Parking Mode settings - various settings and results

[CaptureYourAction]

There is no button to turn parking mode on and off (without going into the menu), but you can always just leave it on, then manually power down the camera when ever you don't want the camera running in parking mode. Press and hold the menu button to power down the camera.

 

[nycmaster]

Since there was no simple button to turn on/off parking mode I made my own. Used simple LED switch from Amazon and installed in between my always on fuse box and always on cable (I think its red) from HK3. Works great for me. When I park my car for more than 1-2 days in my home garage I simply power off the switch and viofo is turned off so no parking mode. When I need parking mode on for what ever reason, I simply turn on the LED switch and turn the car ignition off. Another good thing about the switch is since the switch is LED it gives me very clear visual status of the parking mode.

Currently trying to figure out a theory of mine and have viofo use car jumper starter battery instead of using car battery which may cause non start in case of old car battery. Tested in my garage and I can confirm this potential dash cam battery I tested with charges AND supply power to 12V out port which I like. I'll update progress here if there's any. Just don't have time to fiddle around with this yet.

 

[rofutofu]

Since there was no simple button to turn on/off parking mode I made my own. Used simple LED switch from Amazon and installed in between my always on fuse box and always on cable (I think its red) from HK3. Works great for me. When I park my car for more than 1-2 days in my home garage I simply power off the switch and viofo is turned off so no parking mode. When I need parking mode on for what ever reason, I simply turn on the LED switch and turn the car ignition off. Another good thing about the switch is since the switch is LED it gives me very clear visual status of the parking mode.

Currently trying to figure out a theory of mine and have viofo use car jumper starter battery instead of using car battery which may cause non start in case of old car battery. Tested in my garage and I can confirm this potential dash cam battery I tested with charges AND supply power to 12V out port which I like. I'll update progress here if there's any. Just don't have time to fiddle around with this yet.

Stupid question, but if the dashcam is hardwired and we power it off entirely - does this still use the battery?

 

[jokiin]

The camera no, there will be a very small power draw from the LED light in the hardwire kit

 

[richx]

https://www.viofo.com/blog/detail/a129-parking-mode-v20-introduction.html

Error 404 on that old link. New URL is here:

A129 Parking Mode V2.0 Introduction - VIOFO Official Website

VIOFO A129 Parking Mode Introduction

www.viofo.com

 

[Hsolver]

Some idea about nonstability in MotionDetection mode - if buffered recording process inherits bitrate value from menu settings "Bitrate High/Low", we can try to test this mode with Low bitrate value to find out any dependency bug-bitrate.

 

[Ormy]

My preferred parking mode is the '3fps' timelapse mode. It records constantly (until voltage cutoff) and it's easy to find a particular incident because the videos are encoded at 30fps so play back at 10x realtime.

In terms of extending parked recording time, I swapped my battery for a AGM which is much happier starting the engine from cold at 11.8v or less and extended recording time by a few hours. I also installed an uprated alternator (the kind the car audio guys use with kilowatts of amplification) so that when I've got the heated screens going and all the lights on etc etc on a short journey in cold weather there is still plenty current capacity (i.e. voltage remains above 14v) to charge the battery as quickly as possible. I also put 20W of solar panels in but they only really help in the summer.