VIOFO A229 Plus Dash Cam Front and Rear, Dual STARVIS 2 Sensors, 2 Channel HDR, 1440P+1440P Voice Control Car Dash Camera, 5GHz Wi-Fi, Voice Control, Ultra-Precise GPS

TL;DR - Please skip to ‘Pros and Cons’ if you only want the details. Let me start by saying that I spent almost two months searching for the perfect dash cam solution for my car. We recently had our first child, and I was determined in every way to make sure that she is as safe as she can be whenever we are on the roadways. Twice a week, I also have to commute 70 miles each way, which is about 90% interstate, and 10% city driving. After encountering two road rage incidents on the same day, I finally decided had enough. If something goes down, I want proof of the person(s) at fault. I’ve likely read every review and studied every device that Amazon sells, including Wolfbox and Pormido. I eventually ended up on r/dashcam on Reddit, which is where I finally struck gold. Reddit always cuts through the noise for me, and this time was no different. The overwhelming choice there for brand is Viofo. They claim that Viofo dash cams excel in every way, and so far, that has been my experience. Installation: The install is about as straightforward as it gets. You need to run the wire to any cameras that you want, except for the main camera, which is built into the main unit. If you only want a single camera facing ahead, there is no wiring necessary, unless you plan on hardwiring the unit to your car’s 12V system. If you intend to utilize ‘Parking Mode’, you will need to have access to both a constant +12V and an accessory +12V, and a ground/earth. I opted for the latter, as I would like my car to be under surveillance at all times. If you opt for only ‘Driving Mode’, it will be an even simpler install, but that will not allow you to record while away from the vehicle. I planned out my route for the rear camera, and ran the single USB-C to USB-C cable, using the provided trim tool. It is very simple in most cases to tuck the wire away behind the vehicle’s interior trim paneling. The tool, although I have my own, was actually very good quality. Setup: Again, it was entirely straightforward. You power it on, go through basic setup for language choice and whatnot, and then you’ll want to enable WiFi so that you can use your phone and the Viofo app to configure the rest of the settings. This *can* be done using the physical buttons on the device, but it is MUCH easier to do on the app. There are so many wonderful options, that using the device’s GUI, although well developed, would be too much to do on a small LCD screen. Take my advice and use the Viofo App. It’s available for iOS and Android. You’ll also want to large Micro SD card to store your recordings. I started with a 16GB Samsung that I already had, but even at normal quality and bitrate settings, it filled up at just 2 hours of recording. This device does have ‘Loop Recording’, but I didn’t choose to enable it. I am fine with deleting the recordings as it fills, as I would rather be sure to have the footage if I discover later that I captured an incident that I didn’t notice right away. Loop Recordings are limited to 10 minutes in length, and that just isn’t enough for me. After operating to the 256GB memory card, I was then able to increase the quality and bitrate setting to the maximum of 2K for the front and rear cameras, and still have plenty of space. I can record about 12 hours without having to delete anything. Image Quality: I immediately tested this device at night by driving around my city and county at 11PM. I wanted to try to capture license plates because, whenever I’m driving, I always have to try to memorize the license plate if something happens, and that is not always possible. When I returned home and checked the footage, I discovered that the STARVIS 2 lenses actually made the possible at night! If you capture a license plate of any car within 10’ or so of yours, you will be able to read the plates using the video footage. Of course, with the audio recording, if you can read it aloud, it will capture your voice in the recording. I am now in the habit of reading the plates aloud for that exact purpose. There was minimal to no glare from either camera, although I do think that I will be ordering the additional lenses for my front camera, as I have a very bright display in the car that is very visible in the recordings. I suppose that is the price you pay for having exceptional Sony Starvis 2 lenses- you WILL capture EVERYTHING. As far as just overall video quality, the 2K and 1080P quality images are exactly as they should be, which is crisp and free of imperfection. These Sony Starvis 2 lenses are something you just have to experience for yourself to understand. Knowing what I know now, I would never use a dash camera without them. Temperatures: The one thing I was most concerned about when I started researching these devices was the sheer amount of failure from the elements. The device you choose will be subjected to extreme heat and cold, and the device you choose absolutely MUST have protections in place for this. Luckily, Viofo planned for this and they use special capacitors and other electrical components inside to ensure that your device doesn’t fail as a result of direct sunlight, freezing and condensation, and overall interior and exterior cabin temps. This was actually my biggest factor in deciding on which brand to choose from. The fact that Viofo not only considered this, but placed extra special care and attention to it, was the ultimate deciding factor for me purchase it. I have already connected with their customer service, and they have been extremely helpful in answering all my questions. I haven’t had any issues, but I wanted to reach out to be sure that I could contact someone if I needed to. Value for money: I actually waited until a Flash Sale to purchase my A229 Plus, and I managed to catch it for $169! I have literally never made a faster and more urgent purchase! You will not find ANYTHING with this kind of quality and features for that price. If you can, wait for a sale and pounce! 🐅 I have tested all the modes and everything works exactly as it should. If you have any questions about it, I would be happy to answer them. I will be monitoring this item for questions for the next couple of months or so, so if you just use Amazon’s product questions feature, I’ll see it and respond. I will also be updating this review every 3 months just to ensure that it’s working properly, and will include and issues and incidents that I encounter. PROS: • Price • Exceptional image quality • Night vision is amazing • Features • Ease of install • Durability Cons: • Doesn’t include a hardwire kit or SD Card

Has everything you will need in my opinion. It functions as it is supposed to, but did run into that beeping/slow card error. With this error I advise to contact Viofo and tell them the error and ask for a different firmware made for slower cards. I am not sure if it would've worked, but in my case I just reformatted it 3 times and it somehow helped and haven't gotten that error since, with a Sandisk max endurance card. With that aside, the camera quality is exceptional and all most would need to be honest. I almost went with 4k, but realistically you get all you need from a 2k camera. I did not hard wire it so I'm not sure as far as that goes, but if you know how I expect it to run well. I have no problems connecting to the wifi of the camera and extracting videos. It does take a bit of time to do so, so beware. For this reason I set it to capture 2mins every loop (going to be around 200+mbs of storage). If I need more I will just grab more video from the storage, no problem. I will also suggest if you put it just to the left of your mirror, make sure you put it far enough away or low enough so you can access the SD card or you will hate yourself for not doing so at some point. For example, if you need to install new firmware or your card fails, you will need to access that port. An even bigger reason for wanting to do that is because this 3M adhesive is ridiculously strong. When putting it on I needed to remove it and I negligently took it off and I had to remove the adhesive from the camera, which took 30+minutes of alcohol scrubbing. Luckily they pack an extra 3M adhesive, which saved some frustrations. Very easy to install the wires in your car (even SUV). Once you get used to how much pressure to apply on getting the wires to fit behind the airbag slots and other plastic areas, it moves very quickly. I would say it took roughly 25minutes to get the wires snug where I wanted them. The audio is also very good along with the video quality and I honestly have nothing bad to say about those two things. They perform with ease and exceed expectations in that manner. I have owned it for a couple months with no other flaws, besides that card speed error. It feels like a very solid package overall and would recommend it for anyone who constantly runs into negligent reckless A-holes on the road. *Would have uploaded a video of it's performance, but Amazon degrades the upload quality, so no point.*

Based on reviews of several dashcams, I got 3 VIOFO A229 Plus, 2 channel (front/rear) dash cams. Also got 3 HK4 hardwire kits. Installation was in a 2014 F150, 2020 Forester, and 2021 Escape Hybrid, all done in my garage. I'd previously installed cams in both Fords but the rear cam feature failed after several years and they didn't have wireless capability, so the upgrade. Install went easily enough, taking about 2 hours each with most of the time spent chasing the rear-cam wire along the inside trim. I didn't wire in the always-on parking feature as the cars are mostly parked in secure areas and I didn't want to risk running the batteries down (a too common complaint on the Viofo reddit sub). Locating an appropriate acc fuse was easy enough, just look through your owner's manual at the fuse box description. 2 of my 3 cars had unused switched spare fuses. The F150 had fuse location for heated seats that I don't have so I used that. The cams perform well enough, good video and sound quality. Our older cams had always on screens, so we knew they were on. For whatever reason the Viofo screen blanks after a few minutes (longer if you set it for longer, but no option for always on). The operating lights are on so you know it's on. Also, it makes an electronic sound when activating. Our old cam activated with that sound instantly with turning on the car. The Viofo requires almost a minute to activate and initially, I'd try to turn it on thinking it wasn't powering up, because it was taking so long. Of course this meant I was turning it off. So I'd chase the power for a few button pushes until figuring out it just took a while. It has a wireless feature that works with a local wifi connection to a phone. It's not terribly stable and is sometimes finicky to connect. Still, way better than having to carry a micro sd/adapter and something to read it with when you need to view a video segment. And therein is another issue... the micro sd. I thought I'd set up something incorrectly, as over time I'd get a notice that the card was full and needed to be formatted. Turned out the locked file, where accident/G-activated videos are filed, was full. Cam will overwrite older files so it will last forever. Except that in the case of an accident or other high G-incident, it will save that file to a locked folder that will not be overwritten. Odd, it's a 512gb Samsung, a good card. It shouldn't be an issue. Turns out the cam was randomly taking pictures and locking them in the accident folder and filling up the card. I noticed the shutter sounding repeatedly at random times, all on smooth roads and even at full stops. Turns out this is also a common issue on the Viofo sub. It has a user adjustable shock sensitivity, but none of the settings changed the behavior. It's not a major problem for me, I just try to format the card every now and then, easy with the wifi connection. But still it's an unnecessary PITA. So 4 stars. I've emailed Viofo and will update this review based on their ability to fix this behavior. Not a bad cam and I don't regret getting 3. Edit: 25 March 2025. VIOFO requested suspect video which I sent. “We have checked your videos. From the video we checked that the ground is not very smooth and it cracked, the driving seep is relatively high. It is possible for the G-sensor to be triggered. So sometimes it's more than just the collision and impact, the car bumps, sudden acceleration of a car and shaking may also trigger the G-sensor. The G-sensor can be turned off in the app setting: Can you share us a pic of your G-sensor setting?” The road was very smooth, and they pointed out smooth tar strips on the road as “not very smooth and it cracked”. Also they failed to respond to my mention that this behavior occurs on occasion when the car is stopped. I believe the term is ‘gaslighting,’ when they tell me I’m not experiencing what I’m experiencing. When they suggested I turn the g-sensing off, I checked the settings to find I’d already done so. These shock saves were occurring with the sensor turned off. With this bit of info, their follow-up email was more helpful, to update the software and if it doesn’t work they’ll replace it. Edit to add: They'll replace it if it's still under warranty. I purchased 3, and Viofo wanted the purchase information for the specific cam that has the prob. Well, they all have the problem and it's nearing end of warranty.

This things great! I’m still getting used to it, but the video quality is good and the interface on its screen and the iPhone App are relatively easy to use. The sticky mounting tape it comes with is good. It’s fall now and not too hot. The real test will be the blazing sun in summer. I can always replace it with some heavy-duty 3M double-sided tape from Home Depot if needed. I am not sure what length video files to choose. Default seems to be 1 minute video clips for both front and rear camera. I think I will make it 5 minute intervals for my use. 10 minutes long, if the file gets corrupted, I’ll miss out on a lot. 1 minute long, and I have a million tiny video clips to go through. 5 minutes would seem optimal. The first day I used it, I accidentally plugged it into a power-port that is on all the time (I did not know I had one of those!), even with the keys off and out of the ignition switch. I had installed the maximum size 512GB SD-Card for storage. It ran for the entire day! It loop records so it overwrites older files and films forever until you stop it or remove the SD-Card. At first I was mad, thinking about my car battery draining. But then I viewed the footage. It recorded all night! It stayed on all the time. If anyone had hit my car or been on my property, it would have recorded everything, even muffled sound from inside the car! I think I will add a second car battery and a dc to dc charge controller now. That way my car’s starter and power battery will never be damaged, and this camera can always be on using the secondary ‘house’ battery and record 24/7. I only bought it to record someone road raging me or for evidence in a car crash. Now I know it can protect the car and its surroundings all the time! My own private security camera. I chose this unit because of reviews it got on YouTube. The screen quality is good. I can easily read road signs and see good details like license plates in the daytime. I’ll be running my own tests. A minor annoyance is the SD-Card port. I’m used to ports with a positive spring loaded action to remove the card. The cards engagement in this port is not crisp like I prefer. I do need to double check it each time I remove and install an SD-Card. Overall, this has been a very satisfying product. Time will tell if it continues to be that way. I’m very happy I bought it.

This is a very solid dash cam system if you’re looking for high-quality front and rear recording with modern features. The biggest strength is the video quality. The dual STARVIS 2 sensors make a noticeable difference, especially in low light. Both the front and rear cameras capture sharp, clear footage at 1440p, and license plates are much easier to read compared to older dash cams I’ve used. HDR also helps balance bright headlights and dark areas at night. The feature set is impressive. Voice control works well for basic commands, 5GHz Wi-Fi makes transferring clips faster and more stable, and the GPS data is accurate for speed and location tracking. Once everything is set up properly, it runs very reliably in daily use. That said, this is not a true plug-and-play camera. The SD card is not included, and for full functionality like parking mode, you’ll likely want a hardwire kit. Initial setup takes some time, especially routing the rear camera cable cleanly and adjusting settings through the app. Overall, this is a premium dash cam aimed at people who care about video quality and long-term reliability rather than the cheapest or simplest option. If you’re willing to spend a little time setting it up correctly, the performance and footage quality make it well worth it. Easy 5 stars for the right user.

I've tested a cheaper dashcam, and can say with certainty, after researching this and watching multiple reviews, that the camera quality here is among the best that can be bought at this price point. The quality of the video is quite high, although a bit over-sharpened sometimes, but that's possible to fix when editing, and has made it easier to see numberplates in quite a few occasions where the visibility wasn't great. The dashcam has quite a lot of settings, including higher bitrate recording if you have sufficient space. It has a high enough framerate, and provides some useful information visible on the video itself which can be removed, decreased, or increased depending on what information you would like to see. The GPS seems to be used to detect speed, and the accuracy of the speed reading is quite good. Installation was easy. I suggest using the trim tool and hiding the cables, but be careful not to hide the cables in-front of an air-bag. I have yet to use this for long enough to see its longevity. The speed functionality is an added bonus for recording track days to see the speeds that worked best at different corners in addition to being a great dashcam otherwise.

Recommended addons: VIOFO hardwire kit Remote Control Damage-free picture hanging strips (used for the Remote Control for easy damage-free removal later). I returned this and bought the A329, but this model is a solid performer. I highly suggest getting the VIOFO hardwire kit so that you can have night mode. My hardwire kit uses two connections in the interior fuse box; one connected to a fuse only active when the car is running (Accessory) and the other being a full-time (red wire) connection for when it goes into night mode. I set it to loop record during normal operations in 3-minute intervals and for night mode left it at default to record on incident. I also set it so that it turns off and goes into night mode x-number of minutes after the car is turned off with only the power LED on. The rear camera has a small LED to quickly identify that it is on. Running and hiding the cables probably took the longest amount of time but was still an easy task. One add-on I purchased is the Remote Control which is a bluetooth connected button that I placed on the console in front of me. It has one large main button to press and lock the current video and two smaller buttons located on the right side. The upper button turns mic recording on/off, the other button activates WiFi so that you can connect your phone to the dash cam to pull any videos to watch or to delete/manage the recordings already on file. I suggest buying the 64Gb card; each front video is approx 900+ Mb and the rear recordings are...I forget, maybe 300+ Mb each. I used 2 3M glue strips to attach the remote control to my dash so it could be removed at any time without damaging the dash from old hardened glue. With these strips you just pull the tab straight down and it pops off. Use the clear films to put on a clean window surface first, then attach your dash cams over top of that.

I've had this for a while. It works great. The resolution is great, the parking sensor is great, I got the parking kit (be sure to set it to 12.2 so it doesn't kill your battery if you don't drive a lot like me). The one thing that is insane to me is that you have to use specific Micro SD cards with this. I've been in IT for 20+ years and storage, as long as it meets the standard and speed you need, has always been storage. I'd read that I should buy one of the recommended cards and I thought "well, that's stoopid, I'm getting whatever I want". The recordings wouldn't loop, it would write till I filled the card but once it was full, it stopped recording. I reached out to Viofo (they were very responsive) and they told me to get one of the recommended cards - their card specifically. I was indignant to the point of being a bit of a Karen. Whelp, long story short, it'll record correctly and loop with their card but not the SanDisk endurance that's made for DashCams (just, apparently, not Viofo ones). They were right, get their card unless you want to be frustrated or waste money. Get this dashcam, it's the best one out there for real, but get their card. Honestly, they should include it with the device since it's so important to the device's functionality.