Here, we’ll talk in detail about the dashcam, and our hands-on experience with the VIOFO A139 3-channel dash camera. Content
VIOFO A139 Overview
The VIOFO A139 is a triple channel dash cam that includes quite a lot of useful features. The dash camera comes with the superior Sony Starvis Image Sensor. The three camera modules offer HD recording and deliver both footages with crisp and clear details. The front cam that you attach to your windshield can record at 2K. The rear and the cabin cam on the other hand record footage in 1080p HD. The VIOFO A139 comes with exquisite viewing angles. The front view main cam unit offers a 140° field of view that encompasses the 5 lane traffic. Both the rear and the cabin cam offer a 170° viewing angle and offer to record the slightest detail without fail. With the inbuilt dual-band WiFi, you can connect your smartphones via the Viofo app in order to send and receive footage on the go. Another cool feature that is worth mentioning is the voice notification. We will talk about that in detail soon. Apart from the WiFi connectivity, and voice notifications, this 3 channel dash cam comes packed with everything a modern dashcam should possess. There is the inbuilt GPS, Parking mode surveillance, collision triggered recording and many more. There is much to talk about the VIOFO A139 so stay tight, we’ll be dealing with the design, camera capabilities, and many more in this review.
VIOFO A139 3-Channel Dash Camera Specifications
Take a look at the overall specs of the A139. The overall specs also indicate the max video recording resolution, list of key features, and storage capabilities.
Design and Installation
The VIOFO A139 dash camera, as you know, is a three-channel dashcam. Hence it comes with 3 camera units. The front-facing camera module and the cabin unit are fixed onto your windscreen. Both the rear and the cabin camera modules are separate and to be wired from the main unit. The main module of the VIOFO dashcam is a bit fatter than most compact dashcams seen in the market. All the hardware buttons and the display-less body are easily noticeable when you stick it on your car windscreen. The main unit includes physical keys that include the power on/off, Record, microphone, and WiFi buttons. Behind the front-facing camera module, you can see a small speaker. Thanks to this, you get necessary warnings as well as voice notifications, loud and clear. The main camera module is 300° rotatable. This makes it easy for you to attach to almost all vehicles. Now coming to the top extreme end, you can find the USB C Power slot and the pins for attaching the rear and the cabin cam units. Comparing with the previous model, VIOFO A129, this particular model ditches the micro USB connecter for rear and cabin cameras and now uses the super-slim coaxial cables that are more convenient. There is also an option to attach an external microphone if you prefer, but there is already one inbuilt. One of the major flaws I could easily says about the design concept of this dashcam from VIOFO is the lacking of a display. Yes, VIOFO A139 does not come with a display of its own. It requires you to look through the camera viewfinder using your finder. Otherwise, there is no way for you to check if the camera is getting the right view of the road. We will come back to this topic later, let’s discuss the design now. Talking about the rear and the cabin cams, they are attached to your rear end and the front windshield with the help of sticky tape. Another flaw that we felt was that the rear module didn’t have the IR LEDs for night vision. From the overall design and negligence in night vision capability, it seems that VIOFO has not really focused on the rear camera. It feels ‘optional’ especially while looking for footages recording at night. Anyways, the cabin camera gets a set of IR LEDs to record your cabin at any light conditions. Since the VIOFO A139 dashcam uses super-slim coaxial cables and miniature connectors, it is theoretically an easy job to install and get this dash camera working. But, too many of wires running all over your car interior is not a good experience. Although you can hide most of them, something’s missing. You can power up the whole dash camera unit using the 12V port. The included USB C type cable goes into your car’s 12V port and then powers the central unit and other camera units.
Viofo A139 Camera and Recording
The Viofo A139 is an updated triple surveillance cam for your car. It comes with three camera modules that record the front, rear, and cabin. This particular design type makes it suitable to use with family cars or even cabs. The file structure is shown below, where the R, F, I stands for Rear, Front and Inside camera. The main camera unit records the video at 2K resolution, with a 140-degree of wide angle view. Let us start from here. Before we say something, here is a sample snap from my usual drive footage recorded on the VIOFO A139 3-channel dashcam. The video resolution is quite enough to watch on any device, be it your laptop or phone. However, the light capturing and the sharpness of the footages are not quite up to the mark as we expected a dash camera like this. One of the saddest parts was the blurry license plates on the videos, which is an area VIOFO could have improved in this version. The night-vision capability of VIOFO A139 main camera is quite impressive and capture sthe maximum light in all possible conditions. I personally loved it except the video sharpness part as said above. Coming to the rear cam, this triple dashcam offers a 170° FOV and can record footage in 1080p HD at 30fps. The rear module doesn’t feature the IR Night Vision and that’s a real flaw. Well, that’s okay, at least you will have lights from the car behind, but not a stirring experience in the woods and forest roads. Surprisingly, the daylight footage from the rear camera unit is slightly brighter than the main unit of the VIOFO A139 dashcam. The cabin camera, like the rear cam records in HD 1080p at 30fps and offers a 170° FOV. Again, the video quality that the cabin camera offers is not quite impressive. There s nothing details is to be captured in the cabin, but the video footage lacks some clarity is not a thing everyone appreciates. The included CPL filter acts as a polaroid lens for the camera lenses and filters out sunlight glares and rays to get clearer footages. That one seems to be working well.
VIOFO A139 Connectivity
The VIOFO A139 3-channel dashcam comes with inbuilt dual channel WiFi. With the WiFi, you can connect your phone to the dashcam through the VIOFO app. It even lets you live-stream the footage from the camera to your phone. The app is quite convenient to get the recorded footage and even live streaming from the camera. However, you have to keep the cellular data on your phone turn off to get the dashcam footage over WiFi, which is a bit turn-off for me. I wouldn’t want to put my phone offline to see the dashcam footage on it. As an add-on, VIOFO also provides a Bluetooth remote controller. it is a small button that lets you protect the current video clip or images from being overwritten. But, as of now, the remote controller isn’t included in the package. You need to get the Bluetooth module separately.
Viofo A139 Storage
The VIOFO A139 3-channel dashcam does not have inbuilt storage. You can use a Class 10 microSD card of up to 256GB to record and save videos. With features like the loop recording, the storage gets overwritten once a specific time span is reached. The dashcam overwrites videos older than a week. So, I always needed to look for any important clip from the recorded footage every week. This feature reduces or limits the need to get another SD or to increase the capacity. A thing to note is that certain footages that are triggered due to the G sensor gets locked and are saved from overwritten. Also, there is a physical key on the central unit that lets you manually initiate triggered recording.
VIOFO A139 Dashcam Features
The VIOFO A139 3-channel dash camera comes with all the essential features a modern dashcam should possess. Being a triple surveillance cam, the A139 offers better and complete surveillance while you’re on the road. With features like the collision trigger, loop recording, G sensor, WiFi, and many more, this three-way camera can give you complete and comprehensive surveillance. Inbuilt WiFi and App Connectivity The A139 comes with inbuilt dual-channel WiFi. The WiFi connection along with the VIOFOA mobile app lets you stream live footage, trim and save videos into local storage, playback recorded videos, and many more. The app also lets you tweak the dashcam settings according to your driving needs. The WiFi on the VIOFO dashcam works on both the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz channel. G Sensor and GPS Logger This triple dashcam comes with the G sensor as well as a GPS logger. The G sensor is a necessity when it comes to dashcams these days. It helps the dashcam to auto-record videos in the event of a collision and locks this footage into your SD card. The GPS logger can record your speed and route data and intern stamp them into your live footage. It will also keep the camera clock synced with GPS time so that the time stamps never go wrong. Voice Notifications Another interesting feature is the voice notification. The A139 gives out alerts and notifications through the inbuilt speaker. The voice notifications let you stay alert about video recording and SD card errors that might occur while you’re driving. Bluetooth Remote Controller The Bluetooth remote controller is an add-on and should be bought separately. This tiny remote controller can be positioned on tour steering and it lets you auto-trigger and save the footage into your SD card. The Bluetooth remote control to us felt like a fancy than a necessity, so we do not recommend you to get one. External Microphone The A139 comes with an inbuilt microphone and also allows you to connect an extra external microphone. You can position it anywhere around your cabin and lets you record the cabin activities with much more clarity. The external mic is also an add-on and should be bought separately.
VIOFO A139 Dashcam Parking Mode
The Parking Mode surveillance helps you keep your vehicle safe even when it is parked. Most of the new dashcams come with the parking mode and is seen as an essential feature. With the help of the G sensors and the motion sensors, the A139 does a pretty neat job when it comes to parking mode surveillance. The new VIOFO A139 dashcam comes with 3 mode parking mode surveillance. These include Auto Event Detection, Time Lapse, and Low Bitrate Recording. The Auto Event Detection automatically records a video clip when moving objects or an impact gets detected while being parked. This feature can be so life saving and gives you crucial evidence during an event of a crash or a potential theft attempt. The Time Lapse mode works by recording the footage at a low frame rate to save storage and power. This requires a continuous power supply and needs you to hardwire the device to your car’s battery. The Low Bitrate Recording mode records footages continuously at normal speed with low bitrate to save storage space. This mode also includes the audio recording. The parking mode is most beneficial when the dashcam gets continuous power. With an HK3-C Acc hardwire kit the dashcam can get a continuous power supply. Hardwiring it to the battery automatically switches on the parking mode when the engine switches off. It also provides a low voltage cut-off to protect your car battery from over-discharge.
Pros and Cons
As we reviewed the VIOFO A139 triple-channel dashcam for over a month, we came to certain conclusions. Here are some of the things we like and we dislike about this 3-channel dashcam from VIOFO. Key Features: Triple cam recording | 2K recording at 60fps (front) | 1080p recording at (30fps rear and cabin) | Superior wide-angle recording range | inbuilt dual-band Wifi | Voice notification | G sensor and GPS logger | Collision trigger | Loop recording | Parking mode | expandable storage up to 256GB | USB C input power
2K recording @ 60FPSSuperior wide-angle viewCabin cam is helpful to cab driversEasy installation with good quality cables and enhancementsUSB C power supply cord for superior power deliveryInbuilt WiFi and Bluetooth connectivityClear night time recording
Lacks displayNo IR LEDs for the rear camToo many of wires cause a bit of distressOccasional in-app glitcheslacks certain features compared to its previous version, the A129
What’s In The Box
The VIOFO 3-channel dash cam is so useful as it works to give complete surveillance. We’ve got our hands on the VIOFO A139 and had the chance to install and test out all the accessories and peripheras the dashcam comes with. The whole delivery includes the three camera modules and their attachment cables and stuff. Here is what you get with the retail package of the VIOFO A139 dashcam.
1x Front camera main unit1x Rear camera1x Interior/cabin cam1x Circular Polarizing Lens Filter1x Rear camera coaxial cable (6m)1x Interior camera coaxial cable (1m)1x 12V car adapter1x USB C power cable1x Card reader adapter1x Trim removal tool3x Front and rear 3M sticky tape
Pricing and Availability
The VIOFO A139 is one of the essential car gadgets that offer better overall video recording and surveillance. The dashcam offers a 2K front cam recording at 60FPS. There are all the essential features like the collision trigger, loop recording, and many more. But what makes it pretty useful is its triple camera surveillance.
VIOFO A139 Dashcam: Final Verdict
Having a dash cam is important as it can capture everything and anything that happens on the road. We don’t know when and how things might turn out and it’s better if you have a personalized CCTV right in your car to monitor everything. The VIOFO A139 is one of the best dash cams that offer triple surveillance. The dashcam from VIOFO comes with overall surveillance, but compromises on certain important parts like video quality and sharpness. The dashcam sometimes fails to get you the license plate details of other cars on the road, which is a turn down for many dashcam buyers. Otherwise, the VIOFO A139 is a good deal for the price tag they offer and with the rest of its features.
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