Dashcams and Parking Mode | All You Need to Know

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Many types of incidents can happen while you’re away from your vehicle. From a simple door ding in a parking lot, to a hit-and-run accident by a careless driver, or a smash-and-grab burglary; your car’s essentially a “sitting duck” when it’s unattended. Whether it’s your family’s only means of transportation or one of your company fleet vehicles, you can never be too prepared for when things go wrong. A dashcam with parking mode provides proof and security by watching over your property, even when you can’t.

This video covers a bit about dashcam parking mode feature. We explain the basic concepts of dashcam parking mode and more, such as:
• What is parking mode? (0:50)
• Why would parking mode be useful? (for personal(2:53) & fleet vehicles(3:58))
• How to enable parking mode in your vehicle. (4:33)

Let’s begin with what parking mode is.
Parking mode is a loosely used term for when a dashcam remains powered on inside a vehicle that isn’t being operated. This feature goes by a few names depending on the brand of the dashcam. The BlackVue and AVIC brands refer to this feature as “Parking Mode” while the brands DOD Tech & Thinkware refer to this feature as “Parking Surveillance.” For the sake of continuity, I’ll refer to this feature throughout as parking mode. In both cases your dashcam becomes a surveillance system when you’re not operating your vehicle.

Now, less advanced dashcams without true parking mode functionality can still be wired in a manner that they stay on while the car is parked. Instead of being on alert for motion and impact, it will simply record all the time regardless of what may be happening near your vehicle. The drawback of this approach is that your memory card needs to be large enough to hold numerous hours of footage. Otherwise any important events may be overwritten before you return to your vehicle and save the footage you want to keep. Furthermore, it’s time consuming to review numerous hours of footage in search for that one moment that’s important to you. Therefore, you want to find an advanced dashcam that features true parking mode functionality, if keeping an eye on your vehicle while you’re away is important to you.

Why would parking mode be useful for personal & fleet vehicles?

For personal vehicles:
Burglary of your vehicle usually happens while you’re far away from your car or possibly while you’re sleeping. Normally, there isn’t much you can do about it aside from purchasing an expensive alarm system. Now you can use your dashcam as an anti-theft device: as a deterrent or even as evidence against whomever broke into your car.

Imagine someone sideswiping your vehicle while you’re parked on the side of a busy street. Without a parking mode enabled dashcam, an insurance claim would have to be paid for by your own insurance company, rather than by the culprit or their insurance company.

For fleet vehicles:
Using a dashcam parking mode isn’t only beneficial for personal use, it’s just as valuable for fleet vehicles. Not only can you check on your drivers while they’re on the road but, with the parking mode feature enabled you can check on your vehicles when they’re off the road and the engine is shut off.

Also, as a commercial vehicle, thieves often target fleet vehicles in hopes of stealing the cargo. Whether you want to hold your drivers accountable or monitor your vehicles and their cargo, parking mode provides that security even while parked.

Thank you for watching and as always, drive safe!

Questions?
Phone: [phone]

[VHS_GIS]

good work guys! Its refreshing to hear a human rather than a robot these days. super clear and informative! keep up the good work!

[carolynhook]

Just had a dashcam professionally installed and I requested parking mode. Big fail. I was told the light isn't on in stealth mode...when the car is turned off! I realize now that they didn't know what they were doing. I will get the "professionals" your video tomorrow. I hope They don't destroy my electrical system! Thank You!!

[naamapellegmehler]

Thank you so much for explaining this so clearly. I was arguing with my Dad about what Parking Mode means and you just explained it so perfectly. Great work.

[dawnofamber]

I apologize if my comment comes in twice. I hate laptops with a passion.

I watched this video and it was very helpful. I live in Minnesota, and it's very cold out. I bought this (Nov 12, 2021). As I was setting up, I decided to set up from my laptop. While watching the video, following along, pausing and replaying, some of the features weren't working. I got frustrated and contacted customer service. After talking (through the online chat) for a few minutes, I told the representative that I was setting up from my house with my laptop. He told me I needed to set up from my car. After I plugged in everything in my car, the features worked like they should. After reading comments, I will agree that the button cluster is very inconvenient.

- Needs to be set up from your vehicle. Some features for whatever reason won't be available while plugged into a computer/laptop.
- I'm set up my dashcam at dusk. That's when I do most of my driving. That way I can adjust the picture quality the best.
- I made a separate fold just for my dashcam, just in case.

I hope my comment helps.

[bigchief]

I want the constant recording whilst parked, do not have 100% faith in parking mode so feel it is FAR BETTER to have FULL TIME monitoring whilst parked. And maybe have the impact/motion detection save to a different folder for easy access. But I also like reviewing the footage regardless if nothing happened, you catch some very interesting events in car parks haha, and people admiring your car if you drive a decent one.

[slukas]

Nothing but common sense here. Well-explained and educational. Great vid.

[michaelslee]

Dude, the BlackVue/neo battery can also be hardwired straight from your fuse box, charge rate is doubled versus the cigarette lighter port.
It’s also a clean install.

[MalikAwan-swwm]

Wow that's was great throw 1:50 🤣

[Ray-gukp]

These guys had always had my back, highly recomend them! True pross!

[stevemcgowan]

you could use a solar panel to charge your battery like i do in my camper van.my viofo doesnt seem to use much power. but i have 230ah leisure batteries besides the van starter battery plus the 180 watts of solar panels also

[DarthAwar]

People Confuse Resolution with Image Quality but that's a Function of several things.

Sensor Size.

Native Resolution & Megapixel Count.

Angle Viewing Angle (The wider a lens the less Quality at the Same Sensor size and quality!).

Apreture Size (I like f1.4 to 1.5)

Frames Per Second (More frames means less light but also less motion Blurr!).

Encoding most use h.264 by default instead of AV1 h.265 or the much better h.266 as all video bit rate reduction has data loss.

Pixel Binning.

Optical Image Stabilisation.

Electronic Image Stabilisation.

Processor aka SoC does matter a lot but not quite as much as the others combined.

[leexgx]

Tests have shown that low bitrate mode is recommended for parking mode (motion activation can miss stuff, thinkware has a 10 second pre record buffer I believe before the event has happened so motion activation is more likely to catch what led up to it)

[lowhertzhighspl]

Apeman refers to it as parking mode and I love my C770. Thx for video

[thiamata]

At night, when parked, i have my Patriot Power Pack in my truck to plug in my dash cam too not waste my truck battery. Works great. I monitor 24 7.

[darrenwoloshyn]

The garmin dash cams have parking mode with a optional parking cable

[scuffedsketches]

For everyone talking about taking the camera, many cameras send the recording straight to a phone or email.

[DarthAwar]

Dashcam detects parking mode by sensing the Alternator if no Alternator Charge being created the car must be parked!

That's why they need to be Powered via OBD, Fuse or Hardwire in and do not work via Cigarette or USB Power Supplies!


Always set Dashcam Power Cut Off too a Minimum 12v I prefer 12.4v but some cheap Cameras or 3rd party Power Kits only work at 11.8v to 11.6v so if the power kit and camera support it set the voltage ⚡ in both the Camera and the Power Kit!

[tadtab]

Full of Very helpful info. Thanks for investing the effort

[SortaDopeIGuess]

Monitor your battery power w Park Mode on. Hope your battery isn’t drained when your blasting your AC in the summer and your cam is going off when every Tom and Duck is passing by. Just sayin

[ThreePhaseHigh]

So the last time my burglarized your car I just took the dash cam with me 🤣