70mai a810 unusable emergency video

[Luggi]

Hello everyone, I just recently got my first ever dashcam, a 70mai a810. Amazing video quality aside, when I first tested out the emergency video function (both button and impact detection), I realized that the dashcam only records 2 seconds before the emergency video is triggered.
I have tried every menu option, I tried before and after a firmware update and I asked the 70mai support who weren't helpful at all. This means that in case of an accident or anything else worth recording, you'd have to press the button immediatly to even record the event itself, with basically no chance of capturing anything that happened before, which could be just as relevant. Of course you could still go ahead and save the files manually but that is (in most cases, especially when driving alone for more than a few hours) completely unreasonable and quite frankly not why I bought a dashcam for. From what I've seen online from basically every other dashcam is that you press the record button and the current clip and/or the previous clip both get saved, which includes at least 20-30sec prior to the button press.

Now, my main question is: Is this on purpose and or is there a way to fix this?
maybe my unit is just faulty, maybe custom firmware? Or maybe I have completely missed some hidden setting?

I'd appreciate any help as otherwise, I'd probably have to return the a810 for this reason only.
Many thanks in advance!

 

[mat48]

Hi everyone! I have exactly the same question about how emergency button works.

Does anyone know the solution? Is there a solution?

 

[damian_net]

Ohh god. I thought it impact just me. That ridiculous.

 

[Goombatip]

No it's literally everyone I think. Looking at the Facebook group, it's a fairly common complaint. I've owned several dash cams before and this is by far the biggest issue I have with mine.

I found out mine has this problem after reviewing what I thought would be cool footage, only to find none or it ever got recorded. Making this dash cam essentially totally useless at its one and only job. I'll have to return this if not updated soon to fix.

I'm blown away none of the YouTube reviews mention this that I have seen.

 

[Luggi]

No it's literally everyone I think. Looking at the Facebook group, it's a fairly common complaint. I've owned several dash cams before and this is by far the biggest issue I have with mine.

I found out mine has this problem after reviewing what I thought would be cool footage, only to find none or it ever got recorded. Making this dash cam essentially totally useless at its one and only job. I'll have to return this if not updated soon to fix.

I'm blown away none of the YouTube reviews mention this that I have seen.

Well, while I don't want to accuse anyone of anything, most of those reviews were either sponsored or 70mai sent out the dashcam... and then they go and not mention how the cam is unusable for emergency recording? Just mad that I didn't know before I bought the damn thing.

 

[RaincityDashcam]

Well, while I don't want to accuse anyone of anything, most of those reviews were either sponsored or 70mai sent out the dashcam... and then they go and not mention how the cam is unusable for emergency recording? Just mad that I didn't know before I bought the damn thing.

I know this statement might not be directly aimed towards me -- but for the record, I did put this information with the Buffered Parking Mode which lists 2s before the event. This is true for G-Sensor emergency recording which is where it is very crucial to have in an accident and with 2s before impact, I think the important footage is saved there. As for capturing close calls, I agree 2s is not enough but it doesn't mean that the file would be gone? You'd need to accumulate almost a day's worth of footage to overwrite the footage on a 128GB card... I know this isn't ideal, but I usually use the emergency button as a marker and then review the footage for close calls after through the app as I know when the event happened.

If you think there's a better way to list this feature out on my review, please let me know.

 

[versource]

Is there any new firmware update or anything that addresses this issue?

 

[joDash]

Just emailed customer support about this question, I'll add the email conversation here. Sadly enough this doesn't seem to be addressed so far.

Very strange, seems like such an important feature for a dashcam. Savings manually through the app really isn't a solution, these videos should be marked before and after the event or at least an option to mark them on the dashcam itself in the video folder.

Very sad, such a great dashcam quality wise but now it's kinda useless..

I just discovered that I have around 30 saved videos that I really wanted to save but now seem to be all of whatever happened after the event took place, nice.. (I also save funny things that happen on the road, not all crashes obviously )

 

[versource]

Just emailed customer support about this question, I'll add the email conversation here. Sadly enough this doesn't seem to be addressed so far.

Very strange, seems like such an important feature for a dashcam. Savings manually through the app really isn't a solution, these videos should be marked before and after the event or at least an option to mark them on the dashcam itself in the video folder.

Very sad, such a great dashcam quality wise but now it's kinda useless..

I just discovered that I have around 30 saved videos that I really wanted to save but now seem to be all of whatever happened after the event took place, nice.. (I also save funny things that happen on the road, not all crashes obviously )

That's unfortunate. Surely, this "suggestion" is already on their "suggestion list", given what another user said above and the fact that this has persisted for 8 months. Probably safe to say that this won't be implemented any time soon (or at all).

 

[hieppg]

I think the subject is misleading. The real emergency videos have 5-6 seconds before the collision happening and 9-10s afterward, which logically serve the purpose.

However, there is a true needs from users of saving interesting videos manually to avoid being overwritten. This isn't really "emergency" videos. 70mai doesn't have a corresponding function, so people use the emergency video function for it, which doesn't match with people's expectation.
70mai should plan for adding this new feature - allowing people to mark/flag a video as important for not being overwritten, on both cams and app.

 

[Goombatip]

I would respectfully disagree. As previous law enforcement, I can attest to the fact that 5-6 seconds before an incident is most often not nearly enough. It really helps to be able to observe the behavior of an offender for more than a few seconds before an incident occurs, to reliably discern who was at fault (for instance with distracted driving, or reckless driving, or road rage to name a few).

However, in my experience with this flawed dash cam, I'm lucky if it even records 2 seconds before the button was pushed. Of all the dash cams I've owned, this is the only one I've ever seen that doesn't save the entire clip when emergency record is pressed, and instead starts a brand new one. Very stupid. Or if a shock triggers it, same problem, you don't see anything before it got triggered.

This seriously needs to be addressed as a major priority for 70mai if they want any return customers. Me personally, I've had this dash cam since it came out and am beyond pissed that this wasn't one of the first bugs to be fixed. And I certainly won't be buying any more of their products, as they have proven unreliable. It's such a shame, because other than this one glaring (and so easy to fix) bug, this is an otherwise perfect dash cam for me.

 

[grubisic]

I don't see a problem there or I don't understand what the problem is. The camera is recording all the time, so you just need to look for a critical part of time on the timeline (one minute, two, three) and download the recordings to your mobile phone, to the cloud, wherever, because it is risky to keep the recordings on the SD card (due to working conditions). The recordings will remain on the SD card for several hours after the critical event, before being overwritten with new recordings.

 

[hieppg]

I would respectfully disagree. As previous law enforcement, I can attest to the fact that 5-6 seconds before an incident is most often not nearly enough. It really helps to be able to observe the behavior of an offender for more than a few seconds before an incident occurs, to reliably discern who was at fault (for instance with distracted driving, or reckless driving, or road rage to name a few).

However, in my experience with this flawed dash cam, I'm lucky if it even records 2 seconds before the button was pushed. Of all the dash cams I've owned, this is the only one I've ever seen that doesn't save the entire clip when emergency record is pressed, and instead starts a brand new one. Very stupid. Or if a shock triggers it, same problem, you don't see anything before it got triggered.

This seriously needs to be addressed as a major priority for 70mai if they want any return customers. Me personally, I've had this dash cam since it came out and am beyond pissed that this wasn't one of the first bugs to be fixed. And I certainly won't be buying any more of their products, as they have proven unreliable. It's such a shame, because other than this one glaring (and so easy to fix) bug, this is an otherwise perfect dash cam for me.

I truly didn't understand your case. Do you mean the cam doesn't record 5-6s before collision or pressing the button? It would be a bug.
But if the cam does record emergency video with 5s before the event, then it isn't a bug.
5-6s is not enough in your (experienced) opinion, I get that part.

 

[kamkar]

I am not a fan of systems that use a short memory buffer for pre event footage, as mentioned i like a bit more than a few seconds.
Mind you that is also most often there in among the regular footage if we talk a while driving event, as for parking guard well nothing is there unless you are using always record low bitrate or maybe it will also work with time lapse parking guard mode.