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7 de enero de 2023
iOS VPN apps can break WiFi connectivity to dashcam
I like the camera (67W) - It's pretty simple to use if you don’t run into the issues I had, the image/audio quality is great, the 140d wide angle lens captures a lot and after about a year of use, the camera has had no problems recording video/audio on a 256GB micro SD card (extreme environment version). The file retention @1440p with audio is about 2 weeks.I live in the southeast, so it's pretty hot during the summer. The camera started falling off the windshield with the included foam mounting tape at around 8-9 months. I ended up buying some good 3M high strength outdoor foam mounting tape, cut it to size, and replaced what came with the camera. The camera mount I chose was the hexagonal piece of steel that attaches to the windshield with the foam tape, and the camera has a hexagonal cup with a strong magnet it in it. The dashcam is pretty light, and they do include enough mounting/cable length to mount this where you'd need it.The Garmin drive setup software can use some help as the pairing process is very manual, and if you are not paying attention, and you miss hitting pair on both the phone and camera at the same time, you will need to reset the camera to factory defaults, and then remove the botched bluetooth connections in your phone. The bluetooth pairing process doesn't explain that you will have two different bluetooth connections for the one camera, so pay careful attention to the pairing process - Both bluetooth connections will be DC-67W and the other is DC67W-#####-BTAside from this, I ran into a very difficult issue to solve after a few months of usage, but eventually figured it out - VPN apps in iOS will disrupt your ability to connect to the dashcam's WiFi connection depending on the VPN app settings. Basically VPN applications can become a middleman between your phone's wireless adaptor and the wireless connection or "SSID". These VPN settings can alter IP addressing/routing, and will prevent you from connecting to the camera with your phone/app to export or even watch the footage on your cameras SD-card. This is because the Garmin drive app is very simple in that when you try and view footage on your dashcam, the drive app actually tells the dashcam via bluetooth to "enable wireless", essentially making your dashcam a wireless access point, then the drive app connects your phone to the cameras SSID, enters in the wireless password for you (this is happening behind the scenes), and then allows you to manage the footage, update the firmware of the camera, etc. It is during this wireless connection process that VPN apps can enable itself to protect you and will basically change IP information of your phone, which then stops your camera and phone from communicating with eachother.I suspect this is because the dashcam only knows about the network 192.168.0.0/24, where as your VPN app may force your wireless adaptor to be on a different private network to basically hide your phone from untrusted WiFi SSIDs. I'm sure there could be more variables, but this is what was happening in my case. Disabling VPN was my resolution to this issue. If you have the option to set your VPN app to disable itself when connecting to trusted WiFi connections, that might be an easy fix.Garmin needs to streamline the software, and pairing process to help avoid having users that don't have I.T. or networking knowledge, getting stuck dealing with these types of connectivity issues. Garmin should include additional pop-ups in the app for when things aren't working or during setup like "please disable VPN connectivity when connecting to the camera's wireless connection", or "You must accept the bluetooth pairing prompts on both the mobile device, and on the dashcam at the time of pairing", etc.Other than the above, I do recommend this dashcam.Ver másVer menos
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