Viofo A119S Dash Cam

Viofo A119S Overview

The Viofo A119S dash cam is one of the popular dashcam models in the sub $100 US category. It has the full range of expected features except for maybe WiFi connectivity that you’ll be looking for in a small dash cam. In this review, we’ll give you an overview of the camera and some important features as well as take a look at some video taken using the Viofo A119S dash cam.

What’s Iniside the Box

The Viofo A119S Dash Cam comes complete with the dash cam, a long USB cable that’s used to power the device, a 12 volt USB charger or power supply, some mounting plates, some cable keepers and in some kits, a GPS mounting plate that allows latitude, longitude, and vehicle speed to be displayed along the bottom of the recorded video.

Accessory kits that allow you to hard wire the camera to your car’s electrical system are also readily available. These kits include a long power cable, a small voltage regulator to convert your car’s 12 volt current down to the 5 volts the camera can safely use, and an add a circuit device you plug into an existing fuse spot on your car’s fuse panel. This little splitter allows you to place the fuse from the slot you’re using into the add a fuse. You then add a second fuse for the circuit the device creates. You connect the power and ground wires from the voltage regulator to the add a circuit and vehicle ground respectively.

The other accessory you’ll want to consider is a snap on polarizing filter that does a great job at reducing windshield glare. If you’ll be using your dash cam to capture “B roll” for some of your video projects, you’ll definitely want to add that filter.

Viofo A119S Dash Cam Notable Features

Most of the features of this little dash cam are pretty similar to other cameras on the market. You use the buttons on the camera to make various menu selections including resolution, frame rate, g sensing, and what you want displayed on the video as I mentioned earlier. There are a couple of interesting differences from some of the cameras on the market.

Battery vs. Capacitor

First, the A119S doesn’t have a battery to help ensure the video files are properly closed when the vehicle’s power source is turned off. Instead it uses a capacitor to provide a bit of power when shutting down and when first starting up.

The main benefit for using a capacitor is that if you live in a hot part of the country where interior vehicle temperatures can exceed 150 degrees. Those high temps can cause a small lithium polymer battery to fail. In theory, the capacitor isn’t impacted by the heat. In theory.

I found living in the Phoenix area that my car’s first start of a hot summer day that should result in the camera turning on with the ignition often doesn’t happen. The capacitor has discharged and the camera needs to be started by pushing the on button. Subsequent vehicle starts result in the camera starting per normal. I’ve used this camera for several months now and as we moved into the cooler part of the year with daily highs in the 80s or 90s, the camera starts just fine on the first vehicle start of the day. So, for many of you, this won’t make much difference.

Field of View

The dash cam also comes with a camera lens that has a narrower field of view than the A 118 and A 119 without the S. This 135 degree field of view vs. the 170 degree field of view often found on action cameras and dash cams means the edges of the frame don’t have as much of a curve to them. 135 degrees is plenty to display what is happening around you. The reduced fish-eye effect means you can use the video footage in a trip video or other video project without processing it through a software fish-eye correction tool.

The last thing I’ll mention is the GPS mount. Many versions of this kit come with both a standard and GPS mounting block. With the GPS block, you can use the menu to select adding GPS data such as latitude and longitude as well as vehicle speed to the bottom of the video. The speed data could be handy if the person you collide with claims you were speeding and that was the primary cause of the accident.

The minor down side to the GPS mounting block which has been documented in other reviews and happened to me, as well,  is that when powering the camera through the mounting block, the camera can sometimes lose power and reset. The fix is simple, though. Just power the camera through the USB power input on the camera. The GPS unit will get its power from the camera instead of the other way around.

Using an SD Card with an A119S Dash Cam

As noted in the product description, the A119S doesn’t come with an SD card. It takes a micro SD card and since you are using it to capture video you should get a class 10 or UHS type card. The camera fills the card and then starts overwriting the oldest files so you don’t need to worry about filling the card and stopping recording. As a dash cam that’s perfect. You can press a button on the camera to lock a file and the camera will automatically lock a file if it senses a high G event like a collision. With all that in mind, you simply don’t need a huge capacity card.

To use the files in a video project, you’ll need to download them into your computer before they are overwritten. Take a look at your SD card after a road trip to see how many hours of recording you have. Then determine the recording capacity of your card in minutes at the frame rate and resolution you’ve selected.

Here’s my video review of the Viofo A119S

Closing

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with the A119S from Viofo. At $100 it is a good value. I’ve been using this for about 9 months now and have found it to be reliable and to produce good quality video.

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