"Smart" HDR timer?

melonsvk

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Hi guys,

just got my new A119M recently and I love it (used A119v1 for more than 6 years). What an upgrade.

I love HDR timer feature to use HDR only at night, but is there any possibility to make it smarter? Because dusk and dawn times are really different during year.
My idea was to be able to set different times for each month, let's say for January 16:00 - 8:00, February 16:30 - 7:30, ..., July 22:00 - 5:00, ...

It would be much more accurate than a single setting. Would it be helpful also for anyone else? @viofo would it be possible?
 
Don't think they would implement this feature, seems a bit unnecessary since you just need to adjust the setting a few hours once twice a year.
 
The better way would be to incorporate light sensor, add that option to settings, including sensitivity level.
When this option is selected, the dash cam will automatically switch to HDR mode in low light, much like a car navigation screen.
This will work not only for the night, but also during day time in tunnels and bad weather (thunderstorms could be quite dark)
 
Well, as soon as there's a few seconds delay when switching HDR on/off, I'd say it would be contraproductive for tunnels etc., you'll lose few seconds everytime when light conditions change.
I'd be completely fine with pure SW solution, which would consists of few lines of code and everyone can set his own values for each month.
 
The better way would be to incorporate light sensor, add that option to settings, including sensitivity level.
When this option is selected, the dash cam will automatically switch to HDR mode in low light, much like a car navigation screen.
This will work not only for the night, but also during day time in tunnels and bad weather (thunderstorms could be quite dark)

This idea has come up from time to time here on the forum. At one time, (more than 7 years ago) dash cam manufacturer SeeZeus introduced the Shadow 1S which used a photo-diode to switch the camera into a "night mode" with limited success but it experienced certain problems. Oncoming headlights tended to trigger the sensor out of "night mode", for example. I think the idea could be improved and further developed but so far nothing has come of it and no other camera since the Shadow 1S has incorporated a light sensor.

Shadow 1.jpg
 
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It should work like a car entertainment/navigation screen that switches to night/day mode based on outside lighting condition with some delay, but does not react to short-term light sources.
I guess, light sensor could be configured with some time delay for continuous light condition to trigger the HDR switch, and it probably needs to be shielded from direct oncoming headlights.
Although, I am not sure if such an feature would be justified in terms of cost vs demand.
 
In all seriousness I'm certain that localised sunset/sunrise times could be coded into the firmware based on GPS location data. That way HDR would be triggered when appropriate.
 
Just for information
Got a quick response from VIOFO (they are good!) on my question :

Q: Is there interruption and/or delay in video recording when dash cam is switching HDR On and Off with time settings. If so, how long it takes to switch. Thank you.
05/26/2023
A: There is about 5 seconds recording interrupt while the HDR switch.
 
It should work like a car entertainment/navigation screen that switches to night/day mode based on outside lighting condition with some delay, but does not react to short-term light sources.
I guess, light sensor could be configured with some time delay for continuous light condition to trigger the HDR switch, and it probably needs to be shielded from direct oncoming headlights.
Although, I am not sure if such an feature would be justified in terms of cost vs demand.

A car entertainment/navigation system is a far more expensive and sophisticated device than a dash cam which is by comparison just a relatively inexpensive consumer gadget with a limited amount of memory and processing power. There is a limit to how many features and capabilities you can ask of today's cameras even though they've come a long way over the years. So, you are correct that cost would be a factor but perhaps we will see a feature like viable auto light sensing for HDR at some point. As for shielding a photo-diode from oncoming headlights it could probably just be pointed in a different direction such as downward or to the side.
 
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