Switched DR650 Before Cloud to a newer one

[agw]

Nice meeting you all,

I just switched my old DR650GW-2CH to a newer version which supports cloud access. I have some feedback and some questions:

1) The proximity sensor no longer turns Audio on or Off, instead it starts Manual Recording. Reading some older posts it seems this is a 2.002 feature.
I'm not sure what the difference is between Normal and manual recording but I miss the feature of turning the audio on or off.
Does anyone know what Manual recording does (besides having a thumbnail displayed)?
Is there any other way to turn Audio on besides changing it in the firmware and restart the camera?

2) With WiFi on, the camera (on the switch sensor side) and the power cable (by the jack) get really hot (I can get an exact measurement if needed). Is that common? By the way I simply switched the front and rear camera and reused the original installation (cable and so on)

3) Local Access. When the camera is connected to my home network, any cloud operation is still done through the cloud and I suspect the server is too far from US so there is a lot of buffering. It would make more sense to be able to access the video via the Local Area Network. The best I could do was getting the live feed from the front cam and the list of files but connecting with FTP does not work. (Connection refused before passing "root" and "pt")

4) PC Access. At this time there is no PC access from either Cloud or LAN.
Ideally, the Desktop App could be slightly modified to allow direct connection to the Camera while on the LAN.
I thought that I could possibly map a drive on the PC to the cam file list and use it in the desktop app but not joy.

5) Wi Fi Failed message. It seems that upon reboot, the wi fi connects fine to my home network but if I drive away and then come back, I get a repeated message "WiFi failed" and I have to reboot the camera to make it stop.

My only reason for switching the camera was to be able to get home and review the videos from my PC and download what I wanted but as I write this I totally turned WiFi off and emailed Pittasoft CS.
I'm not even going to discuss the bitrate issue as I understand it is being addressed.

Any comment is appreciated.

 

[jokiin]

please update with whatever response you get from them, the info might be useful for others

 

[Ralph2]

Your comments and observations are very interesting. The biggest disappointment with my DR650 is the WiFi feature that will not connect to my LAN and allow me to view / download etc. I had hopes of the "cloud" when all the bugs are out being able to do this. Your observations imply the design seems to be that they (Pittasoft) is determined to force users to go at least through the cloud.. and thus a stream of revenue.
As you seem to have the same desires as myself... and more knowledge on how to do it.. please keep us informed if / when you are able to connect to your LAN with the camera.

 

[agw]

Hi There,
I agree, it seems that the design is targeted to add a new revenue stream and while there is nothing wrong with that, it would require an always on access point in the car. My only hope was to have access to it when I returned home to make use of the video recorded during the day. Just to be clear the camera connects to my LAN and as of now, this is a little easier than before bust still requires too much fiddling with scripts and what not.
Currently available commands that I'm aware of and tested working after you figure out which IP got assigned to your camera (and I would set it to static DHCP so it always gets the same one are):
(Replace the IP with the correct one for your camera)
http://192.168.X.X/blackvue_live.cgi
http://192.168.X.X/blackvue_vod.cgi
http://192.168.X.X/upload.cgi
http://192.168.X.X/index.html

I'll keep you posted

 

[jokiin]

rather than assigning a static IP on the device have a look at your router if you have an option to always assign the same IP to the camera, can be less problematic if you have this option

 

[agw]

That is what I did. To set a static IP to the camera one would need to change the camera configuration and defeat the ability of connecting to any other network (mostly). Thank you for clarifying though.

 

[agw]

Got a fairly quick and through reply from Blackvue (partially edited for clarity)

Regarding your inquiries:
1)
The proximity sensor next to Wi-Fi LED, which is for audio recording On/Off function in 1.009 version firmware, is used to start Manual recording in 2.002 version. Manual Recording is a sort of Event file, starting 5 seconds before the trigger.
You can turn ON/OFF the audio recording option using the Blackvue C app or Blackvue PC Viewer.
Blackvue C app-> Blackvue Cloud -> Camera Settings -> Camera basic Settings -> Voice Recording
You can configure these settings in the BlackVue PC viewer too. Connect the SD card to computer > open the BlackVue PC Viewer > Settings > Recording Setting > Voice Record (adjust your desired settings) > Save&Close.

2)
BlackVue Cloud service requires the dashcam's wifi to stay ON by default upon booting/rebooting. BlacKVue dashcam's are are designed to operate at the temperature range of -20°C ~ 60°C degree Celsius.

3)
Yes, they is a delay and it might take upto 30~40secs to buffer a recording over the Cloud. Accessing the dashcam over the LAN network will also involve the Cloud server so the possibility of less buffering time is less likely. However we are constantly trying to improve the Cloud service to make it more convenient for the customer's use.

4)
We will release an update of BlackVue PC viewer with Cloud feature in near future. Using this feature you will be able to access the dashcam from anywhere and anytime using your computer/laptop provided that the dashcam is ON and connected to cloud service.

----End Reply

As far as the wifi failed issue I did not address it as I turned it off and I wanted to do more testing before bringing it up.

Here are my comments to the reply:

1) I still think the ability to turn the Audio on/off is more useful. Perhaps a double tap on the sensor could toggle audio and a single trigger a manual event. Having to go through the basic settings and a restart is only practical for permanent On/Off not for a quick switch.

2) I'll turn on WiFI again and take a temperature reading with an infrared thermometer and see if it is below 60C. I'll report back.

3) When away from the camera and accessing remotely a certain amount of delay is to be expected. However, as of now it is way too long and must be improved. I'm sure you are working to balance quality and performance with combination of higher/lower compression/bitrate/bandwidth.

4) What I wish to see is direct LAN access to the camera via a web browser (partially available today at http://192.168.X.X/blackvue_live.cgi) and via the BlackVue PC Viewer. In the end a user could access the recordings in four different ways:
a) Tale the SD card out and take it to a PC. Use the BlackVue PC Viewer
b) Take a cellphone or tablet within 10 meters of the car and connect directly with the BlackVue App
c) Connect to any hotspot and, via the Pittasoft servers (cloud), stream to any enabled device (APP, PC Viewer, Browser)
d) Connect to a home WIFI (for example) and use the devices on the same network (PC/Tablet/Phone) to connect DIRECTLY to the camera bypassing the Pittasoft servers. It would be nice if the PC Viewer could connect also.

4d) Is really the reason why I switched to the newer version

 

[Ralph2]

Thank you for passing this on. Going from bad to worse with this cloud feature in my opinion. I agree the idea of changing the proximity switch from sound recording to event recording is a step back. Until they (Pittasoft) gives up on having to pass through "their" cloud at the expense of allowing local LAN access this will never work for me.

 

[agw]

Just a quick update to for a bit of a good news.
I have tried to switch the audio on and off from the app and the change is effective immediately with no camera reboot required. That's definitely doable although touching the sensor would still be easier.

 

[Ralph2]

Well that certainly that makes it feasible. When you quickly and discreetly want to start recording (as in when you are being challenged by.. say the police) All you need to do is ask him / her to wait while you set up a sting recording.

 

[agw]

Well that certainly that makes it feasible. When you quickly and discreetly want to start recording (as in when you are being challenged by.. say the police) All you need to do is ask him / her to wait while you set up a sting recording.

Well, I wish I could disagree with you but...I can't
I suggested either reverting back to Audio on/off or use a double tap for one function and single for the other, although I don't see the need for manual Recording...

 

[BastardSheep]

I'm confused as to why people miss the ability to turn audio on/off? If you don't want audio before uploading somewhere, is it really that hard to mute the video?

Surely it's worthwhile getting a video editing program and learning at least how to crop, join, and mute? I've had enough things happen over the period of two videos, or right where the video changes from one file to the other that it's essential, and all video editing programs I've looked at do mute, so why is it needed in the cam?

 

[Ralph2]

I may be wrong.. but recording takes up space.. thus if you have recording on all the time that SD card loops / overwrites sooner than it would otherwise. And.. some might take offense if they knew that you are recording thier conversation.. perhaps, while you are temporarily out of the vehicle even.

 

[agw]

Yes, mainly you would want audio off but the ability to turn it on quickly. That is for space savings (longer recording period) and for privacy.

 

[BastardSheep]

I didn't think having it mostly muted would add that much extra time, and I never considered having it muted for the most part but quickly enabling in desired situations. Fair enough then I guess. Thanks for clarifying for me.

 

[PRL]

I too upgraded my blackvue 650 to support Blackvue cloud. Since my camera was built before April 2015, I had to send it to blackvue to have the WiFi module updated (at a cost of $50). It's nice that they offer this upgrade.

But, annoyingly I too have the issue of having to reboot the camera to connect to my wifi network when I return home; otherwise I get the failed to connect to wifi message. Here's hoping a future firmware update corrects this.

 

[agw]

I too upgraded my blackvue 650 to support Blackvue cloud. Since my camera was built before April 2015, I had to send it to blackvue to have the WiFi module updated (at a cost of $50). It's nice that they offer this upgrade.

But, annoyingly I too have the issue of having to reboot the camera to connect to my wifi network when I return home; otherwise I get the failed to connect to wifi message. Here's hoping a future firmware update corrects this.

My quote was 50% of the cost plus I did not want to ship the camera so I just bought a new one and sold the old one.
I also found another issue with the new one besides the having to reboot when returning home in order to connect. In the morning, as I returned to the car, I found that the camera froze up and was no longer connected to the wi fi nor it would get out of parking mode. Unplugging it would also not give the usual shut down message indicating that the software was stuck somewhere.
I hope this too gets addressed in a future release.

 

[agw]

Meanwhile here is what I suggested to the Blackvue team
1 Direct access to the cam from the desktop app via local LAN
2 Auto turn off wifi after entering parking mode if no AP is connected. This will save battery and reduce operating temperature. By the way I measured 30C on a cool day but 45C in sun exposure with wifi on but not connected to an AP.
3 Ability to toggle audio from the camera like in 1.009. Maybe when activating manual recording audio goes on if it off by default. Then touching the switch again toggles back to normal recording with default audio.

 

[agw]

For those of you connecting to a fixed Wi Fi (Home) and getting Wi Fi Failed when returning home here is the good news from Blackvue:


BlackVue Cloud service requires the dashcam's wifi to stay ON and be connected to internet access point (wifi hotspot) all the time. If the dashcam is not connected to a portable wifi hotspot in car but a fixed wifi hotspot, and you drive out of the range of that wifi hotspot, the wifi in the dashcam keeps trying to access it and when fails, it gives "Wifi access failed" notification and similarly when come back to the range of the wifi hotspot, the dashcam doesn't connect to it automatically and gives "Wifi access failed" notification.
This issues due to a bug in current cloud compatible firmware version v.2.002 but it will be fixed in the upcoming firmware update v.2.003 that will be released by tomorrow.

 

[agw]

And here it is: http://www.blackvue.com/support/downloads/
This version adds:
1. Time Zone defaulted to ‘Pacific/Midway Islands’: make sure to update the Time Zone as required.
2. Fixed issue where users could not retrieve video file list from 128GB microSD cards via BlackVue Over the Cloud.
3. Fixed issue where “Cloud access failed” voice message was repeated when out of range of Wi-Fi hotspot.
4. Stability improvements.