G5WA Dual Lens Dash Camera 1080P with Both 170 Wide Angle

With those lights on I more than likely would with the police around here!
 
@ Gearbest

hello, I see you are on line at this moment, would you be so kind to answer my emails to you?

regarding my faulty mini 0805 you sent, you or your colleges have been ignoring my emails regarding this issue

than you
 
OK first very quick observations from a quick drive to the shops.
  1. The firmware needs a power on delay adding as the first time I started my car - a diesel - the camera powered down. Basically on a diesel you turn on ACC, wait for the glowplug lights to go out and then start the engine - like most Ambarella based cameras the timing is slightly out so the loss of power between the couple of seconds of turning on ACC and then turning the engine over which cuts power causes the camera to shut down. This is mainly a problem that owners of diesel engine cars will see sometimes.
  2. Sound - it could be the memory card I'm using but if you listen to the raw clip below you'll hear the electrical impulses as the card is being written too. Volume is quite low on this one and I guess this is as a result of the old G90 mics which were too sensitive.
  3. The camera hung on me on the way back from the shops at the car logo. I've checked the memory card and there are no issues at all with that and the camera is sitting at the car logo so needs a reset - I need to investigate this one further but could be it didn't like the Kingston memory card I used and this could be the cause of item 2 and 3 here.
Are there any updated firmware versions available please? This is running 20150512.

As per all the dual channel Ambarella dashcams this has a bitrate of around 11Mbps:

upload_2015-6-27_8-55-40.png

And as you all like videos here's a trip to the shops in Youtube and then raw format:

https://mega.co.nz/#!wNByXTJK!rAGcTuyLlAZxWGlrC3G42fDZlN2L8NbKGztC-MRJ2Qw

It looks to be a very similar lens to that which the G90C used so you get the optical aberrations (ie blue tinge) at the corners but it can give a very sharp image in the right circumstances - the G5WA is limited by bitrate which is the same as all other Ambarella dual channel cameras. As the Sony sensors are more sensitive than the OV4689 sensors night performance may be different to the G90C.

I'm off on an all day session shortly so it will be tomorrow before I spend any more time with this one!
 
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@ Gearbest

hello, I see you are on line at this moment, would you be so kind to answer my emails to you?

regarding my faulty mini 0805 you sent, you or your colleges have been ignoring my emails regarding this issue

than you
You already have that issue posted in another thread.
Posting the same thing in different threads just adds noise and craps the thread.
Either work with supplier through private conversations or create a dedicated thread in vendor feedback section.
 
As I mentioned in a thread, I’ve been emailing them from the first day I got the mini 0805 (around 25ish days ago) telling them they sent a non working one out and could they please sort this out, on their third email to me they showed me their T&C thereafter I was being ignored

they had been ignoring all my emails to them, so started a conversation with the person who, from Gearbest is on this forum,

then here too my emails to them weren't being replied

Are you saying if a thread appeared that my experience or knowledge is relevant to the thread, if I’ve posted this experience, knowledge on another thread I should not participate in this second thread?

if this is so, then I might as well leave this forum for good now, as I’ll soon have nothing to contribute to DCT

after ignoring me the whole of this week (more or less), I got this email this morning:

++++
Hi,

As we rest at weekend. We will ship you new one for you on Monday.

Thanks for your understanding.

Have a nice day.

Best.


+++++++
now I’m not looking for a fee bee, I didn't want to complain about a seller on a forum, all I wanted was for them to sort out the issue, but they wern't going to

you’ll have to explain to me how one works with a vender when they ignore your emails, but are happy to use this forum to help sell their items?
 
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OK first very quick observations from a quick drive to the shops.
  1. The firmware needs a power on delay adding as the first time I started my car - a diesel - the camera powered down. Basically on a diesel you turn on ACC, wait for the glowplug lights to go out and then start the engine - like most Ambarella based cameras the timing is slightly out so the loss of power between the couple of seconds of turning on ACC and then turning the engine over which cuts power causes the camera to shut down. This is mainly a problem that owners of diesel engine cars will see sometimes.
  2. Sound - it could be the memory card I'm using but if you listen to the raw clip below you'll hear the electrical impulses as the card is being written too. Volume is quite low on this one and I guess this is as a result of the old G90 mics which were too sensitive.
  3. The camera hung on me on the way back from the shops at the car logo. I've checked the memory card and there are no issues at all with that and the camera is sitting at the car logo so needs a reset - I need to investigate this one further but could be it didn't like the Kingston memory card I used and this could be the cause of item 2 and 3 here.
Just updating this - item 1 definitely needs work as again it turned off on me when starting the car - this is a diesel specific problem but should be easily reproducible on petrol engines by starting ACC, waiting a couple of seconds and then starting the engine.

Item 3 it appears was a problem with the way I was charging it - I'm now running the two cameras and the power connector and all ok. Should the rear camera USB cable push all the way in though as it seems there is space on the front and rear cameras but I didn't want to push too hard and break anything
 
Just updating this - item 1 definitely needs work as again it turned off on me when starting the car - this is a diesel specific problem but should be easily reproducible on petrol engines by starting ACC, waiting a couple of seconds and then starting the engine.

Item 3 it appears was a problem with the way I was charging it - I'm now running the two cameras and the power connector and all ok. Should the rear camera USB cable push all the way in though as it seems there is space on the front and rear cameras but I didn't want to push too hard and break anything
The rear camera connection on the front camera doesn't go all the way in but goes little more in on the rear camera itself.
I can still see little bit outside so it doesn't go all the way in.
 
I always seem to have that problem of it never going all the way in :p

Video seems to have worked fine but it seems have some missing data on the card so it kept looping the last four files which is a shame as I nearly had a head on this morning with a bus and it's gone :(

Could be my trusty >1 year old Sandisk Ultra is finally going to microSD heaven!
 
OK the card fault was a filesystem problem - ran it through chkdsk and it brought back 45GB worth of GT880S video.

The Sandisk is still alive and has gone back in the G5WA to see how it handles the hottest day of the year in the UK so far (33C).

It feels like focus may be ever so slightly out on the left side of the rear camera lens but I'll clean it and see if there is anything on the lens or windscreen - it may even just be because it's slightly facing to the right so could be the curvature of the glass making it look bad.

Youtube

Raw
https://mega.co.nz/#!9IplCKxT!fJLdEce2Pq8_p-2x0BPiTvC13M619sOCi770eeY-Fc0
https://mega.co.nz/#!JAxXja5R!PyV8uiLPvVlRx4bN7nnMUJfBLbdKYQ3sBGLuHSVhOEw

Combined footage:

https://mega.co.nz/#!MY5xgBhC!Wt4qww_WcYHpLhKZ5qJrAvqkFc5NYKel_HFrAQJKcs0
 
It was the hottest day of the year here in the UK today and the G5WA is suffering from the focus shift in heat that the G90 used to suffer from too.

Also it refused to boot due to the heat until it had cooled down in the aircon for a while - this will more than likely be due to the battery used.

Here are a couple of night clips:

Also I noticed that the front and rear channels do run at different rates.

Front is 11Mbps and rear is 7Mbps

upload_2015-7-1_23-55-50.png
upload_2015-7-1_23-55-33.png
 
It was the hottest day of the year here in the UK today and the G5WA is suffering from the focus shift in heat that the G90 used to suffer from too.

Also it refused to boot due to the heat until it had cooled down in the aircon for a while - this will more than likely be due to the battery used.

Here are a couple of night clips:

Also I noticed that the front and rear channels do run at different rates.

Front is 11Mbps and rear is 7Mbps

View attachment 14568
View attachment 14564


Thanks for your efforts!

We already took a feedback to supplier.

They are Handel this problem now.

I will let you know the progress of the work.

Thanks again.
 
Thanks @GearBest - I made a video to show the camera hanging at startup to hopefully make it easier to describe to the factory:


This is more than likely a timing issue they need to fix but should be totally fixable via a software update.

The focus issues drifting in and out in heat are a hardware issue that needs the factory to fix.
 
@reverend, Thanks your review!
The camera hanging at startup is not reappear by our technical supporter,the problem maybe related to memory card.
 
Other problems such as: focus shift in heat are being improved.
 
@domekaka - the camera hanging like that even happens with no microSD card inserted.

What brands do you use for testing? Is it worth me returning this to GB or yourselves so that it can be replaced with one with the focus problems fixed? I know last time I paid for the G90C which had the focus problems fixed but I won't do that this time as have a wedding inbound next year!

Fixing the focus will be great as when it's sharp it's really sharp and takes some good footage.

I'm actually waiting on reviewing this one until the next software update is available which works better for diesels as currently the camera just is not suitable for diesel engined cars due to it powering off :)
 
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How well does the collision warning system work?
 
To be honest mine didn't stay in focus long enough to worry about things like that - I normally turn off all those sorts of features as they go off that often it's like the boy who cried wolf.
 
Dome posted a strange video attributed to the G5WA on Dailymotion. It shows warning systems that actually seem to work, and that's definitely not the case with fw G5W-ZX-A7L-1389-S-H, or any other G90-7S, G95a I tried so far:

These FMWS, SCWS, HMWS, ADAS, LDWS warning systems are really marketing gimmicks from Ambarella and will at best distract you while driving, with random frontal collisions and lane departure alerts even while driving straight on a deserted road.
But if that was ever working as shown in the video, it might be interesting for some users.

My list of issues so far:
- No way to mute the jingles of the camera.
- Permanent on-screen speed indication (something seen in previous models from Dome)
- Permanent "zhongxing" stamp
- Still camera mode is missing
- Font blue LED useless and cannot be turned off
- No Emergency recording button
- Camera turns off during operation (resolved by turning off the Parking mode. Formatting the SD card using the G5WA interface also helps in other cases)
- Power adapter produces background noise in the recording (as with all Dome Gxx devices). Try on battery only: perfect sound.
- Subject to focus shift on warm day (will never be a problem in Ireland, so I rely on feedbacks from the forum)
 
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This camera has good potential and great front and rear video when working but has issues that need fix.
I sent the list to Dome so hopefully, next version will be usable.
 
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