Nauhck
New Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2017
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 10
- Country
- Australia
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
Latest firmware/app updates and feedback on what has changed – lists above have also been updated based on what's found below:
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
- 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.
- 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
- 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"
- Camera now has a female voice telling us helpful audio prompts:
- 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.
Last edited: