Overly Sensitive Motion Detection

[PykeOPATHIC]

Days after installing the A229 Pro 3Ch, I noticed that it has captured a lot of videos while parked. I checked and didn't see anything that the dash cam should've recorded. I set the sensitivity of motion detection to the lowest and after a few days, I still had irrelevant parking videos. I reached out to Viofo support and told them that even at the lowest setting, I am still getting recordings with no movement. Viofo just told me to send sample videos. Here's their response.




So even at the lowest setting, the dash cam will record movement that are 20 feet away. So to avoid irrelevant parking videos and unwarranted use of battery power, I am just forced to turn off the dashcam which defeats why I even bought this one.

 

[forcefed]

So to avoid irrelevant parking videos and unwarranted use of battery power, I am just forced to turn off the dashcam which defeats why I even bought this one.

You don't save any battery life if there's no movement, the camera is always on.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

You don't save any battery life if there's no movement, the camera is always on.

Huh?

Of course the camera is always on because it's waiting for movement. But consistently writing on the card when there's no movement to begin with is what consumes more power.

And you missed the point of the post. The point of the post is the lowest setting for motion detection is still triggered by movement that's 20 feet away.

 

[forcefed]

Huh?

Of course the camera is always on because it's waiting for movement. But consistently writing on the card when there's no movement to begin with is what consumes more power.

And you missed the point of the post. The point of the post is the lowest setting for motion detection is still triggered by movement that's 20 feet away.

Movement is still movement and the difference between no movement in saving battery life is minuscule.
There's no writing to the sdcard when there's no movement, it's just watching without any writing.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

Movement is still movement and the difference between no movement in saving battery life is minuscule.
There's no writing to the sdcard when there's no movement, it's just watching without any writing.

Yes, watching without writing. It's the writing and no writing that makes a difference. Writing on the sd card consumes power Let's agree to disagree.

 

[forcefed]

If you think sdcard writing is the biggest battery hog in parking mode you're mistaken.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

If you think sdcard writing is the biggest battery hog in parking mode you're mistaken.

I never said it was the biggest,

I said motion detecting plus recording consumes more power than just motion detecting alone. Get your facts straight.

 

[forcefed]

You're complaining over nothing, parking mode uses around 5-7w regardless, if you didn't take that into consideration that's your fault.
If viofo makes the camera less sensitive and then something happens you'll complain that it didn't record it. Get an external battery if you're worried about your battery. Thats what i did, i have 36h of parking mode from it.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

You're complaining over nothing, parking mode uses around 5-6w regardless, if you didn't take that into consideration that's your fault.
If viofo makes the camera less sensitive and then something happens you'll complain that it didn't record it. Get an external battery if you're worried about your battery. Thats what i did, i have 36h of parking mode from it.

So you're okay to have your dashcam record movement that's 20 feet away from your car? I've accepted the power consumption of motion detection. Its the range that's not acceptable. What threat is there for your car from movement that's 20 feet away? And you can't even disable motion detection.
A battery pack will resolve just half of the problem. What about the other half which is storage space?

 

[forcefed]

Dashcams don't have depth sensors, it can't tell if an object is a foot away or 50 feet away, your expectation here is unreasonable.
If you want impact detection you should have done some research, the thinkware u3000 has a radar that detects impact and records after 1 second and uses almost no battery at all.
You're complaining about storage space now with a battery pack? That's beyond first world problems.

 

[Dashmellow]

So you're okay to have your dashcam record movement that's 20 feet away from your car? I've accepted the power consumption of motion detection. Its the range that's not acceptable. What threat is there for your car from movement that's 20 feet away? And you can't even disable motion detection.

Motion detection is problematic for dash cams and many of us, if not most of us have learned to avoid using it over the years for parking mode or anything else. Maybe it can be ok in a static situation such as a parking garage where very few things will be moving other than things you may wish to capture, but outdoors any range of unexpected moving things can and will trigger the camera regardless of what sensitivity you set. Distance has nothing to do with it, only objects in motion. For example, clouds moving through the sky or the leaves of trees or a piece of trash blowing in the wind, a cat walking into the frame, or whatever, even at a distance and even far away from your car at low sensitivity can and will trigger the camera.

You are asking the camera to do something it was never really designed to do.

I don't own a A229 Pro but I've never seen a dash cam where you can't turn off motion detection. Instead, you need to make a definite decision to turn it on in the first place.

There are some cameras, especially CCTV cameras, along with a few dash cams where you can select certain areas in front of the camera to be sensitive to motion and block other areas not to be but AFAIK the A229 doesn't have that feature. If it did, you could designate the area in front of and near your car to be sensitive to motion and everywhere else it would be blind to any motion.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

Dashcams don't have depth sensors, it can't tell if an object is a foot away or 50 feet away, your expectation here is unreasonable.
If you want impact detection you should have done some research, the thinkware u3000 has a radar that detects impact and records after 1 second and uses almost no battery at all.
You're complaining about storage space now with a battery pack? That's beyond first world problems.

Oh, no depth sensors? So what's the Low, Medium and High settings for then if it can't tell 1 foot from 50 feet? Like what I said earlier, get your facts straight.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

Motion detection is problematic for dash cams and many of us, if not most of us have learned to avoid using it over the years for parking mode or anything else. Maybe it can be ok in a static situation such as a parking garage where very few things will be moving other than things you may wish to capture, but outdoors any range of unexpected moving things can and will trigger the camera regardless of what sensitivity you set. Distance has nothing to do with it, only objects in motion. For example, clouds moving through the sky or the leaves of trees or a piece of trash blowing in the wind, a cat walking into the frame, or whatever, even at a distance and even far away from your car at low sensitivity can and will trigger the camera.

You are asking the camera to do something it was never really designed to do.

I don't own a A229 Pro but I've never seen a dash cam where you can't turn off motion detection. Instead, you need to make a definite decision to turn it on in the first place.

There are some cameras, especially CCTV cameras, along with a few dash cams where you can select certain areas in front of the camera to be sensitive to motion and block other areas not to be but AFAIK the A229 doesn't have that feature. If it did, you could designate the area in front of and near your car to be sensitive to motion and everywhere else it would be blind to any motion.

The A229 Pro's motion detection sensitivity can be set to high, medium and low. If it can detect movement from 20 feet away at the lowest setting as confirmed by Viofo, what else is the point of putting it to medium and high?

If distance has nothing to do with it like what you said, then I will ask again. What else is the Low, Medium and High settings for?

And yes, the a229 Pro's motion detection cannot be disabled. You have to turn off parking mode to do that. There's no way you can use just collision detection.

 

[Karagandinez]

If distance has nothing to do with it like what you said, then I will ask again. What else is the Low, Medium and High settings for?

The sensitivity of a motion sensor is not sensitivity to distance to an object, but sensitivity to the movement of an object.

 

[Dashmellow]

Motion detection sensitivity uses something called pixel-shift detection. The camera reacts to the size and contrast of the moving object as seen by the sensor, not the distance. A fly or a bird passing near your windshield or an airplane up in the sky that appears to the camera to be the same or similar size to the fly or the bird can all trigger the camera equally.

Motion detection settings on a dash cam are very approximate because of lighting, the speed of the moving object and other factors, BUT in general:

HIGH - makes the camera more sensitive to smaller objects with fewer pixels on the sensor.

MEDIUM - reacts to normal motion such as a person walking in front of your car.

LOW - reacts more to large objects such as cars, trucks or crowds of people in front of your car.

Nevertheless, motion detection on dash cams is not a very accurate or reliable technology and that is part of your problem.

 

[forcefed]

Oh, no depth sensors? So what's the Low, Medium and High settings for then if it can't tell 1 foot from 50 feet? Like what I said earlier, get your facts straight.

Low medium and high settings are based on object size + movement speed of object. My facts are straight as an arrow, you need to get yours checked because no one is agreeing with you.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

Motion detection sensitivity uses something called pixel-shift. The camera reacts to the size and contrast of the moving object as seen by the sensor, not the distance. A fly or a bird passing near your windshield or an airplane up in the sky that appears to the camera to be the same or similar size to the fly or the bird can all trigger the camera equally.

Motion detection settings on a dash cam are very approximate because of lighting, the speed of the moving object and other factors, BUT in general:

HIGH - makes the camera more sensitive to smaller objects with fewer pixels on the sensor.

MEDIUM - reacts to normal motion such as a person walking in front of your car.

LOW - reacts more to large objects such as cars, trucks or crowds of people in front of your car.

Nevertheless, motion detection on dash cams is not a very accurate or reliable technology and that is part of your problem.

Okay. Thanks for concise and DECENT explanation.