Relay for F800(Pro) parking mode control and file backup to NAS

[Larry Lart]

For the past few months I have been playing with a number of relays to use in order wake f800pro camera of parking mode and be able to access it from inside(home) via wifi.

I have tried - bluetooth, wifi, xbee and while all would work ok, will either draw to much power or lack on the range I needed, mostly through the walls of the house.

So I decided to use a cheap fob relay, 315 MHz, which frequency do well through walls and draw little power and are cheap(10eur) https://opencircuit.shop/Product/10981/12v-10A-relais-met-315MHz-afstandsbediening

You can just use the key fob to toggle the camera on/off parking mode or you can do a hack with an additional relay base/gateway(connected to the fob) to expose it to a computer or mobile. I have attached some pics with what I did.

For this particular relay, to enable the toggle function you need to solder the two terminals besides T as in the picture bellow.

Next, I will work on scripts to do the nightly file backup from camera to NAS and I will update this thread if anyone interested.

 

[Brightonuk]

way beyond my pay grade but looks like an interesting project

 

[Larry Lart]

way beyond my pay grade but looks like an interesting project

Well, for the basic function of waking the camera of parking mode on demand is simple enough just insert the 10 bucks relay on the camera power line feed, with the relay between the acc and battery wires, and for this specific relay you also need to solder the two terminal as in _relay_03 pic to enable the toggle function as opposed to the momentary switching which is the default (other relays might have different behaviour as default)

The additional hacks I did are more related to giving me the ability to control this from a software/backup perspective on a predefined schedule.

 

[gsnake]

so what about power consumption? how much is consumed when you do the backups? and how do you make the camera go back to "sleep" mode?

 

[Larry Lart]

so what about power consumption? how much is consumed when you do the backups?

The relay will simulate car starting by providing feed from battery on camera’s ACC wire, in which case camera will start in normal driving way, so it will use about 2.3Watts vs 0.9-1Watt in parking mode. So for the duration of the backup camera is fully on, with recording and everything.
I know, ideally camera should stay in parking mode with only wifi on, I could probably kill the recording for the duration of the backup and that might be ok if it doesn’t take too long or not so interested in parking mode.

and how do you make the camera go back to "sleep" mode?

The camera will go back to sleep once you turn the relay in the off position – that will cut the feed from battery on the ACC wire. In my case I had the keyfob connected to my pc, using yet another quick hack(a wifi relay connected to the button switch) – once the backup script is done will call that to turn the camera back in parking mode. There are any number of relays you can use – direct wifi or Bluetooth or Xbee for the purpose – I used this one for the 315Mhz frequency goes better through the walls, although I notice some 443Mhz(or 413MHZ) with gateway interface to wifi out of the box.

 

[gsnake]

got it, thanks! this is really cool setup and I will probably create something like that. At least it would be nice to wake up the camera remotely as you did. otherwise even to get a 1 min clip from it I have to run the car or keep ignition on (with all the lights on too) - does not make any sense. imo this is really a design flaw

 

[RLS]

Ooooh, this is interesting!!

I have seen backup scripts for Blackvues (I have a few DR750S-2CH), and was curious if people had been doing the same with Thinkwares...

I just installed an F800 Pro w/ 2x Cellink Neo’s in parallel. It wouldn’t be difficult to throw in a switched relay on one of the Neo’s output lines.

Any details on the script? Might be able to help. Crossing my fingers for Linux (since most NAS run some form of it), etc.


-Brian

For the past few months I have been playing with a number of relays to use in order wake f800pro camera of parking mode and be able to access it from inside(home) via wifi.

I have tried - bluetooth, wifi, xbee and while all would work ok, will either draw to much power or lack on the range I needed, mostly through the walls of the house.

So I decided to use a cheap fob relay, 315 MHz, which frequency do well through walls and draw little power and are cheap(10eur) https://opencircuit.shop/Product/10981/12v-10A-relais-met-315MHz-afstandsbediening

You can just use the key fob to toggle the camera on/off parking mode or you can do a hack with an additional relay base/gateway(connected to the fob) to expose it to a computer or mobile. I have attached some pics with what I did.

For this particular relay, to enable the toggle function you need to solder the two terminals besides T as in the picture bellow.

Next, I will work on scripts to do the nightly file backup from camera to NAS and I will update this thread if anyone interested.

 

[Larry Lart]

The script has to run on the camera and upload recording from there to your nas/ftp server, so it will need to be triggered(telnet to camera and run script) from either task scheduler on your desktop, phone (like tasker android) or the nas itself(if it supports scripting). I had attached a sample of my script – you need to edit it and fill in the ftp details, then rename it (remove .txt extension – I use this so I can upload it here) and copy it on the sd card. Than telnet to the camera (user root) and run it.

Unfortunately, so far, I could not find any ftp service or network share that can be run in this camera to allow remote connectivity – I will keep looking. Also the crontab (task schedule on the camera, is not enabled – I can enable it but once it goes in parking mode it goes away – It looks like the parking mode it’s a different boot level and I don’t have access to that unless I go low and start unpacking the firmware.

 

[ChooChooMan74]

How hard is this to do? I have been looking for a camera that will upload to an ftp server. Only thing, this is for a customer, so looking for something automatic.

 

[chiron80]

This is really useful information. Do you have any updates since your original posts? Any refinements to make the process more straightforward?

I'm currently shopping for a dash cam, and trying to decide between the BlackVue DR750S-2CH and Thinkware F800 Pro.

I don't have WiFi in my car, but my goal is that when I get home, I can have the dash camera automatically connect to my home network and then I can download any video that is tagged as having an event.

As RLS stated, I found a few posts with scripts for automatically backing up the files from the BlackVue cameras via HTTP. Those posts don't mention whether they work in parking mode, or if the car has to be running for the backup to work. This is the only post I've found discussing something similar for the Thinkware camera.

Question for anybody who's tried something similar: Would you recommend the Thinkware F800 or the BlackVue DR750S-2CH? Is one easier to access via some kind of automatic script? It seems (from this post) that the BlackVue would be much easier for a few reasons:

1. It doesn't seem to require a hardware hack to get the camera to wake up before the backup (although this isn't explicitely stated in the posts about BlackVue).

2. You can use HTTP reads from your remote computer, rather than trying to run a shell script on the camera itself.

However, I like the flexibility of the different parking mode features that the Thinkware F800 offers.

Am I missing anything? Any advice before I purchase one camera or the other?