List of problems & issues with the RC500S

Nauhck

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I'm putting out a list of problems with the RC500S-2CH here for easier access in the hopes that other owners can join in the discussion and share temporary solutions for it. I can't believe I have to do this as a customer because this should have been DOD's job before releasing the product.

Feel free to add/comment.


Hardware; i.e. physical camera & connections
  • What are the different sounds and beeps telling us? NO mention of them at all in the user manual.What I can deduce so far:
    • 'Locking' sound – current recording is protected because a bump was detected
    • Short single/double/triple beeps – speed trap warnings
    • UPDATE: 9/5/2017 firmware added a female voiceover (see details below)
  • Straight connectors for rear camera instead of right-angle ones? Packaging on box clearly shows right-angle connectors. Makes installation especially on the windshield extremely unsightly and annoying for the driver. Workaround: shift entire camera off the left of mirror by 5cm or so, camera will record slightly off-center, but still acceptable results
Firmware; i.e. low-level settings saved on the camera hardware
  • Need to provide option to allow X/Y mirror flip on top of 180º rotation options. Cable connectors exit to the right of the camera which means right-hand drive users have to live with cables jutting out behind the mirror or mount the camera upside down. Latter option is not possible without X/Y mirror flip in firmware. 9/5/17 firmware update + app 2.0.4 does not resolve this
  • (After a month or so of usage): Parking Monitor mode: There is no way to set the sensitivity of the parking monitor i.e. how much movement detected on front/rear camera before it begins recording
  • (After a month or so of usage): Parking Monitor mode: I have noticed that the camera doesn't 'pre-roll' to record the beginning of the detected motion. Effectively, by the time the recording begins, the detected movement would already have been a few seconds back. If a fast-moving object went by, the camera won't record it.
Software; i.e. iOS/Android app or desktop application
  • Android (some, not all users affected?): start/stop record from app does not work – 'camera busy, stop recording on camera to change settings'. Camera needs to stop to change configuration settings. This is intermittent and sometimes I find myself able to change some of the settings before it locks out again. Workaround: turn off camera, pull out micro SD, turn on camera, connect WiFi, change configuration 9/5/17 firmware update + app 2.0.4: FIXED, although this technique can still be used if necessary
  • Android: you need to turn off wifi to enable parking mode (courtesy of @Proofbenny)
  • Android: screen does not go to sleep, ever. Battery drain is huge as a result. No option to disable this or set screen timeout. App 2.0.4 does not resolve this
  • The UI needs a lot of work to improve the visual consistency in general, the 4 or 5-screen tutorial to tell the user where to get to core configuration settings in the 'Camera List' page is not necessary if the interface design is cleaner and better organised App 2.0.4 does not resolve this
  • Since the dashcam is screenless, then all options as published in the manual should be made available to the app for the user to configure. There's absolutely no excuse for that. Not the app developer's fault if the firmware does not expose those options via the API, but come on, DOD! App 2.0.4 does not resolve this
Documentation, i.e. user manual
  • Incorrect information for mounting rear cameras? Causing them to be upside down which has to be corrected in firmware option
  • No information on how to decipher beep/sound codes
  • Not all options shown in manual are actually in the actual app – speed units, gps logging, time-lapse, plate stamp, speed cam warning?
  • Other parts of manual look like they were copied and pasted from a previous different DOD model?!
  • To date we still don't have access to an updated PDF manual

Latest firmware/app updates and feedback on what has changed – lists above have also been updated based on what's found below:

  • 9/5/2017 Firmware update (FWI5GEMI.bin, CB160513-1705020 69 A):
    • Grab the file & instructions from http://www.dashcamownersaus.com.au/support/do not use the one linked from mega.nz (Thanks @George Argus). You won't brick your camera uploading that corrupted file, but it won't operate either. Read included instructions for uploading firmware.
    • Firmware update resets camera to factory settings, so you have to redo all settings again.
    • If, like me, you have come across the strange issue of a renamed WiFi SSID/password not being reset when you press the reset button, do a firmware update to force-recover your camera
    • WHAT'S NEW:
      • Camera now has a female voice telling us helpful audio prompts:
        • "Recording now" "Recording disabled"
        • "WiFi ON" "WiFi OFF"
    • SOMEWHAT RESOLVED:
      • If you want to change or setup your camera's settings, the same problem remains – the camera immediately goes into recording mode upon startup, so the app connects and shows your camera recording. You will NOT be able to change settings until you stop the recording. This was impossible to stop before. In the 2.0.4 app, we now have a reliable way of stopping the recording via a camera button that you can toggle. Visually it looks like a camera icon with a play symbol in it, touch it to toggle between recording/stop. Voiceover now makes things easier. (Note: all this is assuming you can connect to the camera via the app, this is sometimes not possible, see next item below).
    • UNRESOLVED:
      • Still no way to mirror video feeds on front/back. You can only rotate. Therefore, you are still forced to have the wires sticking out the right side of the camera.
      • Unreliable app connections over the camera's WiFi:
        Camera starts up – "Recording now!"
        Press WiFi button – "WiFi ON!", then "Recording disabled!", THEN "Recording NOW"
        Connect to the WiFi via the app – "Error connecting (-2)"
  • DoD App - 2.0.4
    • Functionally, it seems everything is working ok now, EXCEPT for the inability to connect to the camera via WiFi. THIS NEEDS IMMEDIATE FIXING AND TESTING
    • It seems apparent by now that programmers were also tasked to handle the design of the app. The flow between the screens in the app is still horrendous. The buttons and layout of the camera feed/map/overlays are what we call in the software design & development field "programmer art" – i.e. non-final graphic elements that do not consider design guidelines to improve the legibility and harmony of the elements. I noticed some attempts to improve it, but a lot more can be done.
    • This in no way discounts the effort of the programmers, but app design is better left to app designers to handle. Same approach goes for your desktop application.
 
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Since the dashcam is screenless, then all options as published in the manual should be made available to the app for the user to configure. There's absolutely no excuse for that.
Again, Totally agree.
 
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I'm having some issues with mine - you need to turn off wifi to enable parking mode
But when I re enable it and my phone connects to it I open the app and it try's to connect but it comes up with an error session failed.

I have removed the app
Forgotten the network
Reset the phone
Reset the camera
Re connected the wifi
Re downloaded the app
And the same thing will happen.

The only way to fix it is to format the card and reset the camera settings

Iv tested this extensively.
Anyone else having these issues

A new iPhone 6s Plus with latest iOS
Also tested on wife's iPhone 6
Same issue
 

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wow, your on IOS too... yes.. it is very buggy at the moment. Hopefully they can sort things out soon. Word gets around.
 
The only way to fix it is to format the card and reset the camera settings

On my Android, what I did when I encounted that error was to shut everything down, pull the microsd card out, and power on the camera. I was able to reconfigure the camera via the app this way.

Once you're happy with the settings disconnect power to the camera, insert the micro sd card again and it should be running.

Of course this applies only to Android, but perhaps this might work the same on iOS. Let us know.


p.s. I have not seen any app updates from the developer on the Play Store, so I am hopeful that these issues are now being ironed out and tested.
 
An update for you guys... I did speak to the place where I got the DOD cam from and they said they are working on the APP and I think also the firmware..with an update coming. Is this accurate? don't know but that is what DOD told him. Hopefully this also solves my problem of the files not going into the RO lock folder (as it should be) when I hit the lock file button on the camera.
 
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On my Android, what I did when I encounted that error was to shut everything down, pull the microsd card out, and power on the camera. I was able to reconfigure the camera via the app this way.

Once you're happy with the settings disconnect power to the camera, insert the micro sd card again and it should be running.

Of course this applies only to Android, but perhaps this might work the same on iOS. Let us know.

.

I can confirm this works on my 3 android phones with different android platforms EG: marshmallow, kit kat etc.. hoping the update fixes this.
 
Hey guys
So I thought I had it fixed
But it must be a firmware issue and not an app

Firstly I thought it was parking mode causing all the issues
So I disabled that
And after a day I tried to connect my phone
Wifi was already on and my phone was connected
But still the app couldn't connect
I got my spare phone from a fresh format and run the same test as well as with parking mode on
It still does it
Sometime the phone will connect every time for a few days then it will just stop
Iv had huge chunks of time missing from recordings as well
The camera is very close to going back
 
There has been a bit of activity on the development of the app, 2 updates just this year
So I really hope they start to button down on these errors
 

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Yesterday's iOS update for the dod dashcam app did nothing to fix this issue I have
After removing the app resetting the camera
I still can not connect to it !
 

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Update :

After weeks of use and trouble shooting
And after the latest iOS app update
The camera works 100% without parking mode enabled
Once I turn on parking mode and turn off the wifi
No phone can reconnect to the camera once it has been connected to the camera and then disconnected ie:
Camera in parking mode wifi off new phone
Turn on wifi connect phone everything works
Turn off wifi , turn wifi back on phone will never connect again.
That's with the latest dod dash cam app
Latest and older iOS build
New and old iPhones
In totally my camera has been tested with 5 iPhones
Same results
Works 100% or the time without parking mode enabled.
Will only connect a phone to the camera once after parking mode is enabled.

Anyways see what the next update brings


Cheers
 
Legend mate
I'll give this a crack tomorrow and will report on fixes

Thank you
 
So this may be a stupid question, but I'm at a bit of a loose end. I've got the RC500s, but don't have an Android phone or iPhone. I do have a Microsoft Phone (Lumia 950XL, don't judge me :p), but there's no app for the Windows 10 Mobile platform.

I do have access to an old Android phone (Samsung G4 Mini), but the Play store says the app is not supported for that device. I've also got plenty of laptops running Windows 10 around the place, so could use those if there was an app.

Is there anyway to set up the RC500s without an Android or iPhone? Or am I just screwed?
 
At this point android or IOS are the only options for interface.
 
Looking forward to trying out the new firmware. Thanks for posting it, including instructions. I wonder why DoD doesn't publish this firmware on their official website.

Has it been tested? Or are we the guinea pigs?


I don't think we have a choice in being the latter, BUT... here's something else that's happened to add to the frustration of the product:

It's been a while since I've connected to the camera via WiFi, so I've clean forgotten about the WiFi password credentials that I set up for the camera, and did the mistake of forgetting the credentials while attempting to reconnect.

Pressing the reset button restarts the camera and supposedly resets everything to factory settings right? No, for some reason my previously-set WiFi credentials are now permanently stored and there seems no way to reset them, even via that tiny reset button you have to reach using a pin. Still seeing my old SSID and not the generic "DoD Camera" when it's reset.

So now, I have a camera that I can no longer connect to via WiFi because I forgot my old WiFi password for it...

Anyone with any clues on how to do a clean, factory reset? Perhaps something that I might have missed? I swear I used to press reset and the camera will initialise everything including WiFi setup, for some reason it doesn't seem to do that now.
 
Anyone with any clues on how to do a clean, factory reset? Perhaps something that I might have missed? I swear I used to press reset and the camera will initialise everything including WiFi setup, for some reason it doesn't seem to do that now.

Mine reverted most of my settings (including Wi-Fi settings) when I flashed the firmware from here: http://www.dashcamownersaus.com.au/support/
 
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