VIOFO A229 Pro - Testing / Review - RCG

[a008]

This video contains daytime cloudy sky footage from a VIOFO A229 Pro front camera and a VIOFO A119 Mini 2. I use the raw audio captured by both dash cameras so you can hear the quality and volume differences.

Hi rcg530, thanks for the sample videos. Does the A229 pro or A119 mini 2 run hot? I am looking for a dashcam for road trip in the Summer, currently thinking about the 70mai A810, A229 Pro or the A119 Mini 2. I heard imaeg quality may degraded when the camera is hot, may even shutdown.

 

[rcg530]

Hi rcg530, thanks for the sample videos. Does the A229 pro or A119 mini 2 run hot? I am looking for a dashcam for road trip in the Summer, currently thinking about the 70mai A810, A229 Pro or the A119 Mini 2. I heard imaeg quality may degraded when the camera is hot, may even shutdown.

I have not had the chance to use the A229 Pro in a hot / summer temperature environment yet. I've upgraded my wife's car from an A129 Pro Duo to the A229 Pro 2CH (Rear). It will be another 6 months or so before the "hot" temps return to my location.

The A119 Mini 2 worked well during the hot summer days this past summer. The heat related focus issue I encountered with the A119 Mini 2 has been resolved when VIOFO changed the lens used in the A119 Mini 2 starting in July 2023.

 

[a008]

I have not had the chance to use the A229 Pro in a hot / summer temperature environment yet. I've upgraded my wife's car from an A129 Pro Duo to the A229 Pro 2CH (Rear). It will be another 6 months or so before the "hot" temps return to my location.

The A119 Mini 2 worked well during the hot summer days this past summer. The heat related focus issue I encountered with the A119 Mini 2 has been resolved when VIOFO changed the lens used in the A119 Mini 2 starting in July 2023.

thanks, does the A229 Pro has signficant better image quality due to larger sensor and the higher resolution?

 

[rcg530]

thanks, does the A229 Pro has signficant better image quality due to larger sensor and the higher resolution?

The A229 Pro 4K UHD video has somewhat better video quality during normal/driving recording. When in parking mode, the A229 Pro drops to 2K QHD video resolution for the front camera and that is not a native resolution for the IMX678 image sensor. I have a couple of videos on my channel with A229 Pro and A119 Mini 2 video footage. The A119 Mini 2 image quality and HDR implementation are pretty hard to beat right now. VIOFO's constantly working to improve the image quality and HDR quality in the A229 Pro/Plus series.

 

[rcg530]

ran a power consumption test with firmware v1.2_240227 installed using an A229 Pro 1CH configuration. I tested the four parking modes with and without the GPS enabled in parking mode via the new setting in this firmware version.



With the GPS configured to be left on during parking mode (old behavior), the power consumption results were much higher than my previous tests with firmware v1.0_230912 installed.

Comparing the power consumption results with v1.2_240227 firmware installed, when the GPS is disabled during parking mode, there was a reduction of about 0.10W to 0.14W (8 mA to 11 mA @ 12.6V). This increased the projected parking mode recording times by 46 to 67 minutes (96 Wh battery pack).

 

[jimmyh_]

ran a power consumption test with firmware v1.2_240227 installed using an A229 Pro 1CH configuration. I tested the four parking modes with and without the GPS enabled in parking mode via the new setting in this firmware version.

View attachment 71172

With the GPS configured to be left on during parking mode (old behavior), the power consumption results were much higher than my previous tests with firmware v1.0_230912 installed.

Comparing the power consumption results with v1.2_240227 firmware installed, when the GPS is disabled during parking mode, there was a reduction of about 0.10W to 0.14W (8 mA to 11 mA @ 12.6V). This increased the projected parking mode recording times by 46 to 67 minutes (96 Wh battery pack).

I'm a little confused about the motion detection in parking mode - I thought motion detection should be a power saving feature where the camera only records when motion is detected but it seems like that's the most power hungry. Is that not how motion detection works?

 

[forcefed]

I'm a little confused about the motion detection in parking mode - I thought motion detection should be a power saving feature where the camera only records when motion is detected but it seems like that's the most power hungry. Is that not how motion detection works?

The camera has to be on and processing the image to detect motion in it, that's why it's using up so much power.

 

[jimmyh_]

The camera has to be on and processing the image to detect motion in it, that's why it's using up so much power.

yes but why is motion detection mode a higher power draw than just regular parking AED recording? Does it mean that regular AED records only when impacts are detected, and AED + Motion records when either motion or impacts are detected?

 

[rcg530]

I'm a little confused about the motion detection in parking mode - I thought motion detection should be a power saving feature where the camera only records when motion is detected but it seems like that's the most power hungry. Is that not how motion detection works?

VIOFO dash cameras only offer Auto Event Detection (motion & impact), time-lapse and low bitrate parking recording modes. There is no "motion detection only" parking mode. AED parking mode creates buffered recordings for the triggering motion or impact event. That requires the dash camera to stay awake to detect visible motion activity and impacts and so it will have the 15 seconds of video/audio before the triggering event to write to the 45 second video files.

 

[timetraveler]

Power Consumption Test Data

3-Channel Front + Rear + Interior

View attachment 68450 View attachment 67783

2-Channel Front + Rear

View attachment 68449 View attachment 67785

2-Channel Front + Interior

View attachment 68448 View attachment 67787

1-Channel Front

View attachment 68447 View attachment 67789

Summary Of Video Bitrate Data

View attachment 67791

thank you for the comprehensive testing. Can you say anything about the power consumption in parking mode with only g-sensor detection without constant recording? (is that even possible?)

 

[rcg530]

thank you for the comprehensive testing. Can you say anything about the power consumption in parking mode with only g-sensor detection without constant recording? (is that even possible?)

None of the current VIOFO dash camera models have an impact detection only parking mode. The "Auto Event Detection" will monitor for motion and if an impact occurs it will also generate a video recording(s). Because "Auto Event Detection" is monitoring the all of the video inputs checking for motion and it's maintaining a buffer of audio/video to include in motion or impact triggered recordings, it consumes a lot of power. The time-lapse and low bitrate parking modes are continuously recording so they consume a non-trivial amount of power as well. I believe in the new v1.3 beta firmware you can decide if you want the interior camera recording while in parking mode so that might result in some power savings.

It would be nice for VIOFO to offer an impact only parking mode that is responsive to impact events much like Thinkware has for the U3000 (and other Thinkware models). The U3000 awakens and starts recording within 2 seconds of an impact event.

 

[viofo]

None of the current VIOFO dash camera models have an impact detection only parking mode. The "Auto Event Detection" will monitor for motion and if an impact occurs it will also generate a video recording(s). Because "Auto Event Detection" is monitoring the all of the video inputs checking for motion and it's maintaining a buffer of audio/video to include in motion or impact triggered recordings, it consumes a lot of power. The time-lapse and low bitrate parking modes are continuously recording so they consume a non-trivial amount of power as well. I believe in the new v1.3 beta firmware you can decide if you want the interior camera recording while in parking mode so that might result in some power savings.

It would be nice for VIOFO to offer an impact only parking mode that is responsive to impact events much like Thinkware has for the U3000 (and other Thinkware models). The U3000 awakens and starts recording within 2 seconds of an impact event.

We will check if we need to release the impact only option, some users asked this because they want to save the card space, and don't want to keep recording.
But we are afraid if we use the impact only, it may miss some important event, then users will complain about why no recording.
I read a post on Reddit 5 years ago, someone shared he used the A119 and found his car was painted, finally the parking recording video saved $900 for him.

 

[ogzogz]

We will check if we need to release the impact only option, some users asked this because they want to save the card space, and don't want to keep recording.
But we are afraid if we use the impact only, it may miss some important event, then users will complain about why no recording.
I read a post on Reddit 5 years ago, someone shared he used the A119 and found his car was painted, finally the parking recording video saved $900 for him.

It would be nice if there was an option to record only against impact. I came across many users asking this.

I have also shared how this should happen in the past.

An additional setting to the event detection parking record may be an option that will lock the file only if an impact occurs.
Thus, the camera will work just like event image detection, that is, it will make a preliminary recording, and if an impact occurs, 15 seconds before and after will be recorded.

People may change your usage preferences. Therefore, doing this gives an extra feature. Users are saved from unnecessary memory occupancy in a crowded street.

It would also be good to choose this feature.
For example, you parked your car in the evening and came back. If there is parking recording with impact detection, it will be activated as soon as you switch to driving mode when you start your vehicle. The user should be informed by a notification that an impact has been detected while parked and, in models with a display screen, a red exclamation mark that lights up constantly or intermittently.

Because sometimes we cannot go around our vehicle and control it. especially in the evening hours. Therefore, it would be good to notice the situation before leaving the scene.

This will add extra quality to the camera and will return user satisfaction and benefit their preference. @viofo @VIOFO-Support

 

[timetraveler]

None of the current VIOFO dash camera models have an impact detection only parking mode. The "Auto Event Detection" will monitor for motion and if an impact occurs it will also generate a video recording(s). Because "Auto Event Detection" is monitoring the all of the video inputs checking for motion and it's maintaining a buffer of audio/video to include in motion or impact triggered recordings, it consumes a lot of power. The time-lapse and low bitrate parking modes are continuously recording so they consume a non-trivial amount of power as well. I believe in the new v1.3 beta firmware you can decide if you want the interior camera recording while in parking mode so that might result in some power savings.

It would be nice for VIOFO to offer an impact only parking mode that is responsive to impact events much like Thinkware has for the U3000 (and other Thinkware models). The U3000 awakens and starts recording within 2 seconds of an impact event.

Thank you for the kind clarification. it makes sense that in the motion detection mode the camera sensor has to be constantly on to decide whether or not to commit the recording to the memory card or not. Consequently it's clear that this will consume a lot of power, while saving card space. If it would only engage the camera sensor after impact detection (which is a ultra low power sensor) , it would be conceivable the camera could run up to 100 times longer (if the hard- and software would be optimized to such a degree). That being said even an 10x lower power consumption would be already a major improvement for many many users.

We will check if we need to release the impact only option, some users asked this because they want to save the card space, and don't want to keep recording.
But we are afraid if we use the impact only, it may miss some important event, then users will complain about why no recording.
I read a post on Reddit 5 years ago, someone shared he used the A119 and found his car was painted, finally the parking recording video saved $900 for him.

In my case card space is not so much of an issue but rather energy consumption, since I don't drive my car every day, so I agree with the other uses who request this feature.

 

[ogzogz]

Thank you for the kind clarification. it makes sense that in the motion detection mode the camera sensor has to be constantly on to decide whether or not to commit the recording to the memory card or not. Consequently it's clear that this will consume a lot of power, while saving card space. If it would only engage the camera sensor after impact detection (which is a ultra low power sensor) , it would be conceivable the camera could run up to 100 times longer (if the hard- and software would be optimized to such a degree). That being said even an 10x lower power consumption would be already a major improvement for many many users.


In my case card space is not so much of an issue but rather energy consumption, since I don't drive my car every day, so I agree with the other uses who request this feature.

This feature does not save energy. Because before the event is also important. For this, locking pre-recording and post-impact recording is a good solution.
If recording after the impact is taken into account, energy savings will be achieved. However, if a vehicle crashes into your vehicle and speeds away, there may be a delay in recording the image between the collision and the start of recording.

It would be nice if there was an option to record only against impact. I came across many users asking this.

I have also shared how this should happen in the past.

An additional setting to the event detection parking record may be an option that will lock the file only if an impact occurs.
Thus, the camera will work just like event image detection, that is, it will make a preliminary recording, and if an impact occurs, 15 seconds before and after will be recorded.

People may change your usage preferences. Therefore, doing this gives an extra feature. Users are saved from unnecessary memory occupancy in a crowded street.

It would also be good to choose this feature.
For example, you parked your car in the evening and came back. If there is parking recording with impact detection, it will be activated as soon as you switch to driving mode when you start your vehicle. The user should be informed by a notification that an impact has been detected while parked and, in models with a display screen, a red exclamation mark that lights up constantly or intermittently.

Because sometimes we cannot go around our vehicle and control it. especially in the evening hours. Therefore, it would be good to notice the situation before leaving the scene.

This will add extra quality to the camera and will return user satisfaction and benefit their preference. @viofo @VIOFO-Support

But I would also like to offer this as an option, as it would add extra features.