There is a miniscule amount of power being drawn at all times with any HWK, and in fact with any modern car too. It's not enough to be a consideration unless the car is going to be parked several months, and then the car itself will be what uses most of that energy.
I've only used Viofo's HK3-C and HK-4 kits but they work excellently for me. It seems that the original problems which this thread stems from were rectified since 2 years passed with no more problems being reported since 2020. They have listed vague descriptions of whatever problems they had with their Viofo cam refusing to give any details regarding them in order that any of us here might have helped them, and their concept of good customer service seems to be based solely on having a phone number you can call for tech support- if you speak English or Korean and find the limited hours which that line is answered convenient to you- which does no good for at least half the world. IMHO they are not credible, intelligent, considerate of others, nor knowledgeable about dashcams in any depth.
In the interest of full honesty and disclosure I do beta-test and review cams from Viofo and several other cam manufacturers, but you'll find that I do not hide or omit problems and flaws I find in my reviews- I'm not anyone's "fanboi" nor will I ever be. And I have bought with my own very limited money 3 Viofo cams, which is more than I've purchased from any other dashcam manufacturer, and I certainly would not have done if I felt I might have problems of any kind with their cams. I am far from alone in believing that Viofo cams are a good choice and a good value with problems being rare and well-addressed quickly on their discovery.
Phil
While I normally agree with most of
@SawMaster 's posts, I totally disagree with this recent post.
I have recommended Viofo cameras to many people, and I indeed own a Viofo dashcam. But of course, fan boy or not, as a "tester FOR Viofo",
@SawMaster doesn't tell you that!
I've mentioned many times that although Viofo "customer support" sucks, there are many people here on this forum who will help sort out Viofo challenges. Unfortunately some of those challenges go on much longer than they should. For example, above both Nigel and LareralNW are coming up with possible solutions to a 2-year old problem with Viofo's hw3 kits!
By all rights Viofo should be paying these guys for their help. Oh wait, maybe by giving them free dashcams to test, they are at least giving them something.
If a company sells products to people in English speaking countries, I think it is incumbent upon them to have staff who are paid to handle customers from those countries. Viofo does NOT do this and Blackvue does. Some very knowledgeable people on this forum have referred to the communication from Viofo as Chinglish! If you expect to use that in communicating with Viofo, good luck!
As I've said numerous times, if you don't mind "beta mode new dashcams" which hopefully get their problems ironed-out by bargain-shopping consumers AND if you don't care to pay the price for a dashcam where the company can answer your problem/question in 3 minutes over the phone and not 3 weeks via email, Viofo might be a decent choice for you.
But, if you prefer great customer support, and yes
@SawMaster, that means being able to "speak" with your dashcam company in English on the phone, you just might consider Blackvue or Thinkware, or even Guardian dashcams. All three of these companies offer their customers good customer support. And yes, ALL THREE of these companies "charge a bit more" than Viofo charges for a dashcam... but remember, you get what you pay for!
