Vantrue Element 1 Parking Mode Confusion

[bgreenstone]

I got an E1 yesterday and I'm completely confused about how parking mode works. As best I can tell this camera does not work like most others which have a dedicated parking hardwire cable that detects when the car is turned off/on. My understanding is that this camera somehow automatically detects that you're parked, but the manual says nothing about how that works. Also, there's no setting to tell it how long to remain in parking mode, so I'm guessing it just stays on until your car battery is dead. Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[rcg530]

I got an E1 yesterday and I'm completely confused about how parking mode works. As best I can tell this camera does not work like most others which have a dedicated parking hardwire cable that detects when the car is turned off/on. My understanding is that this camera somehow automatically detects that you're parked, but the manual says nothing about how that works. Also, there's no setting to tell it how long to remain in parking mode, so I'm guessing it just stays on until your car battery is dead. Can anyone shed some light on this?

I created a post a couple of days ago outlining the four different parking modes available with the Vantrue E1. Here's a link to that post: Vantrue E1 - Power Consumption Test Results - Parking Modes

If one of the four available parking modes is enabled in the firmware settings, when the vehicle is stationary for 5 minutes it will enter parking mode. The E1 will exit parking mode when the vehicle begins moving again. If you power the E1 using the cigarette port power adapter, then yes it can run down the vehicle's battery. There is no firmware setting to limit the amount of time the E1 remains in parking mode. Vantrue does sell an optional hardwire kit which has a low voltage cutoff feature with two settings 12.0V/24.0V or 11.6V/23.2V (supporting vehicle with 12-volt or 24-volt power systems).



I hope that helps.

 

[bgreenstone]

I created a post a couple of days ago outlining the four different parking modes available with the Vantrue E1. Here's a link to that post: Vantrue E1 - Power Consumption Test Results - Parking Modes

If one of the four available parking modes is enabled in the firmware settings, when the vehicle is stationary for 5 minutes it will enter parking mode. The E1 will exit parking mode when the vehicle begins moving again. If you power the E1 using the cigarette port power adapter, then yes it can run down the vehicle's battery. There is no firmware setting to limit the amount of time the E1 remains in parking mode. Vantrue does sell an optional hardwire kit which has a low voltage cutoff feature with two settings 12.0V/24.0V or 11.6V/23.2V (supporting vehicle with 12-volt or 24-volt power systems).

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I hope that helps.

Thanks! That was an excellent bit of research you did on that. Did you ever hear anything about why the voltage cutoff wasn't working? Also, what determines if the car isn't moving? Does it use the GPS, the accelerometers, or does it look for a lack of motion in the camera image itself? I've been testing it, and I've had my car parked for 20 minutes and when I return it doesn't seem to be in any parking mode.

 

[rcg530]

Thanks! That was an excellent bit of research you did on that. Did you ever hear anything about why the voltage cutoff wasn't working? Also, what determines if the car isn't moving? Does it use the GPS, the accelerometers, or does it look for a lack of motion in the camera image itself? I've been testing it, and I've had my car parked for 20 minutes and when I return it doesn't seem to be in any parking mode.

I've not received a response as to why the hardwire kit did not turn off as expected. Just now, I sent an email to Vantrue asking for follow up on the hardwire low voltage cutoff issue and I asked for detailed description of the parking mode enter/exit detection logic.

I believe the E1 is using an accelerometer to know when the vehicle has been stationary for 5 minutes to enter parking mode. During your testing of parking mode, I assume you enabled one of the four parking modes in the E1 settings, correct?

 

[bgreenstone]

I’ve been running some tests on it today, and I have found with pretty much absolute certainty that it does not use the accelerometer to determine if you are parked. It seems that if I park somewhere where there are people or other cars constantly moving around it never goes into parking mode. But if I park somewhere, like in my garage, where there is no visible motion then it does work. This would mean that parking mode is only activated when visually nothing is moving, not physically the car. Oh, and I have Parking Mode set to impact detection, not movement detection.

 

[rcg530]

My testing of the E1 in my car while I drove my car on my weekly shopping trip route, resulted in zero parking mode video files being generated. All videos were normal mode (N_A filename suffix). I had my E1 configured to record "Low Bitrate" videos at 1080p 15fps during parking mode. There were zero "P_A" files. I had my video resolution set to 2560x1440p(HDR) 30fps. All of the video files created were 2560x14440p 30fps. Earlier today, I sent an email to Vantrue asking for a detailed description on how the dash camera determines it should go into parking mode. During the testing in my office, it went into parking mode after it was sitting stationary on my filming desk for 5 minutes. I'll let you know what Vantrue comes back with on this question.