New Beta Firmware V2.2 for A129 Duo

[jokiin]

I think Viofo is owner or a subsidy of a Blackvue.

no connection whatsoever

 

[Sdeel7491]

So what, for some is it time to return these cameras to the retailer, clearly not fit for purpose?

Today running v2.0 my A129 Duo (front camera only) skipped around 5mins of driving footage, no auditable beeps. This following a hit and run crash last October is not why I made my purchase, deeply disappointed in the level of support and ongoing bugs. Much speculation regarding quality of SD card, cable fragility, etc. and yet other brands appear to work with more consistency and with better customer service.

Running with a Samsung Evo Plus 256 myself, formatted to ExFAT (good perf report, no issues reported).

I am relatively tolerant, but with the announcement of another (potentially superseding) product I'm about to call time on this vendor. World events aside, many of these issues predate that gnarliness and therefore should have been addressed ages ago, presuming that were feasible.

@VIOFO-Support Please advise, is this product a dead duck, should we look to another product range?

I totally agree with you these cameras aren’t fit for purpose! i bought my camera 14 months ago and have been waiting for the advertised Motion Detection facilit to work! month after month i’ve been told by Viofo we’re are working on it just try this and try that, You only have to read what other guys have tried to see it’s never going to happen!
I think VIOFO should give us 50 % of our money back and let us choose if we would by another one of there cameras ! I certainly wouldn’t! And for them to bring out another great! super ! VIOFO camera is an insult to us that have bought these cameras !
There customer service is pathetic!!!

 

[JohnnyFiama]

For me there is one key aspect weighing heavily on my mind.

Following my crash last year both the police and insurance company queried whether I had a dash cam, and that I forward along any footage. Imagine being in the position of having the device, but being unable to provide evidence because of a “random” 5 minute recording blip, no doubt that would be viewed as highly suspicious, perhaps even impacting on a claim decision.

Dash cams provide a safety net of sorts, but could potentially have the reverse effect when they malfunction.

 

[Gooffeyguy]

Thought firmware v2 was Beta?

Still running v1.9 and it works fine for me. I don't like the Auto Detect mode for parking though, and use the low bitrate mode for parking.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[CaptureYourAction]

Thought firmware v2 was Beta?

Still running v1.9 and it works fine for me. I don't like the Auto Detect mode for parking though, and use the low bitrate mode for parking.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Yes, anything after V1.9 is currently a beta.

 

[JohnnyFiama]

Thought firmware v2 was Beta?

Still running v1.9 and it works fine for me. I don't like the Auto Detect mode for parking though, and use the low bitrate mode for parking.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

V1.1 appears to be the last official release for the A129 Pro Duo, and therein lays part of the issue, slow release cycles with the same bugs persisting both in official “stable” releases and the beta’s many resort to in an effort to stabilise their setup.

VIOFO A129 Pro Duo Dash Camera Firmware

Please click below for the A129 Pro support page. A129 Pro Support page

support.viofo.com

...if they hadn’t released another product in the meantime I would have more easily accepted these delays, but honestly we shouldn’t be forced to resort to beta releases at this stage in the product lifecycle, it should perform the fundamentals as advertised from the point it comes to market.

Missing footage is an ongoing complaint within the community, across multiple firmware releases, this issue isn’t specific to myself, and frankly we should not be defending what is potentially a flawed product.

Happy to be proven wrong following an upcoming release, but until that time I will continue to weigh up my options for return.

Edit: Correction v1.9 is listed on the support site, apologies. However, I maintain what I said above, these issues (and/or regressions) should not persist from one release to another.

VIOFO A129 Duo Dash Cam Firmware

Please click below for the A129 support page. A129 Support page

support.viofo.com

Edit2: *Sigh* I give up on Tapatalk (navigation is painful), it looks very much like I have posted this to the wrong forum, my mistake again, though in fairness the product names are very similar.

 

[TheGhost31]

Hi,

In my case, I have this camera since 7 months, something like that, I don't have any issue during my drive. I'm using the 1.9 version.
Videos are with a good quality, sometimes I record some really risky / imminent collisions, just yesterday in my case, I had a crazy guy in front of me on the road because he wanted to overtake a bus... He didn't judge the distance and our mutual speed... Happyfully, the bus stopped itself on the road, for me, letting the time to the car in front of me to finish its overtake... Anyway, this camera do the job for that, and it's good.

About the parking mode, indeed I don't use it to preserve my car battery. I use the camera only on risky parking for shoping or location where I know some risk can happens. And I use the normal record. I connected the 3 wires kit cable so it will record until 12.4v.
With this use case I don't have any trouble while it's really occasional.

I hope that the new firmware will improve the quality, to allow a better zoom on videos to see more some details even if it's already really good .

A little topic off, maybe that will be link I don't know but
The viofo application on android is really slow and not user friendly from my point of view. It should play in 'bad' or 'preview' quality to allow more quickly to watch something because I have to wait so many time to watch 3s ...
Even for the download, it should allow to record only what we need or if we stop to download the video, it should keep what we downloaded on phone. When I want the only 20 first seconds of my video I have to wait 8 minutes (3 minutes recorded) in my car to get one full video because otherwise I lost the file (half downloaded)
It's a waste of time for me.

And maybe for the interested people, the parking mode fully work is the most important feature. I can understand that (this camera is selling for that with this feature...) even if I don't care about this feature .

 

[DarthMaul]

I got tired of waiting for a good stable firmware from this vendor. After living a few months with v1.9 and realizing it's buggy, freezing or simply stops recording during parking mode, giving random beeps and feeling so sluggish, I returned to 1.5.
I wish I could use the buffered parking mode, but I simply don't trust it anymore. I'll stay with 1.5 & low bitrate recording until the time will come to replace it with something else. Not sure I'll choose the same brand though.

 

[TheGhost31]

Just to understand, the parking mode in low bitrate mode is also buggy with the v1.9? I didn't try it, but I thought it was working only in this mode...

 

[Gooffeyguy]

I got tired of waiting for a good stable firmware from this vendor. After living a few months with v1.9 and realizing it's buggy, freezing or simply stops recording during parking mode, giving random beeps and feeling so sluggish, I returned to 1.5.
I wish I could use the buffered parking mode, but I simply don't trust it anymore. I'll stay with 1.5 & low bitrate recording until the time will come to replace it with something else. Not sure I'll choose the same brand though.

Did you try low bitrate parking mode in V1.9?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[DarthMaul]

Did you try low bitrate parking mode in V1.9?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Yes, it works, but I still find the dashcam frozen every now and then. Also, the menus are really slow ever since I installed v 1.9.
If I can't reliably use the buffered parking mode, why should I use v1.9 at all? I want reliable surveillance and what they did so far is not reliable at all.
Also, @viofo seems to be deaf when we complain about faulty G-Sensor functionality, where even if you slam the car's door, it doesn't trigger anything. Yet, on their firmware page they state "Fixed G-sensor sensitivity in the Parking Mode recording issue. "

The new 2.2 beta seems to be even worse than 1.9. I know it's beta, but given the lack of communication from Viofo on reports, I don't have any hope that future "stable" version will be stable at all.

 

[DarthMaul]

Just to understand, the parking mode in low bitrate mode is also buggy with the v1.9? I didn't try it, but I thought it was working only in this mode...

Yes, found the dashcam frozen on multiple occasions. I start driving and when I look at the screen, it shows a static image from the parking place while I'm driving, so I have to reboot it.

 

[TheGhost31]

Alright I didn't know. A freeze should not happens otherwise we lost the utility of the camera.
In the worse case, the camera should reboot itself if its detect that the kernel don't answer anymore (freeze).... Thanks for your feedback

 

[programatix]

Also, the menus are really slow ever since I installed v 1.9.

Lol, I thought A129 menu is "that slow" by design because my wife's unit arrived with V1.9. That was one of the main reason why I choose to buy A129 Pro for my car. With higher CPU speed, the A129 Pro current beta firmwares are also causing the menu to be as slow as A129. Duh...

 

[CaptureYourAction]

Lol, I thought A129 menu is "that slow" by design because my wife's unit arrived with V1.9. That was one of the main reason why I choose to buy A129 Pro for my car. With higher CPU speed, the A129 Pro current beta firmwares are also causing the menu to be as slow as A129. Duh...

Seems to only be slow with rear camera connected. Doesn’t appear to happen all the time either. A freshly formatted card seems to help at times too.
On the Pro, Using the latest beta, are you able to manually power down the camera while the car is still running? For me, while I’m using the 3-wire kit, I cannot power off the camera while car is running. The camera just restarts.

 

[programatix]

Seems to only be slow with rear camera connected. Doesn’t appear to happen all the time either. A freshly formatted card seems to help at times too.
On the Pro, Using the latest beta, are you able to manually power down the camera while the car is still running? For me, while I’m using the 3-wire kit, I cannot power off the camera while car is running. The camera just restarts.

Yes, the slow down in A129 Pro is not all the time, but when it did, it is not that responsive.

In v1.7T, yes I can power it down but I need to release the button before it actually shutdown (before the shutdown song song played), else it would wake up again. Can't remember if v2.0 is possible since I didn't try it for long.

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk

 

[MiamiC70]

Not a peep from Viofo. Very telling of their intent.

 

[jokiin]

Not a peep from Viofo. Very telling of their intent.

holiday this week, I wouldn't expect any replies before Monday

 

[traveler]

Just released Dashcam Viewer v3.4.3 with support for the 2.3 firmware everybody loves.

 

[LeJerk]

I came here to see if there is an official stable update for this camera, but it doesn't seem like it. My dashcam is running ok on version 1.1.