Long term review

[hdkeith]

I have had the DR900X Plus in both our cars since they first came out. I looked at a few cams and settled on Blackvue as it seemed to be a well reviewed cam. There were a few initial bugs that took a few releases to iron out. We have a front an drear cam in our cars. The units have been reliable, with no known issues. The biggest flaw I have is inability of the app to connect to the camera unless you connect shortly after it powers up. If after a drive I want to pull some video to my phone it will not find the camera. If I unplug the camera and power it back up I can connect. This is very annoying. The camera has intermittent issues locking on to GPS, not sure why as it is fairly out there on my wind shield, but maybe the instrument cluster behind the rearview mirror is blocking or interfering with it. The rear camera mage quality s rather poor. I already had to have one replaced initially due to poor factory focus. I think there is room for improvement in the rear camera and would like to see 4K front and back. IMO at this price point I am underwhelmed. Night capture is just meh, and this is where sensor technology needs to improve. While I am in no rush to replace them I do not see me buying another Blackvue cam as I think they are over priced compared to the features and picture quality compared to the competition. I would like to the ability to parallel stream to my phone so I never have to download the video. Overall I would give this cam a 3 out of 5 at best.

 

[rcg530]

With regard to the Wi-Fi issue, if the dash camera is not connecting to the BlackVue Cloud service, there is a setting in the Wi-Fi section "Wi-Fi auto turn off" which has default setting of "On". That setting will turn off the Wi-Fi in the dash camera after 10 minutes of inactivity. If the Cloud setting "Enable Cloud service" is "On" and it's connected to the BlackVue Cloud service the auto turn off of the Wi-Fi is not performed to allow the dash camera to act as a Wi-Fi hot spot for up to 5 devices.

If the Wi-Fi is getting turned off automatically due to inactivity, you should be able to press the Wi-Fi button on the end of the dash camera to turn it on/off.

Are you having a connectivity issue even with the white LED showing that the Wi-Fi is still active/on?

 

[hdkeith]

I will check as I do not use the Cloud option so maybe that setting is it, but I thought the white LED is on as I am used to seeing 2 LEDs and the GPS one is sometimes on and sometimes off.

 

[rcg530]

I will check as I do not use the Cloud option so maybe that setting is it, but I thought the white LED is on as I am used to seeing 2 LEDs and the GPS one is sometimes on and sometimes off.

If the white LED is on, then the dash camera Wi-Fi should be on and available for a client connection. I'm setting up a test case using a DR900X-2CH Plus dash camera with firmware version v1.009 installed, "Wi-Fi auto turn off" disabled and the "Enable Cloud service" set to "Off".

 

[rcg530]

I ran a Wi-Fi connectivity test with a DR900X-2CH Plus dash camera with firmware v1.009 installed. The "Wi-Fi auto turn off" feature was disabled and the "Enable Cloud service" was set to "Off".

• 0:20 (h:mm) - Wi-Fi client connection via BlackVue app was successful.
• 2:40 - Wi-Fi client connection via BlackVue app was successful.
• 4:10 - Wi-Fi client connection via BlackVue app was successful.

The Wi-Fi connectivity seemed to be working correctly.

I connected to the DR900X-2CH Plus with one device using the iOS BlackVue app and then I attempted to connect to the same DR900X-2CH Plus with an Android device via the BlackVue app and it let me know that there was already one active Wi-Fi connection by stating "BlackVue is currently connected to another user. Please try again later". When there is no internet connectivity for the dash camera, it limits the number of active Wi-Fi clients to one. When there is internet connectivity for the dash camera, it will allow up to 5 Wi-Fi clients.

 

[bkdodger]

I figure I come on here instead of starting a new thread ...lately a new issue cropped up ...I have a wifi hotspot when out and about that connects to cam ..if I'm home it connects to my home wifi as hotspot ...recently my cam will disconnect from the hotspots after a few minutes after I left car and is off ..trying to see if anything in the settings changed on its own with no luck

 

[hdkeith]

Ok, oddly my wife’s cam was set to cloud (although not connected to cloud) and WiFi auto timeout was set, but not available to change until I disable cloud. Oddly even after 20 minutes her wifi was still working before I changed the setting.I then flashed hers to 1.09 firmware. I checked min and it was not set to cloud and the wife was set to auto disable. I swear the wifilight was on in the last all the time, but will test tomorrow again. I also updated to 1.09.

 

[rcg530]

Ok, oddly my wife’s cam was set to cloud (although not connected to cloud) and WiFi auto timeout was set, but not available to change until I disable cloud. Oddly even after 20 minutes her wifi was still working before I changed the setting.I then flashed hers to 1.09 firmware. I checked min and it was not set to cloud and the wife was set to auto disable. I swear the wifilight was on in the last all the time, but will test tomorrow again. I also updated to 1.09.

A few firmware versions ago ( see this post ), Pittasoft changed the logic in the firmware setting screens so that when "Enable Cloud service" was on, the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting was disabled from being changed in the settings. When a BlackVue Cloud enabled dash camera is actually connected to the BlackVue Cloud service (meaning "Enable Cloud service" is on), the firmware ignores the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting value because it leaves Wi-Fi on to support allowing up to 5 Wi-Fi clients to connect to the dash camera to share the LTE connection it's using to access the BlackVue Cloud service. I haven't tested when the dash camera is connected via a Wi-Fi hotspot to the BlackVue Cloud service.

I believe the default values for the "Enable Cloud service" setting is "On/Enabled" and the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" is "On/Enabled". If the dash camera is not actually connected to the BlackVue Cloud service with the default firmware settings still in place, I believe it detects that it's not connected to the cloud service and it does follow the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting (event though it's now grayed out in the UI).

I would suggest making sure the "Enable Cloud service" setting is "Off/Disabled" and the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting is also "Off/Disabled" to try and achieve the the behavior you're trying to achieve by using those settings rather than relying on default behavior of the firmware when it doesn't detect a connection to the cloud service.

 

[bkdodger]

Ok, oddly my wife’s cam was set to cloud (although not connected to cloud) and WiFi auto timeout was set, but not available to change until I disable cloud. Oddly even after 20 minutes her wifi was still working before I changed the setting.I then flashed hers to 1.09 firmware. I checked min and it was not set to cloud and the wife was set to auto disable. I swear the wifilight was on in the last all the time, but will test tomorrow again. I also updated to 1.09.

A few firmware versions ago ( see this post ), Pittasoft changed the logic in the firmware setting screens so that when "Enable Cloud service" was on, the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting was disabled from being changed in the settings. When a BlackVue Cloud enabled dash camera is actually connected to the BlackVue Cloud service (meaning "Enable Cloud service" is on), the firmware ignores the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting value because it leaves Wi-Fi on to support allowing up to 5 Wi-Fi clients to connect to the dash camera to share the LTE connection it's using to access the BlackVue Cloud service. I haven't tested when the dash camera is connected via a Wi-Fi hotspot to the BlackVue Cloud service.

I believe the default values for the "Enable Cloud service" setting is "On/Enabled" and the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" is "On/Enabled". If the dash camera is not actually connected to the BlackVue Cloud service with the default firmware settings still in place, I believe it detects that it's not connected to the cloud service and it does follow the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting (event though it's now grayed out in the UI).

I would suggest making sure the "Enable Cloud service" setting is "Off/Disabled" and the "Wi-Fi auto turn off" setting is also "Off/Disabled" to try and achieve the the behavior you're trying to achieve by using those settings rather than relying on default behavior of the firmware when it doesn't detect a connection to the cloud service.

Thanks for info ..I see that you can only toggle wiggy when cloud disabled.. I’m on latest firmware.. my issue it won’t stay connected to my hotspot

 

[rcg530]

@bkdodger your issue is different than the issue the OP is discussing. It's best to discuss different problems in different threads (IMO). Your notifications listing screenshot shows the dash camera connection to the BlackVue Cloud service is connecting/disconnecting. That can be related to a dash camera to Wi-Fi hotspot connectivity issue, a Wi-Fi hotspot LTE connectivity issue or a power issue for the Wi-Fi hotspot. I have not tried a Wi-Fi hotspot connection to the BlackVue Cloud service to have any definitive suggestions other than make sure the Wi-Fi hotspot is still functional during the time periods that the dash camera is not connected to the BlackVue Cloud service (does a second device connected tot he Wi-Fi hotspot still have internet access) to eliminate LTE connectivity issues and/or power issues for the hotspot.

 

[bkdodger]

@bkdodger your issue is different than the issue the OP is discussing. It's best to discuss different problems in different threads (IMO). Your notifications listing screenshot shows the dash camera connection to the BlackVue Cloud service is connecting/disconnecting. That can be related to a dash camera to Wi-Fi hotspot connectivity issue, a Wi-Fi hotspot LTE connectivity issue or a power issue for the Wi-Fi hotspot. I have not tried a Wi-Fi hotspot connection to the BlackVue Cloud service to have any definitive suggestions other than make sure the Wi-Fi hotspot is still functional during the time periods that the dash camera is not connected to the BlackVue Cloud service (does a second device connected tot he Wi-Fi hotspot still have internet access) to eliminate LTE connectivity issues and/or power issues for the hotspot.

Apologies will discuss on separate thread…so this will be my last reply on this one [emoji1318]…just to answer your connection comment I have it set with hotspot while traveling..it used to stay connected while I left the car and was active ..no longer stays on …hotspot 2 is my home WiFi which has great connection for other devices ..same scenario as it will shut down after a few minutes..

Apologies again on posting here as it only caught my attention with the WiFi on/off toggle mentioned 10308