[winther1]

I had a Viofo duo dash cam installed and was advised to set it to low bit-rate recording when in parking mode - better than timelapse in case of an incident.
I leave it to record non-stop. After each night I get a battery drain warning when I start the car. Is this likely to wear out the battery quickly or not something I should worry about?
As most of you I am not using my car much these days, but so far I haven't had any issues starting it even after recording for 4-5 days.

[Eddamoo]

If the battery is going low enough for you to get a warning, i would stop it. Lead Acid batteries are not good for deep discharge (not even the AGM ones in our cars).

Weird a dash-cam is using so much power though. I would be checking how many Amps its pulling over the fuse.

How about plugging it into a power bank overnight instead?

[Court]

If you're using your car daily and you have a good drive to and from work, (ie able to charge the battery properly) Then you should be fine. The problem will come when you don't use the car regularly then the battery will drian faster, result - Flat Battery

I have a similar setup, but if the car is on the drive for a few days I disconnect the dashcam.

[winther1]

I might set it back to timelapse. Reluctant to turn it off as we had some bike and car theft in the parking area. I don't know if the discharge warning means the battery is low or whether it just detects that it's discarding quicker than it should - I suspect the former as I never had an issue starting the car. In any case, I guess it's shortening the lifespan of the battery

[454697819]

detailed conversation with BMW master tech is that if you have a camera attached to any Aux system, in parking mode it will draw current which the car detects and throws this error because all the other systems are closed down.

You may find its not actually draining the battery significantly, its just the car warning you that under normal circumstances this draw would be an error.

They sent me the BMW camera instructions to mimic the install wiring but they seem to use additional wiring harnesses, which I decided it wasn't worth the time and effort.

Cheers

[lethbridge]

Some Dashcams have battery protection built into them and some don't. My Thinkware does - you can set how long before it should shut down in Park mode and also for it to monitor battery voltage and shutdown if battery drops below a certain limit. I found much over 12 hours would throw an error and that is not continuous recording, that is monitoring and recording only if triggered. BMW's monitoring software is very sensitive to any unexpected drain. You can get battery protection devices if it is not built into your dashcam but these can be more expensive than dashcams that don't have this facility inbuilt. You can also go for a more sophisticated unit which includes a separate battery to maintain maximum recording time without risking your battery but that really is an expensive solution.

You will be gradually impacting the life of your battery without this and over time increasing the risk of finding your car won't start if you are not using the car regularly.

This is a useful explanation http://www.dashcamerazone.com/do-i-n...ention-device/