IRoad In-Car Camera Recorder Users

[Comage]

For a typical car with a healthy battery, you shouldn't need to worry about one single night of parking with the camera on - just turn on motion detection and you should be good.

 

Unless your car park has continuous traffic non-stop (even into the late night like 3, 4AM) then I would recommend you turn off your camera.

 

External battery packs, I think it's overrated. If someone wants to deliberately vandalize your vehicle, they will wait until your battery runs out - it's a no-brainer to see the LED stop flashing to know the camera is off/dead.

 

If you are so afraid of your car getting ding-ed by someone else when parked outside, just drive a bit further and find a more quiet spot to park in. With the camera set to motion-detection, chances of you *really* needing a battery pack are virtually zero.

 

And btw, with a battery pack costing in the range of $100-$200+++, it can get costly very quickly, because chances are that you've hooked it up to your car battery to charge - and you'll most probably end up doing "top-up charges" a lot more often than you think, since in Singapore most car trips end in less than 30 minutes. And then your battery pack will go kaputt very quickly in a year or so.

[GTO-1]

For a typical car with a healthy battery, you shouldn't need to worry about one single night of parking with the camera on - just turn on motion detection and you should be good.

 

Unless your car park has continuous traffic non-stop (even into the late night like 3, 4AM) then I would recommend you turn off your camera.

 

External battery packs, I think it's overrated. If someone wants to deliberately vandalize your vehicle, they will wait until your battery runs out - it's a no-brainer to see the LED stop flashing to know the camera is off/dead.

 

If you are so afraid of your car getting ding-ed by someone else when parked outside, just drive a bit further and find a more quiet spot to park in. With the camera set to motion-detection, chances of you *really* needing a battery pack are virtually zero.

 

And btw, with a battery pack costing in the range of $100-$200+++, it can get costly very quickly, because chances are that you've hooked it up to your car battery to charge - and you'll most probably end up doing "top-up charges" a lot more often than you think, since in Singapore most car trips end in less than 30 minutes. And then your battery pack will go kaputt very quickly in a year or so.

External Batteries + parking mode does two things:

1) Act as a deterrence to poor behaviour around your car.

2) Prevent the voiding of your battery warranty from your AD/PI.

 

It's not going to stop someone breaking into your car or damaging your car if they are targeting you. But it'll act as a deterrence for someone not targeting you. It's like any alarm system or insurance: it's up to the owner to determine how much risk vs cost they want to take around their asset.

 

Also, LiPo batteries (like those in car external batteries) and Lithium Ion batteries (like in a phone) actually prefer trickle charging over full charging from 0 to 100%. The battery care you are referring to is for nicad batteries which aren't really used in modern electronic batteries.

 

You pay more for LiPo batteries because they are "safer" in extreme conditions.

[Comage]

I am referring to the memory effect for lithium batteries, as most of these external battery packs made for in-car cameras are.

 

Yes, you will pay more for packs that are made of "better technology", and these can even cost anywhere from $300+++.

 

Is it worth it, in my opinion? Not really, as you will probably kill off the battery faster with the constant "topping-off" charging by driving around in Singapore. The battery drains up the most when you leave it overnight or during the day, and then you drive it around a bit to "charge it up", which probably isn't really able to charge it up all the way to "trickle charge" voltage.

 

I could be wrong though - with these new technologies just coming into the picture. Anyone could try to prove me wrong with a review like 1-2 years after using the battery pack...

[Comage]

External Batteries + parking mode does two things:

1) Act as a deterrence to poor behaviour around your car.

2) Prevent the voiding of your battery warranty from your AD/PI.

 

It's not going to stop someone breaking into your car or damaging your car if they are targeting you. But it'll act as a deterrence for someone not targeting you. It's like any alarm system or insurance: it's up to the owner to determine how much risk vs cost they want to take around their asset.

 

Also, LiPo batteries (like those in car external batteries) and Lithium Ion batteries (like in a phone) actually prefer trickle charging over full charging from 0 to 100%. The battery care you are referring to is for nicad batteries which aren't really used in modern electronic batteries.

 

You pay more for LiPo batteries because they are "safer" in extreme conditions.

And one more thing - having an external battery pack as "deterrent" is pretty much useless if your memory card can't contain all the footage that the battery pack allows for it to store.

 

Most owners probably have "overwrite" turned on in their in-car cameras - and if you don't, and your camera shuts off when the memory card gets full, then it's really good-luck to you if you expect it to work as a "deterrent".

 

So you leave your car alone for a week or two of holiday - your car gets hit on the first or second day. Fast forward to the end of 2 weeks and you come back - sure your camera's still running, but your footage from the first or second day has already been overwritten by stuff from the 10th or 11th day since you were gone.... so there's nothing that can help you from your in-car camera.

 

Of course, yes yes, I know all of this is debatable... but you get the picture.

 

Useful? Not so much, in my opinion.

[GTO-1]

And one more thing - having an external battery pack as "deterrent" is pretty much useless if your memory card can't contain all the footage that the battery pack allows for it to store.

 

Most owners probably have "overwrite" turned on in their in-car cameras - and if you don't, and your camera shuts off when the memory card gets full, then it's really good-luck to you if you expect it to work as a "deterrent".

 

So you leave your car alone for a week or two of holiday - your car gets hit on the first or second day. Fast forward to the end of 2 weeks and you come back - sure your camera's still running, but your footage from the first or second day has already been overwritten by stuff from the 10th or 11th day since you were gone.... so there's nothing that can help you from your in-car camera.

 

Of course, yes yes, I know all of this is debatable... but you get the picture.

 

Useful? Not so much, in my opinion.

For me, a $300 battery pack is a pretty small price to pay against a 100k car. But that's my opinion.

 

It's all debatable. For example, if someone smashed into my parked car and hit and run during a time where the car battery would have otherwise cut-off, then I would call it the best investment ever. Of course, no one ever wants that.

 

It's just like insurance. You never want to use it, but when you need it, you thank the stars you got it.

[mobiousO]

Thanks for the advise guys! Much appreciated. :)

[markw12]

Hi, I recently installed an iRoad X9 with battery pack.

Anyone know where to buy the GPS module from and if there will be any issues when the module is attached?

[GTO-1]

Hi, I recently installed an iRoad X9 with battery pack.

Anyone know where to buy the GPS module from and if there will be any issues when the module is attached?

Buy it direct from the Corvit website. They have an online store you can purchase it from here in SG.

 

I have the same setup:

- X9, iroad Power Pack and GPS module.

 

Works perfectly fine. Just make sure to position the GPS module a distance from the actual camera to prevent interference. I have the module routed to the top of the passenger side of the windscreen and it works great.

 

In saying that, having purchased the module I can't say it adds much value. It enables the ATAS, but I can't say it works amazing. It "alerts" in a few different ways that you end up just ignoring the alerting now. I suppose the other benefit is it records the speed, but that's a bit of a double edged sword (e.g unless you always keep to the speed limit, one can clearly see if you were speeding etc)

[Comage]

For me, a $300 battery pack is a pretty small price to pay against a 100k car. But that's my opinion.

 

It's all debatable. For example, if someone smashed into my parked car and hit and run during a time where the car battery would have otherwise cut-off, then I would call it the best investment ever. Of course, no one ever wants that.

 

It's just like insurance. You never want to use it, but when you need it, you thank the stars you got it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I have an in-car camera myself - and I just manually turn off my camera when I'm parked back at home. Only when I'm outside in an unknown car park, do I leave the camera running.

 

A battery pack has its uses no doubt, but it must be coupled with the right memory card size. If you pair it with an 8GB or 16GB memory card, there's high chances that you will not have the footage of what you need.

 

If I am going to leave my car unattended for more than 2 or 3 days for a short trip overseas, I'd rather leave it unplugged than hook up a battery pack with a large-sized memory card even.

 

Why do I say that? Simply because it depends on the nature of traffic around your estate's car park. Mine's quite horrible where there's high volume of traffic tripping off my camera's motion detection feature, even to the frequency of every 5-10 minutes from 12MN to 6AM.

 

I once ended up with my car battery dying a premature death due to this high volume of carpark traffic. And yes, I did turn on the safety voltage cut-off feature. If I get a battery pack to "extend" the life of my camera footage, I'd simply be passing on the "wear and tear" to the battery pack which is just going to be an added cost.

 

The bottom line is, you really need to know what kind of traffic conditions you are facing to justify getting a battery pack. If it works for you, that's fine. In my case, it would never work except become an added liability/cost to maintain.

 

Hope that helps put some perspective to some of the readers out there looking at getting a battery pack.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Comage

[elmoguy]

Don't get me wrong, I have an in-car camera myself - and I just manually turn off my camera when I'm parked back at home. Only when I'm outside in an unknown car park, do I leave the camera running.

 

 

 

 

 

I did exactly what you did as iRoad parking mode drained my car battery. 

Edited July 15, 2019 by elmoguy

[GTO-1]

Don't get me wrong, I have an in-car camera myself - and I just manually turn off my camera when I'm parked back at home. Only when I'm outside in an unknown car park, do I leave the camera running.

 

A battery pack has its uses no doubt, but it must be coupled with the right memory card size. If you pair it with an 8GB or 16GB memory card, there's high chances that you will not have the footage of what you need.

 

If I am going to leave my car unattended for more than 2 or 3 days for a short trip overseas, I'd rather leave it unplugged than hook up a battery pack with a large-sized memory card even.

 

Why do I say that? Simply because it depends on the nature of traffic around your estate's car park. Mine's quite horrible where there's high volume of traffic tripping off my camera's motion detection feature, even to the frequency of every 5-10 minutes from 12MN to 6AM.

 

I once ended up with my car battery dying a premature death due to this high volume of carpark traffic. And yes, I did turn on the safety voltage cut-off feature. If I get a battery pack to "extend" the life of my camera footage, I'd simply be passing on the "wear and tear" to the battery pack which is just going to be an added cost.

 

The bottom line is, you really need to know what kind of traffic conditions you are facing to justify getting a battery pack. If it works for you, that's fine. In my case, it would never work except become an added liability/cost to maintain.

 

Hope that helps put some perspective to some of the readers out there looking at getting a battery pack.

I completely agree that you need a sizable SD card. I use a 128GB SD card with 64Gb provisioned for parking mode.

 

But for me the $300 for a external battery is worth it just on the basis of what you said. The added stress and time of having to deal with a flat battery, getting battery replaced, dealing with warranty issues etc. Rather pay $300 to remove that stress.

 

But again, to your point, it's up to the car owner around what they are willing to drop $300 on. You're definitely not wrong in your thinking though.

[mobiousO]

I completely agree that you need a sizable SD card. I use a 128GB SD card with 64Gb provisioned for parking mode.

 

But for me the $300 for a external battery is worth it just on the basis of what you said. The added stress and time of having to deal with a flat battery, getting battery replaced, dealing with warranty issues etc. Rather pay $300 to remove that stress.

 

But again, to your point, it's up to the car owner around what they are willing to drop $300 on. You're definitely not wrong in your thinking though.

How about turning off motion sensor and set to high sensitivity impact mode. Which means camera will be activated only when an impact was sensed right? Thus saving battery life too?

[Comage]

How about turning off motion sensor and set to high sensitivity impact mode. Which means camera will be activated only when an impact was sensed right? Thus saving battery life too?

Impact recording is only available when car engine is on and in motion... You can't turn it on when the car is in Parked mode. Edited July 20, 2019 by Comage

[Wildfaye29]

I have issues with my Q7.

 

1. Keeps saying not recording and restarts itself. PI chg SD card for me. Doesn't work. I bought new SD card also doesn't work.

 

2. Now it doesn't connect to wifi. Says no wifi module attached, but it's attached. Can't even see the cam ssid in phone wifi. Doubt it's phone problem.

 

Is it possible to rma with Corvit? First issued since I got the car in Oct 2019 and it's intermittent.

 

Now the wifi issue crops up.

[Comage]

Just bring it down to them - let their "professionals" run their "diagnostics" on your camera unit.

 

If it really is spoilt, just make sure to ask for quotation to repair before you commit.

 

From the way I see them operate, they don't really seem to be the kind of company who's interested to do repairs on existing units. You probably be better off trading in for a new unit from them or something.

[Gonegolf]

I cannot seem to log into the camera via the app.

 

Tried another dongle and the connection is intermittent.  Tried uninstall and install many times.  Tried at different locations. All don't work.  Tried forgetting the network also don't work

 

Anyone found a solution to it?

[Shibadog]

I have issues with my Q7.

 

1. Keeps saying not recording and restarts itself. PI chg SD card for me. Doesn't work. I bought new SD card also doesn't work.

 

2. Now it doesn't connect to wifi. Says no wifi module attached, but it's attached. Can't even see the cam ssid in phone wifi. Doubt it's phone problem.

 

Is it possible to rma with Corvit? First issued since I got the car in Oct 2019 and it's intermittent.

 

Now the wifi issue crops up.

 

 

u're back from the future?

 

best to go to iRoad distributor (Corvit) as mentioned above. Usually they will check and do 1-for-1 exchange if under warranty. Bring your relevant receipts from the PI.

 

wait... when u say PI, u mean PI car or PI iRoad cam?

Edited July 28, 2019 by JohnSHL

[Comage]

I cannot seem to log into the camera via the app.

 

Tried another dongle and the connection is intermittent. Tried uninstall and install many times. Tried at different locations. All don't work. Tried forgetting the network also don't work

 

Anyone found a solution to it?

1. Power on the camera. Wait for the welcome ding to say camera is turned on and in parking mode (or just turned on).

2. Go into your mobile phone and turn off mobile data then try to connect.

3. Try not to connect before the camera's welcome ding sound comes on.

 

If the above still don't work, try to use another mobile phone to connect.

 

If all the above still can't then it's bck to Corvit for you...