Viofo A129 Duo - What Problems Have You Encountered With this Dash Cam?

StrayCam

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Recently Joe384 mentioned he has a number of problems he's dealing with on his Viofo A129. - - One challenge new and existing customers face is "now knowing what all the problems are" with this dash cam. Sometimes reported problems just get buried in some thead like "buffered parking mode" although the problems may have nothing to do with buffered parking mode. - - And although Viofo is aware of numerous reported problems with the A129, they do not share them with their customers nor indicate that they plan on fixing the problems in a future update. - - So, please share any challenges/problems you have experienced using your A129. Your sharing can help new and existing users of the A129 understand the dash cam's challenges. - - Hopefully at some point, they get added to Viofo's fix-it list and actually get fixed!

  1. One small issue that I was reminded of yesterday is when you start up your car, after your dash cam had been "on in parking mode" and hear a series of beeps continually. The solution is to merely press the left menu button to make the dash cam start and function properly...
I believe this problem came about with the firmware 1.9 update.



Summary of A129 Problems Reported on this Thread
  1. Starting Car after being in Parking Mode: a series of continuous beeps while starting "driving mode".... - - Need to push leftmost button to stop beeps and to start driving mode

  2. Returning to car - A129 was in parking mode: continuous beeps heard & recording stopped after only 2 hours; pushing leftmost button displays screen, stops beeping and then turns-off A129. When starting car, A129 works like normal in "driving mode".

  3. Instruction Manual doesn't say anything about interpreting what various beeps mean... nor does Viofo website.

  4. Video Cut-Off Problem - sometimes videos are cut short by 10-30 seconds


  5. G-Sensor does not work in "Parking Mode".


  6. The issue of the A129 creating "duplicate frames" was brought up by HonestReview

  7. The A129 drops frames from the front camera. - This was also brought up by Honest Review
  8. Customer Service at Viofo is terrible. This attached link with post from Valkyrie shows just how bad it can be.

 
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Is it beeping when you get in the car or only once you turn on the car? Is the camera not coming out of parking mode? I use parking mode daily and haven't experienced this. I use low bitrate mode though.
 
This is a good thread to report and I will once. my camera is up and running. Another couple of days for me. Good post
 
Is it beeping when you get in the car or only once you turn on the car? Is the camera not coming out of parking mode? I use parking mode daily and haven't experienced this. I use low bitrate mode though.


I've heard of others report this same thing. It happens after you start your car, but it doesn't happen all the time....intermittent for sure! And my dash cam was in "auto-detect parking mode". I'm not sure if it's technically locked in parking mode, but, it's definitely not working in driving mode.

Being somewhat of an experienced user now, I normally associate the multiple beeps with the camera not recording..., ie, recording got turned off or the sd card is not in the dash cam. But it's a different issue. Pushing the left-most button gets the dash cam on and functioning properly...

I don't typically use low bitrate parking mode, although I've tried it a couple times. - - This issue seems to occur coming from "buffered parking mode" to "driving mode"... high bit rate driving....

This is the first time in quite a while I've experienced it. - - It's definitely a "know issue". As I said, I think it came after fw 1.9.
 
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I have some more issues...!

I have been running with the rear cam disconnected for a few days..
Came back to my car this evening and the camera was constantly beeping. Pressed the left hand button and the screen turned on. Camera was not recording, but it immediately turned off. Switched my ignition on, camera booted up as normal, drove home.
When I got home I looked at the footage and noticed the camera stopped recording about 2 hours in.

I have had this happen before - around 1 month ago which I think is why I switched to low bitrate!

Also I had issues turning on wifi again, I pressed and held the button about 3 times before it actually switched on
 
I have some more issues...!

I have been running with the rear cam disconnected for a few days..
Came back to my car this evening and the camera was constantly beeping. Pressed the left hand button and the screen turned on. Camera was not recording, but it immediately turned off. Switched my ignition on, camera booted up as normal, drove home.
When I got home I looked at the footage and noticed the camera stopped recording about 2 hours in.

I have had this happen before - around 1 month ago which I think is why I switched to low bitrate!

Also I had issues turning on wifi again, I pressed and held the button about 3 times before it actually switched on

The easiest problem first, Wifi - - with that I normally push and hold the wifi button for 5 - 10 seconds; normally in that time frame the screen will show the icon for wifi connected. Sometimes the connection happens quicker, but sometimes it can take me up to 10 seconds to connect phone to cam via wifi.

The constant beeping when your returned to your car was probably alerting you to the fact that the cam was not recording.... but why was it not recording??? It makes no sense that the cam stopped in that time frame. Have you done a pin-reset on your cam yet? If not, that's probably a good thing to do. After doing so, you'll need to do a return to default settings on your phone, and then customize the settings as you prefer.

Another challenge we A129 users face is there is no explanation in the manual or on the Viofo website as to what the various beeps are communicating to us. Collectively, we've been able to determine what some of them mean, but an official explanation from Viofo sure would be nice!
 
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The easiest problem first, Wifi - - with that I normally push and hold the wifi button for 5 - 10 seconds; normally in that time frame the screen will show the icon for wifi connected. Sometimes the connection happens quicker, but sometimes it can take me up to 10 seconds to connect phone to cam via wifi.

The constant beeping when your returned to your car was probably alerting you to the fact that the cam was not recording.... but why was it not recording??? It makes no sense that the cam stopped in that time frame. Have you done a pin-reset on your cam yet? If not, that's probably a good thing to do. After doing so, you'll need to do a return to default settings on your phone, and then customize the settings as you prefer.
I have a question, If I must do a pin reset down the road, will that take away the 1.9 firmware? I do not want to loose this as it took me some doing to update
 
No you can not "screw" up the firmware that way, it should only be possible to do with a new firmware file on the memory card.
The reset button on the camera just reset the hardware, and then you can do the reset to default in the menus if you like to start fresh with you setup.
I cant recall needing to use the hardware reset on a dashcam, but i have done that a few times on action / dash cameras like the mobius 1 - 2 and maxi + the now dead joovuu X cam.

BUT ! it seem like a camera can paint itself into a corner, i experienced that when i got the SGGCX2 camera, but a reload of the firmware fixed that permanently, and subsequent updates of the firmware dident make the issue repeat.
 
The easiest problem first, Wifi - - with that I normally push and hold the wifi button for 5 - 10 seconds; normally in that time frame the screen will show the icon for wifi connected. Sometimes the connection happens quicker, but sometimes it can take me up to 10 seconds to connect phone to cam via wifi.

The constant beeping when your returned to your car was probably alerting you to the fact that the cam was not recording.... but why was it not recording??? It makes no sense that the cam stopped in that time frame. Have you done a pin-reset on your cam yet? If not, that's probably a good thing to do. After doing so, you'll need to do a return to default settings on your phone, and then customize the settings as you prefer.

The wifi button is weird - I must have held it for at least 10 secs the first 2 times. The 3rd time the wifi icon showed up after only a few seconds.

The beeping issue I've had before, I was using auto event detection and viofo advised I try low bit-rate mode.
Obviously this hasn't solved the problem.

I'm pretty sure there is no issue with the hardwire kit - If it was hitting the voltage cutoff the dash cam would be completly switched off.
 
The wifi button is weird - I must have held it for at least 10 secs the first 2 times. The 3rd time the wifi icon showed up after only a few seconds.

The beeping issue I've had before, I was using auto event detection and viofo advised I try low bit-rate mode.
Obviously this hasn't solved the problem.

I'm pretty sure there is no issue with the hardwire kit - If it was hitting the voltage cutoff the dash cam would be completly switched off.


joe384-

You are right in that if there was a cutoff problem with the hw3 kit, the dash cam would be completely off when you returned to your car. - And I know you are using a Viofo 64gb card, so one would think that your card is not the problem either. So, the only fix that Viofo suggested, going to low-bitrate parking mode has not fixed the problem. - - The only other thing I can think of which is easy to do is to simply to re-format your card. Can't hurt and just might help...???

Unfortunately, many if not all of the problems that get reported on this thread will have no solutions which is why we add them to our Problems List; this will alert other users to the problems and keeps a running list of things that need to be corrected by Viofo.

 
The wifi button is weird - I must have held it for at least 10 secs the first 2 times. The 3rd time the wifi icon showed up after only a few seconds.

The beeping issue I've had before, I was using auto event detection and viofo advised I try low bit-rate mode.
Obviously this hasn't solved the problem.

I'm pretty sure there is no issue with the hardwire kit - If it was hitting the voltage cutoff the dash cam would be completly switched off.
The wifi button would work normally if you didn't have a problem somewhere.

My guess is that it is having problems talking to the rear camera, that is causing both the beeping and slowing the camera down so that it doesn't respond to buttons properly.
 
The wifi button would work normally if you didn't have a problem somewhere.

My guess is that it is having problems talking to the rear camera, that is causing both the beeping and slowing the camera down so that it doesn't respond to buttons properly.

The continuous beeping normally indicates the camera is not recording... what would cause it to stop recording? The card? The Hardware itself? I believe one can buy/use the A129 without having a rear camera, so that would seem to negate the argument that the A129 is having problems talking to the rear camera...? - - Joe384's rear camera is disconnected.
 
The continuous beeping normally indicates the camera is not recording... what would cause it to stop recording? The card? The Hardware itself? I believe one can buy/use the A129 without having a rear camera, so that would seem to negate the argument that the A129 is having problems talking to the rear camera...? - - Joe384's rear camera is disconnected.
He hasn't said that the slow wifi button occurs even with the rear camera disconnected. If that is the case then I will think again...
 
I thought WiFi is only good as your carrier! Mine is very fast but I know some friends who have crappy WiFi service. Some had to add WiFi extenders in their house.
I may be off on this. I do not use the WiFi feature as some suggested on here
 
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The wifi button is weird - I must have held it for at least 10 secs the first 2 times. The 3rd time the wifi icon showed up after only a few seconds.

The beeping issue I've had before, I was using auto event detection and viofo advised I try low bit-rate mode.
Obviously this hasn't solved the problem.

I'm pretty sure there is no issue with the hardwire kit - If it was hitting the voltage cutoff the dash cam would be completly switched off.
He hasn't said that the slow wifi button occurs even with the rear camera disconnected. If that is the case then I will think again...

I've noticed that the camera is less responsive when the camera is very hot. I'm guessing the processor gets throttled when in high temps, causing the response to take quite a bit longer after pressing the button(s) (whether it be going to the screen to view playback, opening and going through the settings menu, enabling/disabling wifi, etc.)
 
I think you are mixing up phone service and wifi, granted both are wireless things but often deal in different frequency spectrum's.
Granted again ;) wifi as in home or on the go wireless connection between gadgets can also differ a lot, so the router you get from your ISP when you got internet, those can have different wifi properties, even if 2 support the same standards and frequencies.
Also in a town environment with a lot of wifi going on, that will congest the airwaves and also slow things down,,,,, something the brand new wifi 6 standard are dealing with. https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-6
The layout of your home, and what the home are made off will of course also have a say, so wifi extenders / repeaters can be something you will need, not least if you don't have a say in where your internet router are placed.

Using my phone i only get 300 mbit on wifi VS the 1000 on the cable , and it do drop if i sit on the toilet and test or are in my bedroom, even if the 4 doors ( living room - bedroom - kitchen - bath ( are within arms reach of each other and almost in the middle of the 2 room apartment )

Something not least 1 cable provider push had here at the moment + the fact they are in areas where 1.4 million Danes could get similar gigabit speeds as i have.
So they push hard with " our router have in tests the best wifi" as Danes too ( well all the other ones at least ) are wifi whores too.

Regarding phones then yeah, topography and the providers and how they have antenna placed in your area have a lot to say.
My phone provider are on one of two main networks here, and have a roaming agreement with the other network, and still i often get into dark spots where i have no data on my phone, and you can also find yourself in a place where you don't even have a connection for speech on a cell phone.

And little Denmark are on the forefront in cellular coverage and technologies deployed, and the country are pretty flat, what we call mountains and hills here, will have most people laugh their ass off.
 
I thought WiFi is only good as your carrier! Mine is very fast but I know some friends who have crappy WiFi service. Some had to add WiFi extenders in their house.
I may be off on this. I do not use the WiFi feature as some suggested on here


I'm not a tech guy...but my understanding is the wifi connection between your camera and your phone has nothing to do with your wifi connections - 3g/4g/5g strength, etc... - Your phone merely connects to your dash cam, period. I'm assuming you could be in an area with no wifi/4g signal and still have your phone and A129 connect through the app's wifi connection setting.

edit: I use phone wifi app sparingly, but never when driving or using my a129 for any recording. I may use the wifi-app to change settings, although most are easy to change right on dash cam screen. I believe there is at least one setting that can only be changed from the wifi-app and not from the screen...I can't remember what that was...? - - I definitely use the wifi app when I want to adjust/change the camera view w/ front or rear camera...the dash cam screen is too small for that and the app is much more convenient to do so.
 
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I'm not a tech guy...but my understanding is the wifi connection between your camera and your phone has nothing to do with your wifi connections - 3g/4g/5g strength, etc... - Your phone merely connects to your dash cam, period. I'm assuming you could be in an area with no wifi/4g signal and still have your phone and A129 connect through the app's wifi connection setting.
That’s correct. The connection is established directly between the phone and camera. It has nothing to do with cellular data services. At least that’s the case with this particular dashcam.
 
Understood, I have WiFi off.
 
He hasn't said that the slow wifi button occurs even with the rear camera disconnected. If that is the case then I will think again...

Sorry, I haven't had the rear camera connected for a few days (since Thursday/Friday?) as I'm pretty sure there's an issue with the cable.
 
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