Please add cloud functionality

[KANNINA 2.0]

When the LEO asks you to exit the car, they will not be waiting for you to remove the SD card.

...erased the cell phone interaction (clown cop failed to understand the file was still in the delete folder)...

In America, you don't have to be guilty, just convenient for an arrest.

In cases where this is a potential concern, that's a benefit of the BlackVue cams.

Can't push a button and erase a video or format the SD card. Can't access recordings unless logged in through the app on your phone.

That said, if you don't have some kind of security engaged to prevent anyone but yourself accessing your phone, and you don't understand your rights (in America) well enough to say "Get a warrant" if a cop asks to access your phone, well... you did that to yourself.

Hopefully you had the cloud connectivity working.

 

[Nigel]

That said, if you don't have some kind of security engaged to prevent anyone but yourself accessing your phone, and you don't understand your rights (in America) well enough to say "Get a warrant" if a cop asks to access your phone, well... you did that to yourself.

Doesn't the cop need a warrant to access the dashcam too?

Actually I would expect him to need a warrant (or some other excuse such as a traffic accident death) to to take the dashcam, and another that is not available to traffic cops to access any data on it.

 

[KANNINA 2.0]

Doesn't the cop need a warrant to access the dashcam too?

Actually I would expect him to need a warrant (or some other excuse such as a traffic accident death) to to take the dashcam, and another that is not available to traffic cops to access any data on it.

Generally, yes, unless you offer it voluntarily.

 

[Jeffan.yy]

You can put a router in your vehicle, connect your voifo to it using station mode, then you can preview the live stream through rtsp://<ip address>/xxx.mov, also you can also download the record just enter the ip in your browser.
Base on this, you can write your own application to implement the cloud function

 

[acters]

You can put a router in your vehicle, connect your voifo to it using station mode, then you can preview the live stream through rtsp://<ip address>/xxx.mov, also you can also download the record just enter the ip in your browser.
Base on this, you can write your own application to implement the cloud function

Its actually funny how you think this is a great idea and Viofo actually gave a like to...

Problem 1: Where are you going to power this router from? If only when the car is on/running, then how fast do you need to wait for the router to boot fully? usually a few 2-3 minutes, which I think is unacceptable. Also this would need you to reset the station mode on the Viofo camera as it stops searching for the station after 10 or so minutes which will require a reset on the station mode setting to start the search again. This means you need the camera to always be connected to the router, and brings the power issue to be a huge headache. You will need the most efficient router in the world. searching then buying it is extremely not user friendly. You will need deep technical skills in purchasing the right router with the right features AND not sip power like crazy. Also needs to be able to run on 12 volts. Your car battery can barely run the Viofo cam for more than 24 hours in parking mode.

Problem 2: You will need proficiency in multiple technologies, including writing applications on the router and client device of your choosing to make this work. Writing code that has to communicate over cellular signals is a pain, and will be rife with bugs unless you are a god programmer. Bringing back the infeasibility of this to more than 99.9999% of the entire population of people in this world AND that is a higher number of people who own one of these a139 pro cameras. Unless someone who open sources their project with extremely high quality details and low cost parts will make this more feasible but that is a big IF on someone ever doing that.

Problem 3: Extreme temperatures will kill the router/force a shutdown, that brings back the problem of needing to reset the station mode as mentioned in problem 1. In extreme heat, the camera will likely shut down, and will require you to blast AC in the vehicle to cool down the router and camera, and thus reinitiating the entire cloud system you built along with redoing the station mode. In extreme cold, there is more of a leniency but your router should be rated for outdoor usage as condensation could ultimately kill the electronics.

Problem 4: putting this router and battery required to power it in a location that is easily accessible for any problems that may occur, and not take up too much room that will reduce the amount of useful cargo space. I imagine this to be a small problem, but there are cars that are compact that offer enough space for most people and this will make it worse for them. Also, will need to route the wires/cables throughout the vehicle that can either be expensive AF or ruin an multiple weekends simply because it is likely to make a mistake with adding more complexities to the system. You are human, and some people will make mistakes that can cost them hours to multiple days depending on how much time they can spend on the project.

Problem 5: As mentioned, this is exceedingly time consuming. Your optimism on "...put a router..." and "...write your own application..." as if this can happen in a reasonable amount of time is laughable. Solving all the previously mentioned problems and implementing it will take literally months, maybe years for a fully functional cloud system that has all the features you wanted and reliably work.

I can keep going. I am displeased with comments like these that pretend that the user base are being lazy on implementing cloud features, when the best option is to quite literally not do it ourselves and just buy a product that implements cloud functions in the camera system.

You can eliminate the station mode issues if the camera had external storage solution instead of the worst "standard" known, SD Cards. It is laughable how much these companies need to push the fact that we need to use the right SD CARD. Its literally brain dead on how bad the SD Card standard is when the implementations on readers and storage cards differ enough to cause fundamental issues in dashcam functionality. Heck UFS storage would be miles better but nope, SD Card it is for the extra bucks these manufacturers make from consumers that have almost no other options than deal with SD Card limitations.

/end rant

 

[viofo]

For personal use, it requires technology to know how to use it, and it is not convenient.

This station mode is really helpful for business users, there are some business users developed their platform to integrate with the A139.
The A139 is widely used in self-driving cars for monitoring the front and interior and uploading the video to the cloud on time.

Maybe soon the dash cam can support external storage, like SSD which the iPhone 15 supported.

 

[acters]

For personal use, it requires technology to know how to use it, and it is not convenient.

This station mode is really helpful for business users, there are some business users developed their platform to integrate with the A139.
The A139 is widely used in self-driving cars for monitoring the front and interior and uploading the video to the cloud on time.

Maybe soon the dash cam can support external storage, like SSD which the iPhone 15 supported.

I gotta admit, this comment is one of the best ways to respond to my rant.

unfortunately, station mode is specialized for limited target audience who can integrate large battery capacities, specialized low power hardware, and manpower to install said hardware in a place that solves all aforementioned problems. I am glad self-driving vehicles were mentioned making it clear that station mode was made with their specialized situation. However, I don't see the benefit of using WIFI instead of just a cable port on device that wires up to the main computer instead of needing a wireless device to facilitate communications in which increases complexity and unnecessary expense. Especially considering the fact that station mode will need to be connected to said wireless device every moment the camera is on. The running costs on Station mode is just not profitably efficient design. A cable that features the same functionality as the station mode will be miles better. only upside for wireless connectivity is ability to deploy a device that is far away from the central network. considering every location in a vehicle is close to the central network, then it is effectively a worse option than just a plug and cable. Especially knowing that you still need to route wiring through various parts of the car for the multiple channel setups and the hardwiring power lines.

In conclusion, wireless station mode has great features, however the wireless is the worst feature that would be better off just being a wired station mode. Wired station mode will effectively be better than external storage support. Furthermore, switching to a more reliable UFS storage system than the current SD Card non user friendly (user hostile) problems will minimize client friction.

 

[kamkar]

I am looking forward to see Viofos take on a cloud system.
I dont think they can open source the firmware / SDK, that would land Viofo in court i am sure.

Also it is very few that could make any use of open source what ever, i for sure am sadly not that kind of geek.

I do like the new cabled way of browsing and DL footage to your phone, not that i would ever need it, CUZ i am not obliged to hand over anything at the scene of a event, just like any Danish cops take on what have happened will not have any say, but we do have crash scene investigators that do come to severe accidents, and i do think they have some say.
But anything else, that is for insurance companies to duke out, and that might be in a courtroom, though i do think here that happen very rare, they would probably just go 50/50 to save costs, and insurance companies do not need to document the actual crash scene, they go by what their customers have reported in their claim, which in some cases are fraudulent, hence why i have a dashcam.

Regarding cloud, i would prefer to offload to a home NAS, even if that then mean i have to get one more and drives for it, adding to the total investment, but i rather do that than pay for cloud.

I have for a long time argued for a better / larger / cheaper storage media like a M2 drive, and add to that some kind of AI footage offloading, CUZ i would of course not like to DL all 2-4 Tb of data every time i plug my thumb drive / portable torage into the backup plug

I am thinking something like:

plug storage into backup port on running system = automatic offloading of all new events ( created since last backup )
Plug storage into backup port while phone connected to system = option on phone to backup all footage including events on user selectable days, or backup everything created since last backup or if that's not the case everything on the internal storage,,, period.

Of course here fastest possible offload speeds to media in backup port is wanted.

 

[DT MI]

...Death to Viofo cloud. lol

Hear, hear.

If cloud capability is added make it a unique product for those that want it and are willing to pay for it. Don't further complicate an existing product, increase the expense, and reduce the reliability for those of us that have no use or desire for it.

 

[kamkar]

Generally i do not need cloud or AI anything, at least that is my stand right now as i cant say i have tried any of it.
My stance are subject to change, CUZ i might be wrong and i might learn something.
One thing is for sure, i do prefer to only pay for the things i buy / use.

 

[acters]

I am looking forward to see Viofos take on a cloud system.
I dont think they can open source the firmware / SDK, that would land Viofo in court i am sure.

Also it is very few that could make any use of open source what ever, i for sure am sadly not that kind of geek.

I do like the new cabled way of browsing and DL footage to your phone, not that i would ever need it, CUZ i am not obliged to hand over anything at the scene of a event, just like any Danish cops take on what have happened will not have any say, but we do have crash scene investigators that do come to severe accidents, and i do think they have some say.
But anything else, that is for insurance companies to duke out, and that might be in a courtroom, though i do think here that happen very rare., and insurance companies do not need to document the actual crash scene, they go by what their customers have reported in their claim, which in some cases are fraudulent, hence why i have a dashcam.

Regarding cloud, i would prefer to offload to a home NAS, even if that then mean i have to get one more and drives for it, adding to the total investment, but i rather do that than pay for cloud.

I have for a long time argued for a better / larger / cheaper storage media like a M2 drive, and add to that some kind of AI footage offloading, CUZ i would of course not like to DL all 2-4 Tb of data every time i plug my thumb drive / portable torage into the backup plug

I am thinking something like:

plug storage into backup port on running system = automatic offloading of all new events ( created since last backup )
Plug storage into backup port while phone connected to system = option on phone to backup all footage on user selectable days + event created then of course, or backup everything created since last backup or if that's not the case everything on the internal storage,,, period.

Good points

I have family and friends who are absolutely not tech savvy enough to even push a button. sometimes I am honestly shocked they can drive decent enough to not get into car troubles. Still my elderly parents are my biggest worry as I want them to be safe, especially when there are people who stop them to hassle them into just throwing cash their way, the usual you hit my car or intentionally walking in front of their car to get pretend hit. Plenty of despicable people here will harass older individuals. Thus I need to get something that will have great image capture and ease of offloading for me to collect from for their misadventures. This is something I want, so I am not needed to be there physically when my elderly parents get into any troubles. I also want to manage multiple vehicles without having to play SD card swap game every day as the 256GB cards usually are more than halfway full from parking mode auto event detection recording almost anything and everything.

The current limitations in accessing the A139 Pro storage is the biggest issue I take right now. SD Cards have inherent limitations in performance to read from and write to, Namely SD Cards are Half Duplex communication. Also the fact that a bad SD Card could just break the recording functionality of the dashcam is just bad.

regarding cloud, I wouldn't mind if the cloud features are like the GPS module, slotted in if people want to pay extra for it. Especially if the capabilities allow for users to connect to a home/server storage system of our choosing, like google drive or Proton drive or self-managed NAS.

The M.2 drive seems highly unnecessary additional cost for almost no use case. As you said, you are not obligated to hand over anything at the scene of the event and having a more robust off loading or cloud capabilities will be better "bang for buck". The UFS storage chips are more robust to extreme temperatures compared to m.2 drives(and SD Cards) for a more profitable cost to implement. UFS is also Full duplex communication that means reading can happen at the same time as writing.

 

[Panzer Platform]

Hear, hear.

If cloud capability is added make it a unique product for those that want it and are willing to pay for it. Don't further complicate an existing product, increase the expense, and reduce the reliability for those of us that have no use or desire for it.

Also death to H.265
Long live K.I.S.S.

 

[Nigel]

The current limitations in accessing the A139 Pro storage is the biggest issue I take right now.

You already have access to remove the SD card, USB card reader mode if you plug the dashcam into your computer/phone, wifi access to the file system for download of files either through the Viofo app or by your own software.

What sort of additional access do you want?

I can understand some people wanting to plug a storage drive into the camera USB port and have all the new events downloaded to the drive automatically.
I can understand some people, probably businesses, wanting to do the same over the internet.

For general cloud access, the video files are too big and access too slow, unless you compress them heavily and reduce resolution. Other brands are still using SD resolution for cloud storage/access, best you seem to be able to get is HD720, which for most people is not worthwhile. Live view is of no useful value for most people, although there seem to be quite a lot of people who want it, until they have it, and then they soon stop using it.

regarding cloud, I wouldn't mind if the cloud features are like the GPS module, slotted in if people want to pay extra for it.

Problem with that is that everybody still pays for the development costs, there are good reasons for Viofo dashcams having the best image quality while being significantly cheaper than the brands with cloud features, it is not just hardware cost.

Especially if the capabilities allow for users to connect to a home/server storage system of our choosing, like google drive or Proton drive or self-managed NAS.

I think that would be by far the best way of implementing event uploads to the cloud. Placing the event files on Google Drive is usable, understandable and accessible by most people, and could easily be integrated into the current App, appearing as just another folder, and it removes any trust/security issues with the dashcam company storing your video files.

 

[acters]

You already have access to remove the SD card, USB card reader mode if you plug the dashcam into your computer/phone, wifi access to the file system for download of files either through the Viofo app or by your own software.

What sort of additional access do you want?

I can understand some people wanting to plug a storage drive into the camera USB port and have all the new events downloaded to the drive automatically.
I can understand some people, probably businesses, wanting to do the same over the internet.

For general cloud access, the video files are too big and access too slow, unless you compress them heavily and reduce resolution. Other brands are still using SD resolution for cloud storage/access, best you seem to be able to get is HD720, which for most people is not worthwhile. Live view is of no useful value for most people, although there seem to be quite a lot of people who want it, until they have it, and then they soon stop using it.


Problem with that is that everybody still pays for the development costs, there are good reasons for Viofo dashcams having the best image quality while being significantly cheaper than the brands with cloud features, it is not just hardware cost.


I think that would be by far the best way of implementing event uploads to the cloud. Placing the event files on Google Drive is usable, understandable and accessible by most people, and could easily be integrated into the current App, appearing as just another folder, and it removes any trust/security issues with the dashcam company storing your video files.

All of these access methods require me to get inside the vehicle. Cloud type features will securely offload to a remote location that I can manage much easier than the waste of time it is for me to physically show up to everyone's home. It's exceedingly time consuming to travel multiple hours between my family members who like to live in different parts of the city. Not to mention the ones who live outside of this state that will be even harder to deal with. The only solution will be to blow a ton of money on stuff or just have better storage access for me to interface with. SD Cards are Half duplex, which means they can only write or read, not both at the same time, and this limits the download speed from the Dashcam when a recording is made. Its just terrible for me to deal with at all.

Can't be competitive if your competitors start offering better products that the general mass market will buy over this small community of dashcam power users. Everyone wants to have simple easy to use stuff that integrates with easily accessible options. The last point you made aligns with this notion. Making secure uploads to storage mediums of our choosing that don't require me to physically have to get in the car, turn off the camera to swap SD Cards and turn it back on, and not forget that it will not go into parking mode unless you cycle the car on and off, or you will drain the 12v car battery completely faster because it is left in normal mode than parking mode. That is not counting the fact i need to be where the vehicle is physically, or trust the non-tech literate family member doesn't make a grave mistake.

 

[Panzer Platform]

there are good reasons for Viofo dashcams having the best image quality

Yes!
It's because they're not saddled with having to develop bell & whistle features like ADAS, or Cloud.
They have enough trouble ensuring basic features function properly.
Image quality & reliability is priority #1.
Death to Viofo Cloud.

 

[Nigel]

The last point you made aligns with this notion. Making secure uploads to storage mediums of our choosing that don't require me to physically have to get in the car...

So, would you be happy if all the new event files got automatically uploaded to, eg Google Drive, every time the ignition is turned off, and before the camera enters parking mode, or sleep mode depending on configuration?

That doesn't get you everything, but it is at least realistic, and simple for both you and your family, and can be done at full resolution, and in some case can be done without needing an LTE module in the camera, such as if there is wifi access in your parent's garage, or if they stay in phone range for the 1 minute it needs to transfer the new event file to their phone for it to then upload when it has mobile or wifi access. The marking of files as events could probably be improved for situations like yours...

 

[safedrivesolutions]

Unless there is a sim card and a properly built back end dont waste your time. In my opinion 99% of all cloud enabled dash cameras suck. I got multiple brands on my shelf where CLOUD is a waste.
Blackvue is only one I found where you use a sim card that works correctly.

I would not waste my time hotspotting a dash camera. Seen way too many times in testing where hotspot of phone drops out.

Also I have a DR970X on my shelf and guess what it has a format button. Not sure what blackvue cameras you have that do not have a format button.

 

[acters]

Unless there is a sim card and a properly built back end dont waste your time. In my opinion 99% of all cloud enabled dash cameras suck. I got multiple brands on my shelf where CLOUD is a waste.
Blackvue is only one I found where you use a sim card that works correctly.

I would not waste my time hotspotting a dash camera. Seen way too many times in testing where hotspot of phone drops out.

Also I have a DR970X on my shelf and guess what it has a format button. Not sure what blackvue cameras you have that do not have a format button.

All the cloud functionality needs is to have proper sim support, and to allow SSH secure tunnel connection and that's it for the most basic ability to connect to the camera. From there the ssh tunnel can interface with the station mode features. Its possible. These companies over complicate the cloud system with inbuilt custom made integration to their own servers that adds more to the cost, instead of just exposing the station mode to a secure tunnel via ssh. Keep it simple

+1 on blackvue, too bad I didn't wait for their lineup to get the starvis 2 sensors, might need to get the 970x plus and just have each family member pay for the cloud features on their own dime, gonna have to figure out how to do that diplomatically
I would rather prefer just a simple LTE connection with a SSH tunnel for me to connect securely into.

 

[Nigel]

These companies over complicate the cloud system with inbuilt custom made integration to their own servers that adds more to the cost,

That is what the cloud is, something they can charge a subscription for.

All the cloud functionality needs is to have proper sim support, and to allow SSH secure tunnel connection and that's it for the most basic ability to connect to the camera.

That is not the cloud, that is just internet connectivity, something they can't sensibly charge for.

It would give you the ability to run the Dashcam App from anywhere your phone has internet connectivity instead of only when in the car and connected to the camera wifi, so you would be able to access files and live view on your family dashcams. Maybe that is all you need? I think most people paying for a SIM would want event files automatically uploaded to a cloud server though.

 

[acters]

That is what the cloud is, something they can charge a subscription for.


That is not the cloud, that is just internet connectivity, something they can't sensibly charge for.

It would give you the ability to run the Dashcam App from anywhere your phone has internet connectivity instead of only when in the car and connected to the camera wifi, so you would be able to access files and live view on your family dashcams. Maybe that is all you need? I think most people paying for a SIM would want event files automatically uploaded to a cloud server though.

You are right they cant sensibly charge for, and they already cant charge for all the other dashcam features, so why i opening up internet connectivity to allow you to send all the files into a cloud or self managed nas, instead of penny pinching features? Seriously let me connect to the device and let me use the station mode features to download the files to my self managed nas or just have me send them over directly to a cloud provider. it is a loose term to say cloud feature here, but its just a buzzword. You are right, I just want a LTE module that is super simple and doesn't try to penny pinch me by just allowing me to SSH secure tunnel into the device to access the station mode features.