Fitcamx dashcam installation

[Gnasher]

The 900X has integrated power management circuitry, which can be configured in the BlackVue app, so does the same as the older power magic module. Have you set this up so it stops recording when the voltage drops?

Not got the car as yet so not done that. Any thoughts are welcome though!

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[Speuk]

Not got the car as yet so not done that. Any thoughts are welcome though!

Once you got the car and 900X installed then in the App set the voltage protection to the highest voltage and see how it goes

 

[Gnasher]

Can i bring it over to you to install

 

[Speuk]

Can i bring it over to you to install

whereabouts are you in London.... I might want to practice on yours lol

 

[Gnasher]

whereabouts are you in London.... I might want to practice on yours lol

Fulham SW6

 

[Speuk]

Fulham SW6

Happy to give you a hand installing if you are going to do it yourself.

 

[Gnasher]

Happy to give you a hand installing if you are going to do it yourself.

I will give it a go !

Where are you in London ?

 

[Speuk]

I will give it a go !

Where are you in London ?

I'm just west of London, just off J2 of the M40 between Slough and Beaconsfield

 

[Rainforest]

Commented on this elsewhere but I had my camera on for 5+ weeks in the custom shop with near daily recording as they worked on the car and zero impact on the 12V battery - zero!

Hey Bob. So my car was totally bricked yesterday morning because my 12v died. Couldn't open the doors or anything. My car is only 6 months old with 3400km. I was able to jump start the car, and I brought it over to Porsche, and they now said my car reported no errors with the 12v and are saying that the car likely died because of the "aftermarket dashcam" (its the Fitcamx).

I'm not sure what to do at this point, and whether I should remove the dash cam which was so hard to install for me. There are many owners who have had 12v problems and don't have this dashcam isntalled.

What do you think? The only thing I can think of is that I tried to change the charging settings in the car through the app, and some people said that if it gets stuck in a loop trying to connect to the app, it drains the 12v. I have no idea if this is true, but I will try to only change charging settings within the car from now on. Maybe I should even delete the app.

 

[ciaranob]

Hey Bob. So my car was totally bricked yesterday morning because my 12v died. Couldn't open the doors or anything. My car is only 6 months old with 3400km. I was able to jump start the car, and I brought it over to Porsche, and they now said my car reported no errors with the 12v and are saying that the car likely died because of the "aftermarket dashcam" (its the Fitcamx).

I'm not sure what to do at this point, and whether I should remove the dash cam which was so hard to install for me. There are many owners who have had 12v problems and don't have this dashcam isntalled.

What do you think? The only thing I can think of is that I tried to change the charging settings in the car through the app, and some people said that if it gets stuck in a loop trying to connect to the app, it drains the 12v. I have no idea if this is true, but I will try to only change charging settings within the car from now on. Maybe I should even delete the app.

Not sure if you meant to quote someone else (I.e. Bob ) but I seriously doubt it’s the FitCam - literally ZERO effect with it installed and recording over 6 weeks at my shop including long periods where they were not working in the car I.e. where the PCM was continuously booted up and would charge the 12v.

Curious - did you tell them about the Fitcam or did they find it themselves?

My dealership has def not discovered mine and I don’t intend on telling them anytime soon . Sounds like a classic ‘cop out’ excuse by a tech for something he/she are struggling to explain?

 

[Rainforest]

Not sure if you meant to quote someone else (I.e. Bob ) but I seriously doubt it’s the FitCam - literally ZERO effect with it installed and recording over 6 weeks at my shop including long periods where they were not working in the car I.e. where the PCM was continuously booted up and would charge the 12v.

Curious - did you tell them about the Fitcam or did they find it themselves?

My dealership has def not discovered mine and I don’t intend on telling them anytime soon . Sounds like a class classic ‘cop out’ excuse by a tech for something he/she are struggling to explain?

Sorry, I thought your title was "Bob". I read it wrong. I meant to message you.

They saw the cam installed on their own. I never mentioned it on purpose.

Well, they're blaming it on the cam so I don't know if I should remove it. But if I get into an accident, there won't be any evidence. I've been using it for 7 months now, esp when the car was barely driven in the winter, and the car never died on me until now. I don't know what to say.

They are updating the software on my car and said it helps with the 12v drainage issue.

 

[Rainforest]

Update: after changing the parking mode option to “close” the FitcamX is going to sleep as expected. I don’t need to lock the car. The car and the dashcam both go to sleep after a few minutes even when unlocked. If I use the My Porsche app, the car and cam both wake up until I stop using the app. Then after a few minutes they both go back to sleep. No more recordings of my garage wall all night! I’m happy with this result.

So my 12v just died after using the Fitcamx since last November 2021. I've never had issues.

So I pulled out the SD card, and apparently the cam keeps recording throughout the night. See time stamps below.

I'm not entirely clear if the cam was recording throughout the night in the first 5 months of use, but assuming that it wasn't, why would the cam suddenly start recording randomly at night and day when only parked in my garage? This is probably why my 12v died.

 

[ciaranob]

Rainforest

Despite previously confirming with FitCam, it does almost seem like possibly light changes i.e. 'movement' is enough to trigger a recording - doesn't make any sense however as the designers are saying it takes a G sensor to trigger. So I do wonder if the car (whether or not it is being accessed by the the MyPorsche App) does not have some regular activity whilst parked that might be enough to cause a very subtle vibration/movement and hence spur a recording - is your sensitivity setting in teh FitCamX on lowest possible? - you can actually tell it to not record when parked too which defeats at least half of the functionality!) - EDIT- sorry just saw that Hirschaj just ref this in last post. - I think subtle vibration/movement will be even more apparent from servo motors in the car if you are charging the car overnight. There def have been times when I've walked past my car (w/o a key) and heard some sort of electric motor adjust something so I suspect this is one possibility in respect initiating a recording whilst parked which might be eliminated if sensitivity is set to lowest setting.

All that said my 12V has had zero issues with all activity related to the FitCamX recording. I simply see no impact whatsoever so I am struggling to see how your 12V issues are related to this camera alone. I suspect there is another reason for this power loss altogether and possibly a defective 12V battery - sorry I can't recall if you had one replaced already? I'll take another look at my recording history later today and see if mine is still recording overnight (in a locked home garage).

Cheers, C.

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Despite previously confirming with FitCam, it does almost seem like possibly light changes i.e. 'movement' is enough to trigger a recording - doesn't make any sense however as the designers are saying it takes a G sensor to trigger. So I do wonder if the car (whether or not it is being accessed by the the MyPorsche App) does not have some regular activity whilst parked that might be enough to cause a very subtle vibration/movement and hence spur a recording - is your sensitivity setting in teh FitCamX on lowest possible? - you can actually tell it to not record when parked too which defeats at least half of the functionality!) - EDIT- sorry just saw that Hirschaj just ref this in last post. - I think subtle vibration/movement will be even more apparent from servo motors in the car if you are charging the car overnight. There def have been times when I've walked past my car (w/o a key) and heard some sort of electric motor adjust something so I suspect this is one possibility in respect initiating a recording whilst parked which might be eliminated if sensitivity is set to lowest setting.

All that said my 12V has had zero issues with all activity related to the FitCamX recording. I simply see no impact whatsoever so I am struggling to see how your 12V issues are related to this camera alone. I suspect there is another reason for this power loss altogether and possibly a defective 12V battery - sorry I can't recall if you had one replaced already? I'll take another look at my recording history later today and see if mine is still recording overnight (in a locked home garage).

Cheers, C.

Excuse my lengthy post. But here goes.

Hey C. Thank you for your lengthy response and helping me get to the bottom of this. I guess it's just disconcerting that I don't know the reason for my 12v death issue. Keep in mind that I also have had zero issues with my Fitcamx since I installed it last November 2021 until last week - over 7 months. I never checked during those 7 months whether the camera was recording while the car was parked, but just prior to my car being bricked, I have evidence of it recording intermittently as per my screenshot above. I also have evidence that it recorded in the middle of the night only once for the one night after I got the car back from Porsche.

Here's the weird thing - prior to the car getting bricked, the Fitcamx would intermittently record a lit up and moving sport chrono clock reflection in my garage (see still image below). After I got the car back from Porsche and they did some warranty updates (WNA5), the recording just shows pitch black with no light from the clock. Question: Why was my chrono clock always lit up during recording before my car got bricked and not after? Is the lit clock why my 12v died? (...continued below)

So I was at a mall and locked my car at 12:51pm and unlocked at 2:42pm. But even with the car locked, the cam woke up once to record at 1:49pm. You would assume with cars moving around within the two hour span it was parked, the cam would wake up more than once. And why does the cam even have power?!

Porsche said my 12v is not defective (assuming they tested it). See their text to me below (names cropped for privacy):

I never got a false alarm on my phone. Just 4 hours prior to the car getting bricked, I did happen to change the charging settings in my app because I wanted to drive the car the next morning after being parked for two full days. But I've changed charging settings in the car many times without issue.

I will check my cam settings later, but I've never changed the settings since November 2021.

 

[ciaranob]

So the point I am making is that we have at least 2 forum members with installed FitCams that have recorded whilst the car was parked and turned off numerous times with ZERO impact on the 12V battery / my cam was also installed months ago, continued to do this and still ZERO impact to the 12V. I haven’t even turned off the parking mode yet either.

So no matter what the cause of the cam recording in a shutdown car your car appears to be the only one with a 12V battery issue - right? So logically one would assume there is something else going on in your car to cause a 12V drain. You and your dealer mentioned some possibilities but the fact they throw in the idea of the FitCam as a culprit is more in ignorance of other data here than based on anything they have to support that conclusion.

This does not solve your issue of course and I’ll never say never and will do some addl monitoring of my setup despite nothing negative to date. But hopefully the sw updates you’re getting might reset things?

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