To remove or not to remove the dashcam in hot weather

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grubisic

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I installed the A810 yesterday, and it works perfectly. I'm very satisfied. Installing and running the application was trivial. Since the camera records the entire ride, I'm not afraid of missing a particularly important part of the ride. However, I am wondering what to do with the camera this summer when the temperatures in the vehicle (in the sun) can exceed 60°C? Should I take the camera out of the vehicle and take it with me to acceptable temperatures?
 
Try to park not in the sun, or not facing the sun.

This dashcam does contain a lithium battery, which will suffer in high temperatures, so if you want the battery to have a long life, yes, on hot days when you are parked facing the sun, it would be good to remove it from the windshield. Normally the glovebox will be cool enough, no need to remove it from the vehicle.

60°C is OK for a lithium battery as long as it is not being charged, above 80°C is when it starts to wear out fast, you won't get 80°C in the glovebox, but may in direct sun on the windshield.
 
Thank you for your reply. That's reasonable. That's what I thought too, but I wanted to confirm my opinion.
 
If the lithium battery in your dash cam explodes, and burns your car down just file a warranty claim, and they’ll send you a new dash cam.
 
A810 has EU EC. CE marking indicates that a product has been assessed by the manufacturer and deemed to meet EU safety, health and environmental protection requirements. Like all other manufacturers (Garmin, Viofo, ...) 70mai specifies 60°C as the upper limit of conditions for using the camera.
 
Panzer Platform said:
Mobile phones also meet EU, EC, CE standards;



Viofo does not use lithium batteries in their dash cams.
They use super capacitors.
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If I looked like that - I wouldn't be able to fall asleep in my own home. I use at least 10 devices with Li-ion batteries, from electric bicycles to cell phones, which I charge by my headboard while I sleep. All of these devices (including the A810) are safe as long as they are used as specified. In addition, I think that the 500mAh battery in the A810 will provide a much longer recording time (than the capacitors in Viofo cameras) after an extraordinary power failure.
 
Panzer Platform said:
If the lithium battery in your dash cam explodes, and burns your car down just file a warranty claim, and they’ll send you a new dash cam.
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There are very few reports of dashcams catching fire, and zero reports of explosions!

grubisic said:
A810 has EU EC. CE marking indicates that a product has been assessed by the manufacturer and deemed to meet EU safety, health and environmental protection requirements. Like all other manufacturers (Garmin, Viofo, ...) 70mai specifies 60°C as the upper limit of conditions for using the camera.
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As PP suggests, a CE mark is not going to ensure that there are no battery issues.
I prefer to use dashcams without lithium batteries.

However, 70mai do seem to use Lithium Ion cells in these cameras, not Lipo, so the risk of a fire, or explosion, or even the case bursting open, is about zero. Much better than, for example Nextbase, where we often see the case burst open as the lipo cell blows up (not explodes). 70mai also connect the batteries using plug in batteries, not soldered to the PCB, so they are sort of user replaceable unlike some other brands.

So I don't think there is any reason for concern, even though it is not ideal.

grubisic said:
I use at least 10 devices with Li-ion batteries, from electric bicycles to cell phones, which I charge by my headboard while I sleep.
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There is some risk of a fire, best to charge these things in a place where a fire is not going to matter, especially electric bicycles that contain a lot of energy - a bedroom is not the place for them. And of course follow the instructions and never charge them unsupervised!

I do recommend having a smoke alarm in the room.
 
While I was choosing which dash cam to buy, I found that none of them will work in summer temperatures (60+°C), while the car is parked facing the sun. When it won't work, I absolutely didn't care if the camera was with a capacitor or a battery, so I chose the A810 because it was almost half the price of, for example, the Viofo A139 Pro.
 
grubisic said:
While I was choosing which dash cam to buy, I found that none of them will work in summer temperatures (60+°C), while the car is parked facing the sun. When it won't work, I absolutely didn't care if the camera was with a capacitor or a battery, so I chose the A810 because it was almost half the price of, for example, the Viofo A139 Pro.
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Yes, but the Battery will fail in maybe 2 years, while the Viofo will still be operating in maybe 10 years, so for cost per year, the Viofo may be half the price.

Plus the Viofo does have the better image quality.

If you don't mind replacing the battery every time it fails then it is not much of a problem, but there are several good reasons that the A810 is the cheaper camera, the battery being a major one.
 
Well the big + with dashcam batteries is they are very small, so i would assume also a lot less violent than phone or even larger batteries.
And if the case plastics are packed with rather nasty fire- inhibitors, actually burning your car to the ground is minimal i guess, i cant recall a story of a battery dashcam burning down car.
I will always advise against battery cameras.
 
maybe yes, maybe no! As no one camera, (Viofo, Vantrue, Garmin, 70mai, ...) will not work at 60+°C, there is no need to keep it on the windshield, because high temperature will negatively affect the camera, whether Viofo or 70mai. Removed the camera, it will last longer at a lower temperature. The Lion battery in a mobile phone lasts 4+ years, so I see no reason (except bad luck) that it wouldn't last 4+ years in the A810. Billions of people use mobile phones with Lion batteries, so I see no reason why I can't use a camera with a Lion battery. Billions of people sleep next to cell phones that charge overnight, so I see no reason why I can't use the A810 when I'm awake.
 
Maybe yes, maybe not! I'm sure many sayings don't apply anymore. The new time brings new challenges.
 
grubisic said:
The Lion battery in a mobile phone lasts 4+ years, so I see no reason (except bad luck) that it wouldn't last 4+ years in the A810.
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You can never compare the harsh conditions for a dashcam with a smarphone. Just keep your smartphone 4 years on the dashboard under direct sun and you will have a surprise.
The 4K dashcams are the most exposed to damage electronic product from an average user. Not the TV, not the fridge, not the smartphone. We already know that 4K encoding are generating a lot of heat. At to that heat the heat from the sun.

Your biggest problem will not be just to keep the camera under the sun when you park the car. Your bigger problem will be if you will want the dashcam to record when you are parking the car and keep the car with the face to the south so you can have a lot of sun. But the biggest problem you can imagine with any dashcam in the world no matter if it is with batteries or super-capacitors is to keep it running in parking mode, under direct sun AND using a windshield sun protector.
Such protectors should be banned by all dashcam manufacturers and they not to repair or replace a damaged unit because of windshield sun protectors.
After the cards problem this is the biggest problem dashcam manufacturers have. They are lucky just because only a very few people are using the stupid protectors when dashcam is recording. They just not care what is happening with the dashcam and massive heat it is exposed and they are happy because Amazon or the sellers are replacing damaged units by the heat.
 
grubisic said:
The Lion battery in a mobile phone lasts 4+ years, so I see no reason (except bad luck) that it wouldn't last 4+ years in the A810.
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If you try to record 4K video on your phone continuously, then it will not last 4+ years, and if you put it in full sun inside your car while recording the 4K video, the video recording will not last much more than 4 minutes before the phone shuts down due to overheat!

A quick Google for "70mai battery replacement" comes up with loads of companies selling suitable batteries, which shows that plenty of people are replacing these batteries, and the first search result video states on the summary: "The internal lithium-ion battery in the 70mai Dash Cam Pro will only last 1-2 years". I would expect a little more than that for the average user, but they definitely don't last.

The same search for "Viofo super capacitor replacement" doesn't show any companies selling them for Viofo dashcams, although the AI does manage to find some suitable ones, and there are a few Youtube videos on how to change them on old Viofo dashcams that were built before Viofo worked out how to use them reliably.
 
kamkar said:
And if the case plastics are packed with rather nasty fire- inhibitors, actually burning your car to the ground is minimal i guess, i cant recall a story of a battery dashcam burning down car.
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I don't expect there are any fire-inhibitors in the case, and there aren't in the car either! The car does have some to slow a fire, but only to give the occupants time to escape in the event of a fire, a few minutes at most, they are not like home furniture which has chemicals to extinguish a fire if someone drops a cigarette on them when they fall asleep.

I do recall a story of smoke damage from a mini 0806 dashcam, but the lipo batteries normally just swell up, and since 70mai use lithium ion cells, they probably just make a nasty smell!
 
grubisic said:
I installed the A810 yesterday, and it works perfectly. I'm very satisfied
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grubisic said:
However, I am wondering what to do with the camera this summer when the temperatures in the vehicle (in the sun) can exceed 60°C? Should I take the camera out of the vehicle and take it with me to acceptable temperatures?
Click to expand...

Boy talk about some members going off topic!

If you're happy with your camera that's great.
If you're concerned about the heat then I believe it would be a sensible move to remove it from the dash when not in use on hot days.

A previous Dashcam i used many years ago was battery powered and it worked fine until the battery started to expand. It never exploded or did anything crazy.

I enlarged the case and put a larger battery in it which worked for awhile. I never took it off the windscreen so it would have been exposed to direct sunlight and very hot days.
 
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