Posted on

Our guide to parking protection with real life footage

Our guide to parking protection with real life footage

Parking protection is a popular feature on many dash cams but we’re often asked, just exactly, “what is it?” Does it help you park the car into a tight space? Does it record whilst you’re parked? Read on for our beginners guide to parking protection or watch our video for an overview by the lovely Katie.

If you’ve ever returned to your car in a car park and noticed a dent in the door or even worse, dented and scratched panels, you’ll immediately see the benefit parking protections can bring.

In a nutshell, parking protection is a mode on the camera which continues to record whilst you have parked and left your car. When the camera detects movement in front using motion detection or a shock using a built-in g-sensor, it will record and lock a file so you can play it back later should you need to.

If you’re new to car cameras, they use loop recording so that when the memory card fills up it starts to over-write the oldest footage first, to keep the camera recording. However, a locked file is a video file which won’t get over-written when the card fills up. Generally speaking, parking protection video files are locked so you don’t lose the footage after a few hours of driving. Many cameras also lock files when you experience a sudden change in direction or shock.

Depending on the camera, they usually save the video around 30 seconds before and after the motion/shock was detected. This ensures you have enough video of what happened at the time of the incident. Most cameras will automatically enter into parking protection mode after a few minutes without moving or when the car ignition is switched off but some require you to press a button to manually turn on parking protection mode as you leave your car parked.

Parking protection gives you peace of mind that if your vehicle is damaged when parked up, you can identify and bring the guilty person to justice and avoid claiming on your car insurance or paying for the repairs yourself. The footage can be used for tracking the driver down with the DVLA, making an insurance claim, or reporting the incident to the police. Of course, there is no guarantee that you’ll capture the culprit on camera but you never know. We know at first had how important parking protection can be – check out this video from a camera installed in one of our cars:

For cameras with multiple lenses such as a BlackVue DR550 or the Mi-Witness, the motion detection works for both the front and rear of the car and both angles are recorded and locked for playback later. This can help improve the chances of recording the incident and finding the person at fault.

For parking protection to work effectively, you will need a permanent power supply to the camera rather than connecting via the cigarette lighter socket. Some cameras do have internal batteries but at best they’ll only last an hour, so your recording time will be limited. By hard-wiring the camera to the car battery using one of the hard-wiring kits available you’ll be able to provide permanent power to the camera whilst protecting the battery from discharge.

Depending on where you park, the camera may record lots of footage so you will need to be mindful that the memory card doesn’t fill up with locked files. Some cameras will simply stop recording and others will start to overwrite the oldest locked files first so make sure to check the camera regularly and unlock any files which you do not need.

To sum up, parking protection offers video surveillance around the car when the camera detects movement or shock which can be vital in giving you the evidence you need should something happen to your car whilst parked up. There are lots of camera which offer parking protection so browse our full range of dash cams with parking protection.

Posted on Leave a comment

Do I need a Power Magic Pro or Battery Kit?

What is the difference between the Power Magic Pro & Cellink Neo 6

The Power Magic Pro is the most commonly used option and is the right choice for most requirements. It is a device that monitors the vehicles battery level once you have switched the ignition off. If your vehicles battery has enough juice the Power Magic Pro will allow the camera to remain powered up. If the vehicles battery drops too low (below 12, or 12.5v) the camera will be automatically shut off. It will remain off until the vehicle is next taken for a drive.

We are always asked how long the dash camera will stay on for when using the Power Magic Pro. Unfortunately it is almost impossible for us to provide a definitive answer. Different vehicles have different battery sizes and lots of different electronics that draw power from the battery, as a general rule of thumb, we see cameras remaining on anywhere from 1-4 hours. How much you drive and how healthy the battery is can play an important factor in determining how long the camera will stay on, we have known them to stay on for much longer.

With this option, it is important to remember that power is taken directly from your vehicles battery. The Power Magic Pro is simply a gate keeper that either allows the camera to remain on, or forces it to shut down.

Some users have reported receiving Low Battery Warning messages on the vehicles dashboard. This can be caused if the vehicle is particularly sensitive to battery drain and in most cases can be resolved by increasing the shut off level to the upper limit (12.5v). In the rare cases where this does not solve the problem, our engineers have found that we can rectify the issue by ensuring we are not drawing power from specific circuits. If you are purchasing our Professional Installation Service then you won’t need to worry about this. We’ll make sure it is running correctly.

The Battery Kit

The second option is to use the Cellink Neo 6 battery kit. Other batteries are available but we have tested them and found this to be the best currently available.

The main difference when compared to the Power Magic Pro is that the Cellink Neo 6 does not draw any power from your vehicle whilst you are parked. Instead the Neo 6 will only charge and draw power from the vehicle whilst your are driving. This has a couple of benefits, it means that you do not need to worry about triggering low battery messages, or ever running your vehicles battery low. More importantly it can provide you with a much longer, and much more predictable power supply when you park your vehicle. We have seen single front cameras remain on for approx. 35 hours and front and rear cameras remain on for approx. 17 hours.

There are a few considerations to take into account. The battery does require that the vehicle is driven in order for it to re-charge, it will take around 40-45 minutes to fully charge. This is pretty quick, which is one reason we recommend the Neo 6. However, if you are only driving the vehicle a few times each week, 2-minutes down the road to go to local shop. You shouldn’t expect the battery to get a good charge and keep your camera on for long. If your daily commute is at least 30-minutes then there is a good chance the Neo 6 will be able to keep your cameras powered up whilst you are parked for the day. This can of course provide a huge benefit, especially if you leave your car in a busy car park.

Many people ask if they can have the cameras on 24/7. This option comes pretty close and from a full charge it will get you through the night, or near enough. For those looking for 24 hours of recording then you’ll need to look at the next battery up, or adding a battery extension.

This is a much more expensive option but is arguably healthier for your vehicles battery and will provide you with the power required to meet most requirements.