Viofo T130 3 Channel Dashcam - 2K Front + FHD Interior + FHD Rear

[Nigel]

Installed a Viofo T130 in a Ford Fiesta. The mirror design makes it hard to install without it either blocking a lot of the driver's view or being outside the reach of the wipers, neither seemed acceptable! If it was my car then I think I would install longer wiper blades, but as it's not I put it at the bottom of the dash again. Front view is pretty good, and it is not blocking the driver's view, the rear view is a little low but works. The windscreen heater wires put bands down the video but that is a fault of the car, they affect my eyes too so I have no intention of buying a Ford! Even worse is the dashboard reflection on this car, at times I can hardly see through the windscreen without polarised sunglasses, seems a lot of owners complain about it being the worst car for windscreen reflections they have ever had, but the T130 mounted at the bottom of the dash gets an almost perfect reflection free image, just a pity about those heater wires!

Approaching the top of the mountain:

 

[TonyM]

I find that low front view rather uncomfortable. Without any part of the A-pillars or the front of the car in the FOV there is not much reference to what is going on around the car.

For practical reasons I had considered a Ford with a heated windscreen for my next car / van, but I might reconsider if it's going to affect my dashcam video!!

 

[Paul Iddon]

@Nigel

Is it legal to have a cam there? Seems to me to be a good position. My Ford Focus has a greyish dash which is not the best.

Paul.

 

[Nigel]

I find that low front view rather uncomfortable. Without any part of the A-pillars or the front of the car in the FOV there is not much reference to what is going on around the car.

I quite like the view, but you are correct that it can't see where the front of the car is, the top of the windscreen is better except for it not being swept by the wipers on this car. Also the angle of the glass at the top is a little too shallow for the T130 mount adjustment, like you said yours was at the limit.

For practical reasons I had considered a Ford with a heated windscreen for my next car / van, but I might reconsider if it's going to affect my dashcam video!!

It doesn't seem to affect some people, but I find it annoying at times when driving, and it definitely does affect the video, although maybe not enough to be an issue for evidence purposes. In some light conditions you also get reflections of the sun off the wires creating little white spots in front of your eyes / the camera lens.

As far as demisting the windscreen, it does work, but so does the aircon. The aircon is a little slower so if the wires were invisible then I would happily have the wires, but it is not essential and the last Ford I drove regularly had a few of the wires not connected and that was even more annoying when you had vertical bars of mist in front of you!

@Nigel

Is it legal to have a cam there? Seems to me to be a good position. My Ford Focus has a greyish dash which is not the best.

Paul.

As a general rule, things can legally intrude 4cm into the swept area, and the camera is a 4cm diameter tube. On my car, for it to be in the swept area at the bottom, thus able to see properly, it is legal but gets into the driver's view too much so is not ideal, but on the Ford Fiesta it is low enough that the view beyond it is of your car (dash, wipers, bit of bonnet), not of the road or other traffic, so it is not really blocking the driver's view at all, while if I put it up under the mirror it is blocking my view as a driver quite badly even though it is legal, maybe because I am tall and the Fiesta has quite high seating relative to the mirror. Putting it at the driver's side of the mirror but in the swept area also blocked my view, and putting it on the passenger side, it was not in the swept area until under the mirror and blocking the driver's view. I was a bit surprised by how difficult it was to position up there, haven't had an issue with any other vehicle, and on my car I only put it at the bottom because I had the A139 and A129 Pro at the top and didn't want to remove either.

 

[LateralNW]

I don't recomend using a suction cup unless you absolutely have to use one.

I used one on my very first dashcam I had about 8 years ago and even though it was built very solid, it would introduce or exagerate rough road vibration. Not only that... it would frequently come off the windshield on the hot days. Back then it felt like it was ok and felt like that was completely normal until I had my first dashcam attached directly in to the windshield, (a Viofo A119S to be precisely) and that was a huge difference in the image stability as it would only follow the natural car movement, nothing else.

So if you drive on corrugated roads with frequency then the suction cup adapter is the wrong way to go when it comes for picture stability.

You may have miss understood, I was meaning that the suction cup is what I was thinking Re being unstable. I had a suction cup dashcam and I had to keep checking it was firmly fitted.
What I meant here was just to test the dash cam as supplied to see what corrugation might do. Still no sign of lifting curfew.

 

[LateralNW]

Should be fine on dirt road, but there are a few resonant frequencies where it can vibrate enough to be visible on the footage, so if the road is actually corrugated at the wrong frequency then you may occasionally see some vibration, it is not as stable as an A139 but good for normal use.

Don't hold your breath for the curfew lift! It will get a lot worse yet before it gets better despite what your politicians are saying. Here we have 94% of people with good antibodies, and it is still spreading!

Getting worse yes. One stupid state went alone and had crippled other states that where virus free-yes free! The politicians are playing with peoples lives as an election looms early next year. Economy over health advice.

 

[EGS]

You may have miss understood, I was meaning that the suction cup is what I was thinking Re being unstable. I had a suction cup dashcam and I had to keep checking it was firmly fitted.
What I meant here was just to test the dash cam as supplied to see what corrugation might do. Still no sign of lifting curfew.

Yes, later I realized I misunderstood your comment. I was reading in a hurry that moment

 

[LateralNW]

Regarding heat I found my unit extremely hot to touch. I had to pull my finger away. It seemed so hot that I took the unit down and had a good look at it and found that the Dashcam has small cracks just above the Viofo logo.
The temperature today topped out at 15.1C (59.18F) Not anything I would expect a Viofo Dashcam to have trouble with.
Here is a photo. It is not scratches.
@viofo @VIOFO-Support

 

[TonyM]

Regarding heat I found my unit extremely hot to touch. I had to pull my finger away. It seemed so hot that I took the unit down and had a good look at it and found that the Dashcam has small cracks just above the Viofo logo.
The temperature today topped out at 15.1C (59.18F) Not anything I would expect a Viofo Dashcam to have trouble with.
Here is a photo. It is not scratches.

Was your T130 really hot after driving, or was it in parking mode?

It would be interesting to know how the T130 looks inside. Has anyone had a look yet?

 

[SawMaster]

Regarding heat I found my unit extremely hot to touch. I had to pull my finger away. It seemed so hot that I took the unit down and had a good look at it and found that the Dashcam has small cracks just above the Viofo logo.
The temperature today topped out at 15.1C (59.18F) Not anything I would expect a Viofo Dashcam to have trouble with.
Here is a photo. It is not scratches.

Was finally doing the FW update here at the desk and saw this so I looked:

Mine is cracked almost identically, but mine extends from one side of the printed "Viofo" to the other First significant problem I've had with this cam and had it not been mentioned by @LateralNW I would not have noticed it- Good Job

My van has been parked in the full sun for at least 15 days since I got this cam, probably more. Daytime high air temps have ran from 28C to 34C, and it was involved with my 71C for 20 minutes heat test. I've used it almost every day and have it doing 6 hours in low-bitrate parking, about a quarter of which has been in full daytime sun while at work. I'd say my conditions would be somewhat near the high temp end of things but certainly not excessive save for the 71C temp testing. I can see no obvious cause for this.

Phil

 

[kamkar]

look like i have some crack inspection to do tomorrow.

 

[EGS]

I've just inspected mine for fractures/cracks like that and it doesn't show any so far. But needless to say, these units run very hot. Hotter than the A129 pro duo and the A129 duo plus.
That being said, the T130 hasn't shut down on me yet.

 

[SawMaster]

My usual teardown screwdriver won't shift the screws Will dig around to try to find one that will.

Can't say I've noticed a heat difference between T130 and A139; both run almost hot to the touch but neither has stopped for heat.

Phil

 

[EGS]

My usual teardown screwdriver won't shift the screws Will dig around to try to find one that will.

Can't say I've noticed a heat difference between T130 and A139; both run almost hot to the touch but neither has stopped for heat.

Phil

You will find it quite interesting.
If you do, please pay close attention to the ribbon going from the GPS module in to the camera. It is very fragile.

 

[LateralNW]

After startup I regularly have the mute button turn off the IR lamps on first press, after that it works fine, a long standing issue, don't know if that is just my dashcam though. I can't imagine what causes it, seems to be a strange design in there.

@EGS @VIOFO-Support @viofo

The Wi-Fi button doubles up to also enable disable etc the IR as designed. Nigel and EGS mentioned the Microphone button also acting on the IR lights.
Here I created a short video to demonstrate what happens on the T130 I have.
Hope this clarifies things for Viofo.

 

[LateralNW]

Was your T130 really hot after driving, or was it in parking mode?

It would be interesting to know how the T130 looks inside. Has anyone had a look yet?

The drive was for about an hour. I had parking mode disabled.

 

[kamkar]

Have you checked on the recordings if pressing the MIC button and the camera ( some times ) gives IR light related MSG, if that is actually true ?
I meant to check today too, but the day have been bum so did not get around to it.
I did find out the reason my side cameras was acting up, was a power related issue, so i swapped the camera over to one of the 2.4A outputs on my multi port chargers.

 

[EGS]

@EGS @VIOFO-Support @viofo

The Wi-Fi button doubles up to also enable disable etc the IR as designed. Nigel and EGS mentioned the Microphone button also acting on the IR lights.
Here I created a short video to demonstrate what happens on the T130 I have.
Hope this clarifies things for Viofo.

Glad to see you where able to replicate the issue and capture it!
The difference with mine was that it didn't happen at startup as you mentioned in your video. Mine happened while I was already in the road for maybe 10 minutes, trying to cut the mic to avoid recording a sensitive conversation we where carrying.

 

[LateralNW]

Have you checked on the recordings if pressing the MIC button and the camera ( some times ) gives IR light related MSG, if that is actually true ?
I meant to check today too, but the day have been bum so did not get around to it.
I did find out the reason my side cameras was acting up, was a power related issue, so i swapped the camera over to one of the 2.4A outputs on my multi port chargers.

Good question. I was going to post the video to show @TonyM what happens when the buttons are pressed.... now I just have to find the correct video! Stay tuned.

 

[LateralNW]

Glad to see you where able to replicate the issue and capture it!
The difference with mine was that it didn't happen at startup as you mentioned in your video. Mine happened while I was already in the road for maybe 10 minutes, trying to cut the mic to avoid recording a sensitive conversation we where carrying.

Yeah I did read what you wrote but figured @Nigel would be a great starting point. I did press the button many times but only got it to play up on startup. It could be something that happens at intervals that was longer than my testing cycle... (how long my tired arms could hold out for!)