Wireless/battery

[KrisElder]

Hello

I’m looking to sort out a dash cam but ideally I’d rather it be wireless and ran off battery power. Is there such thing?

Thanks!

 

[EdSM]

Yes, most cameras will run of one sort of battery or another however, even the ones that can stream your video stream wirelessly will need to use a wired connection to reach its battery. And that is for power efficiency reasons. So, you can't get around a wired connection to power as far as I know but you can have a wireless video stream accessible to you. Here are a bunch of cameras that can stream their video stream wirelessly: Viofo A129, A 139 as well as A229, Thinkware Q800PRO as well as most of Blackvue camera can stream however Blackvue tends to have a luxury price tag when compared to some of the others. The Viofo and Thinkware cameras work over WIFI RTSP so you can connect them to your phone. On your phone you can see what's in your parking lot, record the video stream and even get notified when a person gets close to your car.

 

[KrisElder]

Yes, most cameras will run of one sort of battery or another however, even the ones that can stream your video stream wirelessly will need to use a wired connection to reach its battery. And that is for power efficiency reasons. So, you can't get around a wired connection to power as far as I know but you can have a wireless video stream accessible to you. Here are a bunch of cameras that can stream their video stream wirelessly: Viofo A129, A 139 as well as A229, Thinkware Q800PRO as well as most of Blackvue camera can stream however Blackvue tends to have a luxury price tag when compared to some of the others. The Viofo and Thinkware cameras work over WIFI RTSP so you can connect them to your phone. On your phone you can see what's in your parking lot, record the video stream and even get notified when a person gets close to your car.

Yeah it’s the battery I want really so I don’t need cables running and routing through car

I’ll have a look at your suggestions

 

[Nigel]

Hello

I’m looking to sort out a dash cam but ideally I’d rather it be wireless and ran off battery power. Is there such thing?

Thanks!

If you mean an internal battery and that it needs no wires connected to it, then no, they use too much power for that to be practical.

I do sometimes run mine off a small USB powerbank and a 30cm power cable, works OK as long as you don't mind recharging the power bank after every 5 hours of use. A larger 20,000mAh powerbank will typically provide around 20 hours recording, and most dashcams can be run that way, although there are a few that run directly off 12 volts, so they are difficult to run off a USB powerbank.

 

[EdSM]

You do have the option to use a dedicated camera battery that will not set your car on fire in the summer heat but that battery might be more expensive than the camera: https://www.amazon.com/gp/B07QZ64ZK3. Unfortunately, even in that case you need to use a wired connection between the camera and the battery.

 

[kamkar]

There are a range of external dashcam power packs, but if you think a battery in the camera itself then no, some do have a small 400 mah battery for emergency power where others use capacitors to do the same, but these small internal batteries are not meant for powering the camera for long, just to do a clean shut down in case of a catastrophic event.

you will still need to draw a power wire to the front camera, and a wire to power and get video from a possible rear camera, if the rear camera had wifi to talk to the front you would still have to power it with a wire.
External batteries or your cars lead acid battery, well if you use them to power when parked, then you of course also need to drive to replenish the battery, a car lead acid battery charge fast ( many Amps ) the dedicated power packs also charge OK but i think the fastest i have seen is around 15 A,,,,,, which are a lot slower than your car charge your lead acid battery.
Downside is lead acid batteries you can not discharge deep without destroying them fast, the lowest recommended cut off voltage for lead acid are 12.2 volts.

Whatever you cant have your cameras recording for 23.5 hours a day and only drive for 30 minutes, that would not be enough to get your batteries up to 100 % and so you will soon "spin out " and have no power for the camera ( dedicated dashcam power pack ) or power for car and dashcam ( you can start a car with lower voltages on a nice summer day, on a frosty winter day you want / need a not more cold cranking power,,,, all you can get )

Many cameras today have wifi, but wifi to do settings on your phone and maybe DL a single file now and then, the cameras have very small antennas and weak radios so a transmitter inside your metal car will not reach very far,,,,, we are talking a few meters here at best.
Using wifi to say backup your daily recordings when you get in range of your home wifi, that is a hornet nest i will not put my hands inside, but there are a little official with some brands as i recall and some DIY mods for other brands.
Whatever NOT something i would bet on,,,,,, also you should not save all your footage, at least not if you are just a guy driving your car, for normal people dashcams generally generate garbage footage you do not need as nothing have happened worth sharing.

 

[EdSM]

My experience with the wireless stream coming from the Viofo cameras was fairly good. The A 129 model streams out its video to about 30ft but I can only connect my device to the camera's own network. However this little camera sent its video from the street up to the 3rd level of my building. That's the furthest I managed to get with it. On the other hand, the Viofo A 139 works as a wifi client which connects to my home wifi network and therefore I can extend its WIFI range as needed. Thinkware also makes a bunch of cameras that work as wifi clients so you can basically use them as battery powered IP cameras.