 15fps: 1.59 Watts
  • Low Frame Rate (1fps/5fps [tested], 10fps, 15 fps): 1.60 Watts
• VIOFO A119 Mini
  • Time-Lapse 10 fps: 2.46 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 2.62 Watts
• VIOFO A139 Pro 2-CH
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 4.99 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 5.53 Watts
• VIOFO A229 Duo
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 4.36 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 4.91 Watts
• VIOFO T130 3-Ch
  • Time-Lapse 1fps: 5.05 Watts
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 5.38 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 6.09 Watts
• VIOFO WM1
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 1.63 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 1.76 Watts

 

[j_o_e]

Very helpful, @rcg530 - thank you very much for your effort.

You don't happen to have data for the Viofo A119V3 (maybe even for the 2channel version)? The data from Power Core (linked above) looks not too bad for this model, so I would like to verify this...

 

[rcg530]

Very helpful, @rcg530 - thank you very much for your effort.

You don't happen to have data for the Viofo A119V3 (maybe even for the 2channel version)? The data from Power Core (linked above) looks not too bad for this model, so I would like to verify this...

No, I don't have power consumption data for the A119V3 since I don't have one of those dash cameras. I've asked for one from VIOFO, but they've not sent one to me for testing.

 

[wibbly]

Anyone tried one of these to retrofit a radar detector with almost any dashcam?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005143707078.html

 

[kamkar]

I like to see someone try that radar kit out, it is a bit different way of doing it, and i assume it wake up the camera which then record in normal mode.
So there might be a issue of it maybe waking camera up too late, after all it take a few seconds for a dashcam to boot.

 

[wibbly]

I like to see someone try that radar kit out, it is a bit different way of doing it, and i assume it wake up the camera which then record in normal mode.
So there might be a issue of it maybe waking camera up too late, after all it take a few seconds for a dashcam to boot.

Yes, but the theory is it's sensitive enough to trigger the dashcam power up in advance of an accident so at least erroding some or all of the start-up time

 

[kamkar]

Indeed, someone nice and easy trying to park in a empty slot, probably not a problem, but parked at the curb and someone at speed tearing your mirror off or the side of the car, that i dont think would work unless you are always recording low bitrate like i use, or you have a buffer in the parking guard.

it is still neat, i am thinking about getting one and use it with a action camera for instance, for a kind of poor mans trail camera.

 

[wibbly]

Indeed, someone nice and easy trying to park in a empty slot, probably not a problem, but parked at the curb and someone at speed tearing your mirror off or the side of the car, that i dont think would work unless you are always recording low bitrate like i use, or you have a buffer in the parking guard.

it is still neat, i am thinking about getting one and use it with a action camera for instance, for a kind of poor mans trail camera.

But isn't this the way the Thinkware cameras operate with radar - camera has to power up after radar is triggered?

Benefit is VERY power consumption in 'parking' mode. They quote 7mA - which should last weeks

 

[kamkar]

It is indeed, though i am not sure if the radars operate at the power supply so directly.

The kickstarter camera i might get soon it also have radar, but there is a #2 CPU / controller in it, which i think also operate the radar, this camera should also be possible to reach with 4G even if its a sleep.
BUT ! i am not sure if that is also the case with the blackvue & thinkware systems, of old at least, i seem to recall that when they are at deep sleep with the radar you can got contact the system with 4G

They do claim substantially longer parking guard durations using the radars.

 

[wibbly]

I scanned through the various spreadsheets I have from the power consumption testing that I've performed and I collected the low power consumption, time-lapse, low bitrate and/or low frame rate Watt values. For the low power consumption parking modes, I included the number of seconds it takes for the dash camera to power up and start recording after the impact event. I don't have a Thinkware dash camera with a radar unit, so I don't have power consumption data for that configuration.

• BlackVue DR750X-3CH Plus
  • Time-lapse 1fps: 5.29 Watts
• BlackVue DR900X-2CH DMS Plus:
  • Time-lapse 1fps [with DMC200]: 7.09 Watts
  • Time-lapse 1fps [with DMC200 + with CM100LTE]: 7.69 Watts
• BlackVue DR970X 2-Ch
  • Time-lapse 1fps: 4.07 Watts
• FineVu GX1000 2-Ch
  • Smart Time Lapse @ 2fps: 4.42 Watts
  • Power Saving: 0.05 Watts, 5.6 seconds
• MIOFIVE Dash Cam Dual
  • Time-Lapse @ 1fps: 4.37 Watts
  • Power Saving Parking Guard: 0.10 Watts, 10 seconds front video, 16 seconds rear video
• Nextbase 522GW w/Rear Window Cam
  • Intelligent Parking Mode: 0.14 Watts, 6 seconds
• Thinkware F200 Pro 2-Ch
  • Energy Saving Mode: 1.85 Watts, 1 to 2 seconds
  • Time-lapse @ 2fps: 2.71 Watts
• Vantrue E1
  • Collision Detection: 0.10 Watts, 9.5 seconds
  • Low Bitrate: 1080p 15FPS [tested] or 720p 15fps: 1.68 Watts
  • Low Frame Rate (1fps/5fps [tested], 10fps, 15 fps): 2.04 Watts
• Vantrue E1 Lite
  • Collision Detection: 0.21 Watts, 9 seconds
  • Low Bitrate: 1080p 15FPS [tested] or 720p 15fps: 1.59 Watts
  • Low Frame Rate (1fps/5fps [tested], 10fps, 15 fps): 1.60 Watts
• VIOFO A119 Mini
  • Time-Lapse 10 fps: 2.46 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 2.62 Watts
• VIOFO A139 Pro 2-CH
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 4.99 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 5.53 Watts
• VIOFO A229 Duo
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 4.36 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 4.91 Watts
• VIOFO T130 3-Ch
  • Time-Lapse 1fps: 5.05 Watts
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 5.38 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 6.09 Watts
• VIOFO WM1
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 1.63 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 1.76 Watts

Great - when you do power consumption tests do you test:
- Power taken at the hardwire kit or cigarette lighter input, or the 5V input to camera?
- If at the hardwire kit or cigarette lighter input, what input (car battery) voltage do you measure at (or simulate)? 12V?

 

[rcg530]

Great - when you do power consumption tests do you test:
- Power taken at the hardwire kit or cigarette lighter input, or the 5V input to camera?
- If at the hardwire kit or cigarette lighter input, what input (car battery) voltage do you measure at (or simulate)? 12V?

All of my power consumption tests are performed at the 12-volt power source input to the device that powers the dash camera. I set my DC power supply to output 12.6 volts (voltage level of a fully charged 12-volt car battery). The amp draw is measured using a Fluke 117 multimeter. I measure the amp draw for a minimum of 5-minutes and I record the min/max/avg observed by the Fluke 117 multimeter. For dash camera operations that last for a short time (impact recording, motion initiated recordings), I start the min/max/avg data capture at the start of the operation and I do my best to get as close to the end of that operation to get the min/max/avg. Some incident/movement recordings are only active for 10 to 60 seconds (depending in the dash camera and feature).

 

[wibbly]

Thanks. Just curious, have you ever experimented with lower voltages (say 12v) and found the power consumption materially different?

 

[rcg530]

Thanks. Just curious, have you ever experimented with lower voltages (say 12v) and found the power consumption materially different?

When testing the low voltage cutoff feature of various dash cameras (or their hardwire kits), I will drop the voltage down and you'll see an increase in the amps consumed (not by too much). That's why I now include the Watt values in my power consumption charts to help account for variations in the volts and amps drawn by the dash camera.

 

[wibbly]

Interesting, thanks, insofar as when estimating the impact on a car battery (in Ah) in parking mode I guess it will actually drain the battery faster as it goes flatter... E.g. 500mA power draw would take 1Ah out of the battery every 2 hours. But that 500mA will actually be rising over time as the battery voltage drops, taking each Ah out of the battery's remaining capacity more quickly. Of course that assumes battery capacity called out in Ah for a car battery is accurate - maybe Watt Hours is what we should be using, but that's not how they are specified....

 

[xctpro]

I scanned through the various spreadsheets I have from the power consumption testing that I've performed and I collected the low power consumption, time-lapse, low bitrate and/or low frame rate Watt values. For the low power consumption parking modes, I included the number of seconds it takes for the dash camera to power up and start recording after the impact event. I don't have a Thinkware dash camera with a radar unit, so I don't have power consumption data for that configuration.

• BlackVue DR750X-3CH Plus
  • Time-lapse 1fps: 5.29 Watts
• BlackVue DR900X-2CH DMS Plus:
  • Time-lapse 1fps [with DMC200]: 7.09 Watts
  • Time-lapse 1fps [with DMC200 + with CM100LTE]: 7.69 Watts
• BlackVue DR970X 2-Ch
  • Time-lapse 1fps: 4.07 Watts
• FineVu GX1000 2-Ch
  • Smart Time Lapse @ 2fps: 4.42 Watts
  • Power Saving: 0.05 Watts, 5.6 seconds
• MIOFIVE Dash Cam Dual
  • Time-Lapse @ 1fps: 4.37 Watts
  • Power Saving Parking Guard: 0.10 Watts, 10 seconds front video, 16 seconds rear video
• Nextbase 522GW w/Rear Window Cam
  • Intelligent Parking Mode: 0.14 Watts, 6 seconds
• Thinkware F200 Pro 2-Ch
  • Energy Saving Mode: 1.85 Watts, 1 to 2 seconds
  • Time-lapse @ 2fps: 2.71 Watts
• Vantrue E1
  • Collision Detection: 0.10 Watts, 9.5 seconds
  • Low Bitrate: 1080p 15FPS [tested] or 720p 15fps: 1.68 Watts
  • Low Frame Rate (1fps/5fps [tested], 10fps, 15 fps): 2.04 Watts
• Vantrue E1 Lite
  • Collision Detection: 0.21 Watts, 9 seconds
  • Low Bitrate: 1080p 15FPS [tested] or 720p 15fps: 1.59 Watts
  • Low Frame Rate (1fps/5fps [tested], 10fps, 15 fps): 1.60 Watts
• VIOFO A119 Mini
  • Time-Lapse 10 fps: 2.46 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 2.62 Watts
• VIOFO A139 Pro 2-CH
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 4.99 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 5.53 Watts
• VIOFO A229 Duo
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 4.36 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 4.91 Watts
• VIOFO T130 3-Ch
  • Time-Lapse 1fps: 5.05 Watts
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 5.38 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 6.09 Watts
• VIOFO WM1
  • Time-Lapse 10fps: 1.63 Watts
  • Low Bitrate: 1.76 Watts

can you please update the list woth the new cameras? thanks a lot