The invention of dashboard cameras is among the most useful inventions regarding driver safety against burglaries or false insurance claims. Dash cams are excellent when it comes to collecting footage when you are driving. However, you should know that your vehicle is the most vulnerable during the hours it stays parked.
Luckily today, with features like motion detection and parking mode, your vehicle can always be safe. If you are unfamiliar with it, you may wonder exactly what is dash cam motion detection.
What Is Dash Cam Motion Detection?
As its name suggests, dash cam motion detection records any movement around your vehicle. However, the motion detection mode must be turned on the dash cam every time the driver parks their vehicle. And you must remember to turn it off when you get in the car before driving off.
How Does Dash Cam Motion Detection Work?
Most people spend most of their time outside their vehicles, leaving a large time frame during which the vehicle is vulnerable. Fortunately, dash cameras have become much more advanced in the past decade, and some sensors protect your car even when parked by picking up movement around it.
Modern dash cams have two modes that collect footage while your vehicle is parked – parking mode and motion detection. The one I am going over is motion detection, as it does not constantly record, so you will not need to comb through hours of footage in the case of a break-in or someone bumps into you while parked.
Instead, the motion detection mode activates when the sensors pick up movement around the car. In order for the motion detection mode to be active, you will have to remember to turn it on when you park your car for a longer period.
For example, it is a good idea for motion detection to be active when your vehicle is parked overnight. But when you get in your car for your next drive, remember to turn motion detection off, as it may interfere with your dash cam recording while you drive.
When active, the motion detection on your dash cam will automatically pause after five seconds of not picking up any movement on the front view camera of the car. Video recording will resume once the camera picks up movement again.
Automatic motion detection
Suppose you have a newer dash cam model. In that case, it may be possible to configure it to automatically go into motion detection mode once you turn off your vehicle’s ignition. If you can make your motion detection mode automatically turn on, you will not have to worry about forgetting to turn it on at the end of the day.
Also read: How Long Do Dash Cams Last
Are Motion Detection and Parking Mode the Same?
The camera must be either turned on or in sleep mode for motion detection to function correctly because it will immediately detect any movement and a change in light visible to the camera’s lens.
Parking mode serves as an additional degree of security similar to motion detection, but they are not the same. It functions somewhat differently from detecting visual changes like light or new objects passing in front of the lens; the parking mode feature uses its G-sensor functionality to keep an eye out for vibrations.
Parking mode, unlike motion detection, does not need the sensors of the dash cam to pick up on a movement to start recording. This is because when in parking mode, the dash camera or its G-sensor picks up on vibrations and motions.
Moreover, unlike motion detection going into monitoring mode after five seconds of detecting movement, the parking mode returns to monitoring mode twenty seconds after recording the motion or vibration that activated it.
Read more: Can Dash Cams Be Hacked?
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you wonder what is dash cam motion detection, you should know that it is a smart technology that will keep your vehicle safe when you are sleeping at night or while working in your office. The motion detection mode on your dash cam will record any movement near your car.
Motion detection is excellent in case of robberies or if someone hits your car in its parking space, as it will record the offender. You will have the recording of who the culprit is when you report it to the police.