VIOFO A119 V3

No, I have it in auto. I did some reading and it seems like automatically switching between parking mode to driving mode only works correctly with the viofo hardwire kit or gps module on...Does that seem correct?
 
No, I have it in auto. I did some reading and it seems like automatically switching between parking mode to driving mode only works correctly with the viofo hardwire kit or gps module on...Does that seem correct?
Reset it to the default settings, it should work fine with default settings. No point in us guessing all the changes you have made...
 
No, I have it in auto. I did some reading and it seems like automatically switching between parking mode to driving mode only works correctly with the viofo hardwire kit or gps module on...Does that seem correct?
I think the hardware kit would be best. Mine switches between parking and driving modes perfectly.
 
Hi folks, just figuring out how much time a single A119 V3 can record over a HK3 setup in parking mode. I have a 68Ah car battery, with typical 12.5-12.4V voltage readings every next day after my common daily drive now. I've measured the typical power consumption in 2K/60fps to be about ~0.36A when recording (LCD off).

Do you think it will be possible with my described setup/driving style to record 12+ hours of footage (mostly in parking mode) without draining/damaging my car battery too much? Of course this is just for one single camera, and I will have two of them installed.

Can anybody share his/her real life experiences with HK3 and A119 V3 vs. car battery life? Or another setup with external battery? Many thanks in advance.
 
Hi folks, just figuring out how much time a single A119 V3 can record over a HK3 setup in parking mode. I have a 68Ah car battery, with typical 12.5-12.4V voltage readings every next day after my common daily drive now. I've measured the typical power consumption in 2K/60fps to be about ~0.36A when recording (LCD off).

Do you think it will be possible with my described setup/driving style to record 12+ hours of footage (mostly in parking mode) without draining/damaging my car battery too much? Of course this is just for one single camera, and I will have two of them installed.

Can anybody share his/her real life experiences with HK3 and A119 V3 vs. car battery life? Or another setup with external battery? Many thanks in advance.
I've accidentally left my A119 V3 running on Parking mode for over 12 hours (sometimes over 24 hours) quite a few times. I have my HK3 kit set on 12.0 volts and it only once shut down the camera during the over 24 hours event. The car still started (Honda Odyssey with Exide X60CMF battery) but I did charge the battery with a charger after that event as I mainly only drive short local trips.

What I did find is that even with the camera turned off, the GPS mount still draws quite a lot of power from the HK3 and if the car is sitting for over a week (like during a pandemic lock-down) it will drain the battery considerably, so I have installed a switch on my dashboard that turns off the constant 12 volt power to the HK3 once my car is safely parked in my garage as I already have security cameras around the house.
 
Hi folks, just figuring out how much time a single A119 V3 can record over a HK3 setup in parking mode. I have a 68Ah car battery, with typical 12.5-12.4V voltage readings every next day after my common daily drive now. I've measured the typical power consumption in 2K/60fps to be about ~0.36A when recording (LCD off).

Do you think it will be possible with my described setup/driving style to record 12+ hours of footage (mostly in parking mode) without draining/damaging my car battery too much? Of course this is just for one single camera, and I will have two of them installed.

Can anybody share his/her real life experiences with HK3 and A119 V3 vs. car battery life? Or another setup with external battery? Many thanks in advance.
Your 0.36A is measured at 5 volts, not the 12V of the car battery?
So 5 x 0.36 = 1.8 watts.
So over 24 hours it will consume 1.8 x 24 = 43Wh/day.
Your car battery should be able to supply 100Wh when fully charged before reaching a 12.0 volt cutoff voltage, so you should get a little over 2 days.
Your car battery is unlikely to get charged to 100% very often if it is regularly powering a dashcam, how full it gets depends on how much driving you do which you haven't stated, but 80% is typical.
So your 12 hours is no problem, even for two cameras, although it does depend on what cut off voltage you choose, remembering that it is not recommended to use the 11.8V setting unless you have an AGM type battery, and the lower you set it the more you will wear the battery out, but batteries are consumable items so that is not a problem, just something to note.
 
What I did find is that even with the camera turned off, the GPS mount still draws quite a lot of power from the HK3
I'm gonna have to check this out myself. I would've thought that if the camera turned off, via button or parking mode timer, consumption would go to zero.
(PS: I also installed a switch for parking at the house.)
 
For many years now I've had a cam running 24/7 in the workvan. 80Ah batterry, usually a 2-channel cam of some sort. I've never checked voltages, but there seems to be no drop in starter speed as long as I drive enough to keep the battery charged, and as long as I don't exceed 24 hours while parked. Having driven this type of van for decades as best I can estimate this reduces the battery's service life about 20% and maybe less. Doing the math for costs, it's well under $0.50 per day, and I'm happy to spend that to have the peace of mind I get from having the video if I ever need it. Doing this with 2 single-channel cams did show a slowing of the starter but there was enough power in the battery to get going.

It's not 'best practice' so I won't recommend it, but it does work OK for me. Your costs will vary depending on what kind of battery your vehicle uses- mine is a cheap and common size. Smaller baytteries will of course suffer worse and may not be adequate for this. An AGM type car battery will; be much better for this kind of use, or you can use a powerbank to totally eliminate the issue. Best to use some form of 'low voltage cutoff' such as most HWK's have.

Phil
 
It does get below freezing here sometimes, and I've got a V8 engine to start as well which does take a fair amount of energy. In really cold climates it may be too much, but if you've got a charger or someone to boost you off, it's something you can try on a weekend at home to see what your results are. Do keep in mind that if your starter is slowed down your battery is at a very low voltage condition and it won't take that kind of abuse for long. Also remember that most car batteries are smaller than my 80Ah van.

Phil
 
I'm gonna have to check this out myself. I would've thought that if the camera turned off, via button or parking mode timer, consumption would go to zero.
(PS: I also installed a switch for parking at the house.)
I installed a Bluetooth battery monitor in my car and watched what the GPS/HK3 was doing. With the HK3 physically switched off, my battery wouldn't waiver much from about 12.7 volts in the morning. However with the GPS/HK3 switched on I regularly found that overnight the battery would be much lower, and progressively lower over the following days if I didn't switch it off, so it definitely drains the battery.
 
I also thought that the camera/gps would consume zero through the HK3, however I noticed that it still provides power to maintain a GPS satellite lock so that when the A119 V3 powers up when the ignition key is turned on it immediately provides coordinates and speed. however if you physically switch off the HK3 and manually activate the camera/gsp after ignition then it takes close to 2 minutes for the GPS to achieve a satellite lock.
 
I measured (about) .34 A @5.08 V when running normally, screen on.
When turned off, but still plugged in, I measure .03 A.
With the camera removed, .02 A from the GPS unit.
Don't forget the actual HK3 unit itself is also adding to the overall drain.
 
Thanks everybody for replies and suggestions. Both cameras installed yesterday using HK3 kit. They're nearly invisible from the outside, so small. Car's AGM battery voltage drop after cca 12hours in parking mode from yesterday until this morning is only 0.3volts (from 12.8 to 12.5), which seems nice (I have set the cutoff voltage to 12.2volts). For this price and for what I have played back on PC so far, video quality is out of this world, really. And the CPL filter helps too. However, Parking Mode Motion Detection doesn't seem to work at all, even when its sensitivity is set to highest value. I have managed to trigger recording only once, by somehow activating Parking G-sensor when I tried to "carefully" hit the back of my car with my hands and shook the car a little bit, although the rear dashcam only recorded 4 videos sequence (each video suffixed with P character) and each video is 10 seconds in length. Maybe I really don't know how Parking Mode Motion Detection works (infrared sensor or is it done purely in software???), but I was expecting that they would for sure record something during the night, as the parkplace is busy there. But nothing was recorded. Any suggestions? I am doing something wrong here? Firmware issue? Thanks.
 
Thanks everybody for replies and suggestions. Both cameras installed yesterday using HK3 kit. They're nearly invisible from the outside, so small. Car's AGM battery voltage drop after cca 12hours in parking mode from yesterday until this morning is only 0.3volts (from 12.8 to 12.5), which seems nice (I have set the cutoff voltage to 12.2volts). For this price and for what I have played back on PC so far, video quality is out of this world, really. And the CPL filter helps too. However, Parking Mode Motion Detection doesn't seem to work at all, even when its sensitivity is set to highest value. I have managed to trigger recording only once, by somehow activating Parking G-sensor when I tried to "carefully" hit the back of my car with my hands and shook the car a little bit, although the rear dashcam only recorded 4 videos sequence (each video suffixed with P character) and each video is 10 seconds in length. Maybe I really don't know how Parking Mode Motion Detection works (infrared sensor or is it done purely in software???), but I was expecting that they would for sure record something during the night, as the parkplace is busy there. But nothing was recorded. Any suggestions? I am doing something wrong here? Firmware issue? Thanks.
Just need to add something to possibly help.

I noticed with my HK3 when set to 12.2v that if I went shopping with the parking mode on, and then returned to the car to offload the shopping which took a minute or so, and then decided to do a little more shopping and locking the car again, that during that process with the cars internal lights all turning on, and the dash lights automatically turning on, and with the power draw of the remote locking/unlocking, it was enough high draw on the battery that it would momentarily dip below 12.2v, thus turning off the camera. I've since changed the HK3 to 12.0v and not had any issues at this setting, with the parking mode remaining active even after several trips in and out of the car. The battery voltage does recover back to higher levels after a few minutes.
 
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