Feature Request - Parking mode

[tchavei]

Hi.

So I'm not sure where to post this but I thought maybe this could get @VIOFO-Support attention and maybe also more ppl would subscribe to the idea.

Here's the thing: we know that the a139 Pro is power hungry. During daily usage, that's fine. We're driving and constantly generating energy. However, it's also power hungry in parking mode. Even going for the most "power saving option" like timeframe mode and using external power supplies, it's not going to last more than a couple of days. This is OK for 95% of us while doing our daily routines.

However, there are occasions where one must leave the vehicle unattended for a week or more (vacations?) and in the current configuration, it's impossible to keep surveillance for the entire time.

Would it be possible, to add a new parking mode that would simply not capture any video or audio (not just not recording) until an event occurs (like someone backing into your car) and only then start recording for 1 - 5 min for example?

I know there's a risk that the camera won't capture anything as it takes time to wake up but it's a calculated risk. Not having the camera powered at all is a 100% chance you won't record a bump.

It would be a really awesome addition and I believe that if viofo devs are able to cut the camera' s consumption in this scenario to a minimum, one could potentially be in passive park mode for much more time /days.

Thank you

 

[gamesfrager]

Why not get a battery pack. This should solve your issue to an extent. Having parking mode for a week or more would be a big stretch. You can, if you have the money, add extender batteries to the main battery pack so you can double or maybe even triple the recording time. But these batteries are not cheap.

A Cellink NEO for example was the same price of my dash cam!!
No amount of power saving on the camera alone would give you a week, Not to mention the development time of such feature, the testing/QA and then releasing a new firmware.

 

[kamkar]

The makers of dashcams with a additional radar, claim that using that will greatly extend your parking guard time, you would have to go somewhere like that to ever get a week of coverage.
But you would still need a substantial battery to pull something like that off.

I have CCTV camera on my car, its 1440p and on the 2 TB harddrive in the box i have footage of my parked car going back many many weeks.

Right now it look like this observed from my computer.

 

[tchavei]

The current consumption in parking mode with buffered event detection for a dual setup seems to be around 500-600mah. In time-lapse mode it goes down to 380mah or so. Disabling the camera and leaving only the g sensor active should lower the consumption even further no?

Some other brands have unbuffered event detection so I don't think it's too far fetched to ask if such a mode could be implemented. It should actually be simpler then the buffered mode. Less code involved I assume. I obviously don't know how the workflow is but doesn't seem impossible.

 

[WillyH]

On the other hand, it would be very useful to give the camera the option to go into sleep or standby mode between two adjustable times. Most of us are home after a certain hour and many have the car in a locked garage. Why not switch off the camera between, for example, 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM in the morning? Power consumption remains an issue, even with a battery pack.

 

[SPL15]

Part of the problem is that “auto event detection” mode video motion sensitivity is way too sensitive, even at its least sensitive setting, causing the A139 Pro to draw excess power due to near 24/7 constant recording of completely useless parking mode video of a single twig in a far off distant tree slightly moving (Or in my case, a near pitch black garage where image sensor noise seems to trigger constant recording of motion events).

 

[tchavei]

Part of the problem is that “auto event detection” mode video motion sensitivity is way too sensitive, even at its least sensitive setting, causing the A139 Pro to draw excess power due to near 24/7 constant recording of completely useless parking mode video of a single twig in a far off distant tree slightly moving (Or in my case, a near pitch black garage where image sensor noise seems to trigger constant recording of motion events).

Well, one more reason to offer a "impact event only" parking mode.

We all know it's not perfect. We all know it might miss the offenders license plate but I'd definitely activate it if I expected to be away from the car for a week or more. Better to have some chance to capture a ding than none at all, right?

BTW, I've been testing my a139 pro on the bench in buffered event detection (motion detection low, g sensor high) and I only see rare footage when one of my cats decides to sit in front of the cam or just pass by. I don't have recorded "no apparent motion" clips. It also correctly saves the clips in the ro folder when I give the camera a slight ding with the finger.

 

[VIOFO-Support]

Hi.

So I'm not sure where to post this but I thought maybe this could get @VIOFO-Support attention and maybe also more ppl would subscribe to the idea.

Here's the thing: we know that the a139 Pro is power hungry. During daily usage, that's fine. We're driving and constantly generating energy. However, it's also power hungry in parking mode. Even going for the most "power saving option" like timeframe mode and using external power supplies, it's not going to last more than a couple of days. This is OK for 95% of us while doing our daily routines.

However, there are occasions where one must leave the vehicle unattended for a week or more (vacations?) and in the current configuration, it's impossible to keep surveillance for the entire time.

Would it be possible, to add a new parking mode that would simply not capture any video or audio (not just not recording) until an event occurs (like someone backing into your car) and only then start recording for 1 - 5 min for example?

I know there's a risk that the camera won't capture anything as it takes time to wake up but it's a calculated risk. Not having the camera powered at all is a 100% chance you won't record a bump.

It would be a really awesome addition and I believe that if viofo devs are able to cut the camera' s consumption in this scenario to a minimum, one could potentially be in passive park mode for much more time /days.

Thank you

There is considerable risk if the camera's sensitivity is lowered to such a level. Then the meaning of the camera will be cut down. Since it is a 4K camera, it will cause more power consumption. You can set the sensitivity to low and choose time-lapse with a low bitrate. And we will also keep innovating in this filed to reduce power consumption.

 

[Karagandinez]

Here is how user "Nigel" describes the parking mode in the test model A119 Mini.

I have mine set to the Low Bitrate Mode, with a Viofo HK3-C hardwire kit providing power while parked. Low Bitrate Mode provides continuous recording of both video and audio while parked, so is guaranteed never to miss anything. I have the "Enter Parking Mode Timer" set to 90 seconds, so that it doesn't switch to parking mode if I restart the engine after stalling, or if I turn off the engine while waiting at red lights. I have the "Parking Recording Duration" set to 3 hours, which covers any stays in supermarket car parks, but doesn't bother recording continuously overnight while parked at home. After the 3 hours has expired it will go to sleep, but still monitor the g-sensor for impacts. If the vehicle is hit then it will wake up and start recording, it takes about 10 seconds to wake up fully.

It is a pity that this moment is absent in the production model.
I think this mode would be useful in other models as well.

 

[tchavei]

"but still monitor the g-sensor for impacts. If the vehicle is hit then it will wake up and start recording, it takes about 10 seconds to wake up fully."

The first part of the sentence is great. That's what I was talking about but the second part... If it takes 10 seconds to boot and actually start recording then it's useless

There is considerable risk if the camera's sensitivity is lowered to such a level. Then the meaning of the camera will be cut down. Since it is a 4K camera, it will cause more power consumption. You can set the sensitivity to low and choose time-lapse with a low bitrate. And we will also keep innovating in this filed to reduce power consumption.

I appreciate your response. I will test time lapse. Didn't realise you could combine low bitrate with time-lapse.

I'm sure firmware will be tweaked with time.

Thank you

 

[rcg530]

Didn't realise you could combine low bitrate with time-lapse.

About Nigel's statement of using the parking mode timer to put the dash camera to "sleep" after the selected amount of parking mode session time. That's not quite how that works. After the timer has expired, the dash camera powers down to the "Off" state. It will not awaken if an impact occurs after the timer expires. It basically turns it off (just like long pressing the power button). While reviewing the A119 Mini, I tested this concept of the dash camera waking up after the timer expires when an impact occurs and it just doesn't work that way. In the power consumption chart the amount of power the A119 Mini consumes after the parking mode timer turns it off is the same as if the A119 Mini has been powered down using the power button. I tried tapping the A119 Mini and hitting the table it was sitting on to see if it would awaken and recording after the parking mode timer turned it off, it never powered up and recorded anything while in that state.



The statement about using time-lapse mode with a low bitrate is a bit misleading. The only configuration choice with time-lapse parking mode is the number of frames per second. Selecting a lower number of FPS will reduce the bitrate and storage amount required, but it's not a combination of time-lapse parking and low bitrate parking mode. My personal preference is to use low bitrate parking mode since it will record audio and video while still saving space on the microSD card.

 

[Karagandinez]

About Nigel's statement of using the parking mode timer to put the dash camera to "sleep" after the selected amount of parking mode session time. That's not quite how that works. After the timer has expired, the dash camera powers down to the "Off" state.

Nigel wrote that this only worked on the very first test firmware.
When the model went into production, this feature was removed.
Here

 

[VIOFO-Support]

"but still monitor the g-sensor for impacts. If the vehicle is hit then it will wake up and start recording, it takes about 10 seconds to wake up fully."

The first part of the sentence is great. That's what I was talking about but the second part... If it takes 10 seconds to boot and actually start recording then it's useless



I appreciate your response. I will test time lapse. Didn't realise you could combine low bitrate with time-lapse.

I'm sure firmware will be tweaked with time.

We mean that you can set the Bitrate to low in settings. The parking modes Low Bitrate Recording and Time-lapse Recording cannot be set at the same time.

 

[tchavei]

View attachment 65052We mean that you can set the Bitrate to low in settings. The parking modes Low Bitrate Recording and Time-lapse Recording cannot be set at the same time.

Thank you for the updated response.


After thinking about this, I think my request can be summed up to: make the dashcam's power requirements lower in parking mode so it lasts longer. I know it's not easy, maybe impossible with the current hardware but I hope you understand that it makes me (and probably others) uncomfortable knowing that the dashcam's power requirements in parking mode are near of the consumptions in active driving mode.


The car where I'm installing the a139 pro (EV) uses some interesting but obscure logic of recharging the 12v (lifepo4) battery whenever it detects that it gets low (20% capacity left) for 30 minutes (or less if 50% charge reached). It's unknown at what rate the battery is charged so one can't really compute out the theoretical capacity. Unfortunately, this logic (which is actually nice) only repeats itself 8 times. After that, the ecu will give up recharging the 12V until the car is fully powered on (readiness to drive).

Assuming a starting charge level of 100% and a recharge to 50% (best case scenario), this could power the dashcam up to 7 days. More then enough for the yearly holidays. Of course, only a practical experiment will confirm or dismiss this.


While preparing the hardwire kit (I don't appreciate crimp connections so I soldered the fuse taps to the hardwire kit) I also added a Bluetooth lithium battery monitor (BMS6) that I intend to use to monitor how the battery behaves overnight and to verify that obscure logic during extended parking mode.