Viofo A329T (unboxing & first impressions) (Sony Starvis 2 IMX678, Wi-Fi 6/GPS, HDR, Novatek NT98530, 4K front + 2.5K telephoto + 2.5K rear, HDR all)

Isn't external storage supposed to be the A329 series thing? Take away that and it's just an A229.
 
Mtz said:
I don't know anything about embargo, but I consider that will not be anything shocking in the new A329S.
On A329 I accept that it was something fantastic, the SSD support but don't expect to see something fantastic like that on A329S.
As hardware, the main features of A329S are already presented, like: 3 channels, coaxial cables on all cameras, new RTC-400 style secondary cameras which is almost the same as RTC-300 but with the cooling improved, a great new wide lens for interior, few sales options like S, T, SW versions.
I would like to see detachable mounts for the secondary cameras like are on WM1 or VS1. I asked about this before the release of the A229 Pro secondary cameras.
Regarding firmware for sure there will be new functions, some of them as ideas created by Viofo with the help, or not, from people outside Viofo. Viofo can no do anything they want, there must be some collaboration and limits with Novatek, but I have the feeling that it is a good collaboration between they and Novatek.
So I consider the unknown expectations to be from the firmware, new functions and accessories and not only from the camera itself. But again, nothing shocking like it was for me the SSD support which was a big surprise from Viofo.
Click to expand...
Lol, Nice, yeah the SSD support was great on paper but it had a lot of caveats. As it was six months later, I'm not expecting anything ground breaking either on the A329S, more a refinement of what was there before....
 
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Vortex Radar said:
Yeah I guess that feature'll be just for the A329 then. There's more new features coming to the updated A329 series besides restoring the 3CH capabilities.
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The SSD support had some caveats so to me that's not exciting, I wonder why other manufacturers haven't used it either like Vantrue or 70mai even though the support is on the board from Novatek. Will be interesting to see how they refine or add to what the A329 brought, but not expecting much to be honest.
 
Super6ix said:
Isn't external storage supposed to be the A329 series thing? Take away that and it's just an A229.
Click to expand...
Not sure if you have misunderstood, but all the A329 series have external storage support, it is not being taken away.

Augustus said:
I'm not expecting anything ground breaking either on the A329S,
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There are new firmware features, firmware can be significant...
 
Nigel said:
Not sure if you have misunderstood, but all the A329 series have external storage support, it is not being taken away.


There are new firmware features, firmware can be significant...
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Firmware can be significant but also backported to older devices such as the A329 if they wish to. Not sure the needle has moved that much in the past six months when the hardware is mostly the same.
 
Nigel said:
Not sure if you have misunderstood, but all the A329 series have external storage support, it is not being taken away.


There are new firmware features, firmware can be significant...
Click to expand...
Nah ,I understood clearly as I follow anything A329 closely. I was just commenting on the post #220 before it was edited. It's cool tho.
 
The ability to remotely hide SSD or microSD card is a great feature.
I recommended the A329 to my son primarily because of it, as this helps to mitigate heat and provides better evidence security, although we do not use an SSD, but a regular MicroSD card using card reader connected to usb-c with 2m cable, mainly because of the lower power consumption.
No issues so far.

In fact, I liked it so much that I bought 3 different microSD extension cables to use with the A229 Plus and Mini2, and they work, but the quality of these extenders is not good enough to reliably snap into the microSD slot.

I wonder if @viofo can make a quality microSD extension cable.

Here are extenders I tested:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/B085HLSD6P
https://www.amazon.com/gp/B0CZT85X5Y (not reliable, often with card errors)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/B09GM6BZQ9
 
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mentadent said:
I can't wait for A329S with the fisheye interior cam.
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Now that it's 2K resolution it should also be a decent sensor too , it's no 4k sensor but others a good alternative to say a 360 camera like the 4K Omni.

But definitely the wider field of view should help a lot, that was a bit of a bugbear for me with the Vantrue Nexus 4 Pro and A229 Pro interior cameras, the field of view wasn't quite there to capture what was going on outside the windows
 
Augustus said:
Now that it's 2K resolution it should also be a decent sensor too , it's no 4k sensor but others a good alternative to say a 360 camera like the 4K Omni.

But definitely the wider field of view should help a lot, that was a bit of a bugbear for me with the Vantrue Nexus 4 Pro and A229 Pro interior cameras, the field of view wasn't quite there to capture what was going on outside the windows
Click to expand...

Having given it a thought or two, I think the fisheye, even though I do not like them as a rule, is a good idea; certainly the 4K omni is an excellent alternative.

On my A229, I had one interior cam on the passenger side front windshield, and it did a good job of seeing the inside of the car and the driver side of the car. I put another interior cam on the driver side rear glass of the hatchback, and it did a good job of seeing the interior and passenger side of the car. The coverage was really good all around the car. The only problem was the IR LEDs for both cameras saw each other, and that would trigger constant recording in motion detection parking mode.
 
lufa6977 said:
Having given it a thought or two, I think the fisheye, even though I do not like them as a rule, is a good idea; certainly the 4K omni is an excellent alternative.

On my A229, I had one interior cam on the passenger side front windshield, and it did a good job of seeing the inside of the car and the driver side of the car. I put another interior cam on the driver side rear glass of the hatchback, and it did a good job of seeing the interior and passenger side of the car. The coverage was really good all around the car. The only problem was the IR LEDs for both cameras saw each other, and that would trigger constant recording in motion detection parking mode.
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That's a great setup of the interior camera for the A229 Pro, covers all angles!

I just had a brainwave and realise that the E360 uses dual fisheye lens, with the IMX675 sensors. There are a bunch of other sensors on Starvis website, but makes me think that due to its lowered cost by being out for a couple of years now, that the A329T might very well have this sensor....
 
Since a couple of experts seem to be active here: has Viofo ever considered using a Bluetooth-connected OBD adapter? I think it could be a great feature to overlay and record the activity of the turn signals or brake lights in the video, instead of just hearing that a turn signal is on through the microphone (assuming it's not drowned out by other noise).
 
Old Luaks dashcams was able to tap into the OBD port and display things like :

Throttle %
Steering
Brake
Gear #
Indicator.
And so on.

The problem is the OBD INFO / langauge are not standard, so it was very rare you would ave all the info, and most had to make do with just a few of the things.

I still think it would be nice, but to have full support i suppose you would need to have a training " module " in the mix to teach your dashcam to understand your cars OBS language.
IMHO this should not be too difficult to do, but then again i have to think some things are more simple than the really are.

So like you do your dashcams settings upon install, you would also do a training session for the camera to understand your OBD language.
So i am thinking when training started, the dashcam would prompt you to turn on R turn indicator, turn it off again a few times for it to register where is there any action when i ask for this and that.
This mean the camera dont really have to understand the language of the car / brand / model, it will just learn when the R indicator is on this and that happen in the data stream.

And so on and so forth for every feature thing you want the camera to learn.

But as i have asked for this about a decade ago and nothing still not happened i will not have too high hopes.

Example of OBD in footage ( bottom of video )

 
HurlingFrootmig said:
Since a couple of experts seem to be active here: has Viofo ever considered using a Bluetooth-connected OBD adapter? I think it could be a great feature to overlay and record the activity of the turn signals or brake lights in the video, instead of just hearing that a turn signal is on through the microphone (assuming it's not drowned out by other noise).
Click to expand...
Problem is that the turn signals and brake lights are not standard information on OBD. They are available on some cars, but it would need different software for each car model, many cars don't have them, and there is a risk of interfering with car operation. The standard information available on OBD is not very relevant to most accidents, so hardly worth while. There is speed, but it is less accurate than GPS, then things like engine coolant temperature, battery voltage, throttle position, air intake temperature. Some of them would be nice to have, but are not very important.

You are correct that it would be good to record the brake lights and turn indicators, but there isn't a good way to do it, it has been thought about. Fitting a louder turn indicator relay is maybe the best way!

Viofo does have an OBD hardwire kit in development, I'm not expecting it to collect OBD data though.
 
kamkar said:
So like you do your dashcams settings upon install, you would also do a training session for the camera to understand your OBD language.
So i am thinking when training started, the dashcam would prompt you to turn on R turn indicator, turn it off again a few times for it to register where is there any action when i ask for this and that.
This mean the camera dont really have to understand the language of the car / brand / model, it will just learn when the R indicator is on this and that happen in the data stream.

And so on and so forth for every feature thing you want the camera to learn.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of the Action Replay 😃.
 
kamkar said:
IMHO this should not be too difficult to do, but then again i have to think some things are more simple than the really are.

So like you do your dashcams settings upon install, you would also do a training session for the camera to understand your OBD language.
Click to expand...
I don't think that works, because brake light information is not standard, so you need to ask for it specifically, not just watch the data that is available, and if you ask for random id items, you might change some setting that is not a good idea!
 
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But if the camera are trained it should be able to know what to look for of changes in the data, in the case of the brake the camera would prompt you to activate it, and you do at once if course, this will prompt a change somewhere in the OBD data, and when the training module then prompt you to release brake this data go away, and so without knowing you could guestimate when brake are on and when it is off.

The module would of course only be able to listen to OBD traffic.

So the camera would learn, that when it see u98q87e93tfhw48 in the data the brake is used, and when it see jhhn3u8i90erb8 the indicator is indicating a R turn and so on and on for each item you have trained the camera to understand.

It dont have to understand these changes in code stream, just know that when this ir that pop up it is linked to this and that in the cameras code which will then be watermarked on the footage.

Like i can learn that if some one yell hkjwretb in Mongolian it mean stop, without me knowing anything else in Mongolian, i just know when i hear hkjwretb i stop.
 
kamkar said:
Old Luaks dashcams was able to tap into the OBD port and display things like :

Throttle %
Steering
Brake
Gear #
Indicator.
And so on.

The problem is the OBD INFO / langauge are not standard, so it was very rare you would ave all the info, and most had to make do with just a few of the things.

I still think it would be nice, but to have full support i suppose you would need to have a training " module " in the mix to teach your dashcam to understand your cars OBS language.
IMHO this should not be too difficult to do, but then again i have to think some things are more simple than the really are.

So like you do your dashcams settings upon install, you would also do a training session for the camera to understand your OBD language.
So i am thinking when training started, the dashcam would prompt you to turn on R turn indicator, turn it off again a few times for it to register where is there any action when i ask for this and that.
This mean the camera dont really have to understand the language of the car / brand / model, it will just learn when the R indicator is on this and that happen in the data stream.

And so on and so forth for every feature thing you want the camera to learn.

But as i have asked for this about a decade ago and nothing still not happened i will not have too high hopes.

Example of OBD in footage ( bottom of video )

Click to expand...
I heard about this camera for the first time. Frankly, I don't like the black areas in videos to be completely black. This is very successful..

Additionally, I asked @viofo years ago to add battery voltage information just like in the video. In response, they said that this is possible in Korean brands, but it is not possible because Viofo cameras work with 5v.
 
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