M4 Incorrect Time - One hour out due to daylight savings

ToyotaDriver

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Hi all,

Long time lurker - first time poster.

I've got the M4 (standard, not Plus) in the front window of my partner's car and it's been fantastic for the price.

The only issue I've had with it is the time is correct when it's connected to phone via WIFI but if it's just left as standalone it'll revert to being an hour back when we're on daylight savings here in Australia.

I feel the reasoning for this is the GPS selects the timezone and automatically applies it and doesn't do the + or - 1 hour when we're on daylight savings. When connected to phone it will then of course get the correct time and apply it to the videos that it records when it is connected. Disconnect the phone and restart the car and it'll be 1 hour off for half the year.

I noted a member last year had the same problem with no real solution brought to light - https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/incorrect-timestamp.28252/

On the old Mini 0801 we had on her front screen (lasted a good two years before the internal battery started to cause problems) the time was of course adjusted by GPS and you would just adjust the timezone by + or - an hour depending on if we were in daylight savings or not and you'd always have the correct time stamped on the videos.

In the DDPai app / settings I can not find such a setting. Am I missing something?

The only solution I can see, short of a future firmware update addressing this, is I leave an old, charging phone in the glove-box that will always be connected to the M4 and allow it to constantly receive the correct time.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, It's a minor issue but it's an issue non-the-less for half the year.

Cheers,
ToyotaDriver
 
Thanks for the reply.
I don't think it's an RTC battery issue as it's good half the year. It will be fine undercover. As soon as it gets GPS signal the time will change to being an hour back and there's nothing I can do about it.
 
No, these cameras don't and I dare say the non-gps DDPai cams like the mini would not have this issue. If I stay in underground carparks it's perfect. As soon as it sees the sky the time is automatically updated by GPS and there's no way to stop it. A simple + or - timezone setting, like on every other camera I have, would make this a non-issue. Maybe these were only marketed for countries without DST?
 
your phone will update the time, if it then changes when you get GPS signal then there is an offset setting, the time information in the GPS signal is only transmitted as GMT 0, any offset from that is set in the device
 
Yeah, so with no way of changing the timezone / offset in the camera settings I'm pretty much stuffed?
 
The only thing I'm thinking is every time before connecting my phone I change the time on my phone to an incorrect time to correct it on the camera...
 
I'd hope so but I can't find one. Anywhere. Thanks for the response anyway Jokiin. Hopefully Fabio.he may be able to help further.
 
Hello friend, thanks for your trust, I talked DDPai engineer, his initial judgement is also RTC battery failure, I will futher check with him and will reply you a.s.a.p.
ask him to explain how RTC failure would cause the time to change by exactly 1 hour once it gets GPS signal
 
Thanks for asking him, Fabio.he.
I just find it very strange that it can be fine for half the year. I may just wait until we hit DST and grab an A119S for her front cam - they should be priced even better with the release of the A129.
 
I am having exactly the same issue... Brand new camera, latest firmware (as of 10 June 2018). It syncs and then on the videos I have the wrong time.

This is not a problem with any battery at all, but a software bug. Hope "ddpai engineer" will acknowledge and fix it.
--
Another issue (though not a big deal) is that actual speed is displayed with up to 5 seconds delay... That's a bit too much when compared with other cameras.
Its easy to notice - just drive, and then do a full stop - camera will show speed slowing down way after the car is stationary. Kinda funny.
 
This is not a problem with any battery at all, but a software bug. Hope "ddpai engineer" will acknowledge and fix it.

there's no chance this problem is battery related, unfortunately until they acknowledge the problem it's going to be a challenge to get it rectified
 
Thanks for all the replies. It's good (and unfortunate at the same time) that I'm not the only one noticing this over-sight with these GPS enabled cameras by DDPai.

Absolute fantastic camera for the price. Yes, it's a battery camera, yes the bit-rate is noticeably low but it's decent enough and has the exact features my partner wants.

As we are in our non-DST time where I am I can't do the LOG as suggested so I have emailed DDPai on their 'contact us' form on their website. I have basically sent them a copy of what was typed in my original post.

I will keep you all informed of the outcome as a simple setting to allow us to offset the time to account for DST would sort this out.
 
Last edited:
Just to show that I haven't left this post stale - I have still had no response from DDPai regarding this.
 
Any update on this time stamping issue.?

As well as the timestamp being incorrect do you find this has any affect on the "My Trip" functionality? I find that if I sync the camera to the app every journey then the "My Trip" functionality works correctly and each trip has a small map showing the journey. However if I just leave the camera un-synced to BST then the map functionality of "My Trip" does not work at all.

I have tried using the "Contact Us" form on the DDPai website several times but have had no response.

Well at least DST is coming to an end soon! Perhaps it'll be fixed by March.
 
No update and no response from messaging the DDPai "contact us" either.
I no longer own the M4 (installed it in my mother-in-law's car).
I didn't really use the My Trip function but from memory it didn't seem right when we were in DST.
 
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