Aldi rear camera

[karlgartland]

Need to update mine then!
This all sounds very positive though, but I thought it was only compatible with 32gb and not 64gb?

There was an earlier post from user Aegis saying that it works with a 64GB card as long as you format it as Fat32 instead of ExFat. Guess I will find out when mine arrives Friday

 

[Hipster Dashie]

Tested mine out again today after updating the firmware. Normally on the ride home from work it beeps and shuts down about 15 minutes in. Today, worked perfectly.

 

[Arjimlad]

The chief adaptation to mine so far is to put my thumb over the speaker to quieten those loud beeps!

As it is working OK I have not done the firmware upgrade but would be interested to learn if this might improve picture quality.

 

[Adam4868]

Firmware worked for me 2 hours riding and no turning off.Thanks for the assistance.

 

[BoldonLad]

The chief adaptation to mine so far is to put my thumb over the speaker to quieten those loud beeps!

As it is working OK I have not done the firmware upgrade but would be interested to learn if this might improve picture quality.

I included a link to sample footage, after Firmware update, in post above ^. May help you judge if picture quality improved, but, or of course, it is somewhat dependant of prevailing lighting conditions.

Personally, I thought picture quality was acceptable before update, and, IMHO, it is still acceptable.

 

[aegis]

Need to update mine then!
This all sounds very positive though, but I thought it was only compatible with 32gb and not 64gb?

The issue with cards bigger than 32GB is that they come pre-formatted as ExFAT which is Microsoft's newer filesystem that allows for files bigger than 4GB each. But that's not a problem in the Aldi camera as it splits the video up into small chunks.

Device manufacturers often don't support ExFAT as they have to pay a licence to Microsoft to use it whereas FAT32 is free.

So, buy a fast Class 10 64GB SDxc card, format it as FAT32 and you're good for many hours of video instead of about an hour that you get on the 8GB card. If you just stick a freshly bought 64GB card in, it won't work. I would guess bigger cards might work but 64GB cards are about the right price and capacity for me.

It's encouraging to see reports of it not switching off. I was getting in to the habit of riding through potholes to knock the motion detector every now and again. I wonder if they've just disabled it entirely.

I've just downloaded the new firmware so I'll give it a go over the next few days. I had a quick scan through the firmware file with a hex editor. There's no clues as to hidden settings immediately obvious. It's also quite different to the Fly6 firmware file so perhaps the similarity is only in the hardware design and features but not the software after all. The manual now lists the chipset used as 'Jieli' and not Novatek as used in the Fly6 so they're not going to be compatible.

I did notice quesh have updated the manual also adding what we already knew about loop recording and that it is upscaled 1080p. The manual says it's IP55 rated for dust/waterproof-ness though the website says IP54. Before it just said it was 'weather proof'.

IP54 = Protected from limited dust ingress & Protected from water spray from any direction.
IP55 = Protected from limited dust ingress & Protected from low pressure water jets from any direction.

More when I have a proper dig about.

 

[InchPitch]

Ive not upgraded mine yet but I found that if the unit is started,
- after a while lay the unit on its side - it beeps and the lights flash for a few seconds
- leaving it on its side - it beeps every 5 minutes and the lights flash
- after 15 minutes (still on its side) it beeps, all the lights flash, and it turns off - thus having captured the last 15 mins after it was put on its side.

Does is still do this after the upgrade?

PS - I also put the working unit on its side so it beeped (simulating fall off), then stood it upright and it continued recording and then switched off after 15 minutes.

Latest findings with new firmware:

So after mucking about with mine on Monday morning I upgraded the firmware and starting it recording, it ran for over 10hrs on camera only before the battery died. At no point did it switch off or make any bleeps. It just continually loop recorded. Once the card was full after approx 1hr then every 5 mins the chasing lights round the camera lens would all flash twice as it started a new file on the card and overwrite the oldest file.

I had the unit sat upright, on its side, still, walking round with it and dropping it and none of this seemed to make any difference, it just carried on recording. Reviewing the files afterwards they where all in sequence for the last hour of use, so I would say that it defiantly does not have any form of incident protection, which to be fair it does not claim to have.

I charged it overnight and run another test on Tuesday this time with the lights set to alternating flash pattern on medium brightness. I started it at 11am and it kept running until 8:30pm when it stopped filming (9.5hrs !!!), the lights however carried on until I finally switched it off at 11pm.

After another overnight charge last night I did another test today, this time with the lights on constant and full brightness and this time it ran from 9:45am to 14:10 (4hrs 25 mins) before it stopped recording and the light carried on for another 1hr 20mins.

The only thing I have noticed it that there always seems to be 12 or 13 files on the card (the last hour) with around 2+GB of free space left on the original 8GB card, so not sure why it does not actually fill the card before it starts to overwrite files, will be interesting to see what happens when I put the 64GB card in when that arrives. Will it continue to only write 12/13 files and not use the extra space or will it fill that up to leave 2GB free on that one.

None the less, as it is no longer switching off and has amazing battery life, I do not see any reason to return it.

KArl...

 

[InchPitch]

9,5 hours - amazing. I guess with the lights off - even longer.
Been thinking it would make quite a nice little unit to do some time lapse - if fixed to a tripod and using the right editing software to speed it up a lot.

Latest findings with new firmware:

So after mucking about with mine on Monday morning I upgraded the firmware and starting it recording, it ran for over 10hrs on camera only before the battery died. At no point did it switch off or make any bleeps. It just continually loop recorded. Once the card was full after approx 1hr then every 5 mins the chasing lights round the camera lens would all flash twice as it started a new file on the card and overwrite the oldest file.

I had the unit sat upright, on its side, still, walking round with it and dropping it and none of this seemed to make any difference, it just carried on recording. Reviewing the files afterwards they where all in sequence for the last hour of use, so I would say that it defiantly does not have any form of incident protection, which to be fair it does not claim to have.

I charged it overnight and run another test on Tuesday this time with the lights set to alternating flash pattern on medium brightness. I started it at 11am and it kept running until 8:30pm when it stopped filming (9.5hrs !!!), the lights however carried on until I finally switched it off at 11pm.

After another overnight charge last night I did another test today, this time with the lights on constant and full brightness and this time it ran from 9:45am to 14:10 (4hrs 25 mins) before it stopped recording and the light carried on for another 1hr 20mins.

The only thing I have noticed it that there always seems to be 12 or 13 files on the card (the last hour) with around 2+GB of free space left on the original 8GB card, so not sure why it does not actually fill the card before it starts to overwrite files, will be interesting to see what happens when I put the 64GB card in when that arrives. Will it continue to only write 12/13 files and not use the extra space or will it fill that up to leave 2GB free on that one.

None the less, as it is no longer switching off and has amazing battery life, I do not see any reason to return it.

KArl...

 

[Arjimlad]

Now "down to £29.99" in my local Aldi - but out of stock !

 

[Adam4868]

Did a 3 hour ride early this morning,all fine with camera.No turning off and it looped !

 

[raphael4]

Hello, just downloaded it and upgraded mine.

The instructions say to copy the downloaded file (79004Update.rar) to the SD card and switch it on for it to update, however this doesn't work as you need to extract the downloaded RAR (compressed file) first using something like 7zip. this will give you a folder called firmware and it is the file in this folder you need to copy to the SD card - JL_AC51.bfu. Then once you switch it on it does illuminate the LED's for about 4-5 secs and upgrade the firmware.
Mine has gone from 17060801_V3 to 171026_V3, which I guess refers to 26 Oct 2017. If you open the VER file with notepad then you can confirm which version you are on.
It will also reset the date/time so that will need to be changed back using the config file.

Mine is now running on the desk so will see how long it stays on for.

Hi there. I have just tried to update and it just isn't working no matter what I try.

My .bfu file version was modified on 30.10.17, which means I think it must be different to yours.

Is there any chance you could upload your original .bfu file via dropbox so I can give it another go?

Thanks!

 

[raphael4]

OK please ignore ^ it has successfully updates, my error was to format the card to begin with - as it stated on the quesh website.

 

[Turdus philomelos]

I once mentioned this type of camera to our in-house police officer.
He said any video footage would be inadmissible in a Scottish court as the camera is disguised as a bike light.
Is he correct?

 

[GJT]

I hope the answer will be is he f***!

 

[Cycleops]

I once mentioned this type of camera to our in-house police officer.
He said any video footage would be inadmissible in a Scottish court as the camera is disguised as a bike light.
Is he correct?

Or is it a bike light disguised as a camera?