First Nextbase cam, not impressed so far

[beasty54]

After using a couple of cheap dash cams in my old car (front and back) i decided to pick the 422GW on Friday (3/1/19) as well as the additional rear mounted camera so i could hard wire them into my new car. I followed the instructions provided by a member of the A Class forums (imgur.com/gallery/rvFjRwq), everything was nice and easy and the camera seems to be operating normally with the exception of the battery.

1. I did as per the instructions and plugged it into a normal phone charger overnight (i use this one for a tablet)
2. The following morning the battery was still dead
3. Hooked the camera up to a fast charger, 1 hour later its full.
4. put it back in my car another hour later... Low battery warning.
5. Drove 50 miles and parked up, battery full
6. Came back to the car 4 hours later, battery flat (No recorded footage from parking mode)
7. Drove home 50 miles, battery full
8. Went to the car today at 2pm... Low battery warning.

As far as i can see, nothing is draining the battery while it's hooked up in the car as nothing is activating parking mode and the hard wire connections should be fine too.

I've been reluctant to buy Next base dash cams for quite some time now as they're not particularly discreet and I've read many complaints about the batteries but i wanted the parking mode and hoped i'd get lucky and not have any issues. As it stands i'm starting to think i should have stuck with my £30 Aukey camera despite it not having the parking mode which is what i purchased the 422GW for in the first place.

Based on the above, does it sound like i need to swap the main camera out due to having a faulty battery?

 

[Paul Iddon]

So that Nextbase Support can help, can you tell us how the camera is powered and what functions you have turned on?

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hi there,

The easiest thing you can do yourself to confirm whether it's a battery issue or a power issue is to do this test:

1) Take your Dash Cam inside and plug it into mains power using the Nextbase provided USB cable.
2) Remove any rear Cameras or SD cards and turn the Dash Cam on. Please turn Parking Mode off as this could interfere with the test results.
3) Let it charge for 2-3 hours whilst turned on.
4) Unplug the power cable and time how long the Dash Cam stays on for. The time it takes for the battery to drain will help us identify the root cause
5) Please remember that after this test your Dash Cam will once again need charging as the battery will be flat.

It should stay on for more than 10 minutes. If it turns off from fully charged before 5 minutes, then I'd recommend exchanging the Dash Cam at the retailer you bought the Camera from. If a second Dash Cam displays the same issue, then it's definitely a fault with the powering of the Dash Cam rather than the Dash Cams itself as a repeated fault is extremely unlikely.

Let me know how you get on.

Regards,
Millie- Nextbase

 

[beasty54]

So that Nextbase Support can help, can you tell us how the camera is powered and what functions you have turned on?

The cam is hardwired to the car and today has been a similar experience, charged overnight so full this morning. The car has been sat in a work car park all day and then I've driven home, I've just been and removed the cam now to start charging and the battery is down to 1 bar. I can't see how there can be an issue with the powering because it turns on and off as i start the car and it's also showing 3 bars after a 45 minute drive.

 

[beasty54]

Hi there,

The easiest thing you can do yourself to confirm whether it's a battery issue or a power issue is to do this test:

1) Take your Dash Cam inside and plug it into mains power using the Nextbase provided USB cable.
2) Remove any rear Cameras or SD cards and turn the Dash Cam on. Please turn Parking Mode off as this could interfere with the test results.
3) Let it charge for 2-3 hours whilst turned on.
4) Unplug the power cable and time how long the Dash Cam stays on for. The time it takes for the battery to drain will help us identify the root cause
5) Please remember that after this test your Dash Cam will once again need charging as the battery will be flat.

It should stay on for more than 10 minutes. If it turns off from fully charged before 5 minutes, then I'd recommend exchanging the Dash Cam at the retailer you bought the Camera from. If a second Dash Cam displays the same issue, then it's definitely a fault with the powering of the Dash Cam rather than the Dash Cams itself as a repeated fault is extremely unlikely.

Let me know how you get on.

Regards,
Millie- Nextbase

Really?? If you're saying the camera should stay on for more than just 10 minutes then i'd assume you don't expect it to last that much longer? If this is the case then i guess that's the problem because the camera remains on for a few mins when i turn the car off anyway and then the closing of the door probably resets that timer again since it's detected motion? Is that how it works? If so, this is extremely poor as the battery is likely half used before you've even left the car and then if you pop back like i did the other day to get a jacket, the camera comes on again and then the battery is pretty much flat and useless if someone bumps your car.

**EDIT**

Ok so i seem to be getting a good 25 minutes out of the battery (recording with screen set to timeout) with parking mode turned off and the camera set to not shutdown, there's clearly not a problem with the battery. I suppose i have to remember that this is with just the one camera so when recording from 2 different feeds it's going use a lot more of the battery i guess. I'll do some more experimenting and see how i get on.

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hi,

Our Dash Cams are not designed to be used off their battery. The battery is for Parking Mode uses or for emergency situations; such as the power being disrupted during an incident, instead of the Camera switching off immediately, it will finish recording it's Protected File. We design the Camera to have at least a 10 minute battery life so that it could record at least 10x 1 minute Parking Mode clips, however the reality is often considerably longer (as you've written above).

If you Dash Cam is hardwired into the car, you're on a Switch Live fuse. I'd recommend transferring the fuse to a Permanent Live, that way if you have Parking Mode turned on, the Camera's battery will not drain. Our Hard Wire kit has an in-built voltage cut-off, so that if you car's battery drops below a certain point, the Dash Cam will no longer receive power and will not drain the car's battery to a point where it wouldn't start.

 

[beasty54]

Hi,

Our Dash Cams are not designed to be used off their battery. The battery is for Parking Mode uses or for emergency situations; such as the power being disrupted during an incident, instead of the Camera switching off immediately, it will finish recording it's Protected File. We design the Camera to have at least a 10 minute battery life so that it could record at least 10x 1 minute Parking Mode clips, however the reality is often considerably longer (as you've written above).

If you Dash Cam is hardwired into the car, you're on a Switch Live fuse. I'd recommend transferring the fuse to a Permanent Live, that way if you have Parking Mode turned on, the Camera's battery will not drain. Our Hard Wire kit has an in-built voltage cut-off, so that if you car's battery drops below a certain point, the Dash Cam will no longer receive power and will not drain the car's battery to a point where it wouldn't start.

You say "our dash cams are not designed to be used off their battery" but is that not what they're designed to do in parking mode? I appreciate it's not meant to be for extended use but it does seem a bit counter productive if a third of the battery is drained (with a rear view camera attached) before it's even shut down after pulling up and turning the car off?

I'm not comfortable wiring the camera to a permanent live fuse to be honest, you say it won't drain the battery completely but first of all I've got to trust the kit to work properly and then secondly, having a battery that's not fully charged could affect the start/stop function in my car and i'm not willing to accept that as a compromise.

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hi,

If you have any worries regarding the functionality or fitting of a Nextbase Hard Wire Kit, there are many qualified fitters around the country who would be able to provide advice, or even fit the Hard Wire Kit for you.

Regards,
Millie

 

[Tony lovelock]

Plenty of nextbase tutorials on YouTube for the hard wiring stages too

 

[beasty54]

Hi,

If you have any worries regarding the functionality or fitting of a Nextbase Hard Wire Kit, there are many qualified fitters around the country who would be able to provide advice, or even fit the Hard Wire Kit for you.

Regards,
Millie

Plenty of nextbase tutorials on YouTube for the hard wiring stages too

I don't have any hard wiring issues though, I've got it hardwired now and it was a 2 minute job???

The issue i have is that i don't trust the camera to not drain my battery due to it being such a temperamental bit of kit. Sensitivity is set to medium currently but i'm getting protected recordings just taking a tight turn at less than 30mph. The battery is still flat every time i go to the car, even when it's parked on my drive! It seems to make the shut down and start up sound every now and again while driving but i have no idea what it's actually doing.

I expected this to be a "set it and leave it device" but so far i'm not feeling that at all as i'm always wondering if it;s actually doing what it's supposed to be doing.

 

[Nextbase Support]

Hi again,

My recommendation regarding the functioning and fitting above was in reference to the Permanent Live fuse set-up, which most of our installers do daily. They'll be able to alleviate any worries you have regarding the battery drainage due to the voltage cut off on the Hard Wire Kit.

Regards,
Millie- Nextbase