Parking mode is a fancy term for any recording done while your engine is off and your car is parked. It will also free up a cigarette socket in your vehicle which can be left for use with a phone charger or other automotive accessory.

Parking mode is a fancy term for any recording done while your engine is off and your car is parked. It will also free up a cigarette socket in your vehicle which can be left for use with a phone charger or other automotive accessory. For parking mode recording, it always requires hardwiring cable connects your camera to your car’s battery through the fuse box.

Hardwire Cable

VIOFO A129 Duo dash camera support two different type hardwire kits cables, the general two wires HK2 hardwire kit cable and three wires HK3 ACC hardwire kit cable.

Function of HK2

With HK2 hardwire kit, you can connect the cable with camera directly or through the GPS mount. The camera will switch to parking mode recording after 5 minutes if no motion detected and no G-sensor impact, and switch back to normal recording if detected G-sensor trigger or GPS speed is above 8KM/h(This require the camera support GPS logger). The HK2 cable will cut off the power supply while the battery voltage is around 11.6V ~ 11.8V.

HK3, ACC detection and car battery protection

HK3 has four voltage options 11.8V, 12V, 12,2V, 12.4V. Also with the ACC detection feature, it support switch to parking mode automatically if the car engine off, and switch back to normal recording after car engine on. Please notice this auto switch between normal recording and parking mode recording only works if the cable is connected to the camera directly, not through the GPS mount.

Working with the VIOFO HK3 hardwire kit can realize ACC mode, which means a more sensitive detection for the start and stop of the car and the optimization of parking mode in a few seconds. Also, with the ACC detection feature, the dash camera supports the switch to parking mode automatically when the car engine off, and back to normal recording after the car engine on.

It also applies low-voltage cutoff to prevent the dash camera from draining the vehicle’s battery. The HK3 will cut off power supply after 90 seconds to 2 minutes to prevent the car battery voltage fluctuates for a short time.

HK2 VS HK3

Compared with HK2 hardwire kit, HK3 could have a more accurate and quicker starting automatically and HK3 does not need to exit parking mode manually. However, HK2 needs to leave the parking mode manually

Note：

The HK3 cable could realize all the function with A119V3,A129 Duo and A129 Duo IR. It can also work with A119/A119S/A119PRO dash camera as well, but the ACC detection feature is not available.

Parking Mode Recording

The A129 dash cam support three parking recording modes, auto event detection, time lapse and low bitrate recording.

Auto event detection

The camera will record for 1 minute while a moving object is detected while parked and stop recording if no new movement.

Tips:

Auto event detection is a proper parking mode for drivers only want videos for detected motion and event.

Time Lapse Recording

Time lapse records a video at low frames like 1/2/3/5/10/15 fps. It keeps recording continuously, this avoids any failures which can happen with motion detection especially under low light. The 1fps means the dash camera will take 1 frame per second. Compared with 15fps in auto event detection, it reduces the amount of footage at the same time to realize smaller file size and longer recording time since the footage will not be overwritten in a short period of time.

The downside is that you may miss details like license plates, as well no audio is captured which could identify people who may have damaged your vehicle.

Tips:

Time-lapse mode is an ideal choice for people who park the car in a busy area that motion detection may always be triggered, especially at night.

Note:

Videos recorded with time-lapse mode is voiceless.

Low Bitrate Recording

This mode record video in low bitrate 4MB/s for both front and rear. So, the recorded video will play at a normal speed with a lower image quality compared with normal recording. It keeps recording continuously in mini file size, reduce a little video quality will help to save card space and can record longer time in parking mode.

Tips:

Low bitrate recording is a great choice for people who park the car in a busy area that motion detection may always be triggered, especially in good lighting conditions.