[Frostie]

Hi

Sorry Hans to have to correct you. None of the cameras of the K2 are used as wifi antennas. The wifi antenna of the K2 is right within the DVR.

@PhilBuck

For the K2 to start there needs to be at least the front camera connected. Without a camera connect to the F Port, the DVR will continously reboot it its efforts to find the missing camera.

Chances are that your firmware got corrupted and you simply need to re-install it. The bootloader for the update process requires the sd card formatted in FAT32. Any other format will not work. So the best way is to take a small sd card, format it at your computer (which should use FAT32 at a card this size), put the firmware file in the root folder and give it a try.

If this still does not help, I am afraid that your K2 has died. There is still a way to find out what’s going on, but that requires soldering at the board and some computer knowledge. It would not be worth the effort for such an old dashcam. Though the K2 was a good dashcam when boosted by my firmware 🙂

Regards,

Marc

[Frostie]

That’s all correct .

One small hint.

> 5 change any camera settings in app

> 6 disconnect Android from K6 wifi and connect to my home wifi

After changing the settings, you should close the settings before disconnecting from the K6. Reason is, that when you enter settings, the DVR stops recording. When you close settings, it re-starts recording. So if you disconnect while being in the settings, it might happen that the DVR does not record. But that is only relevant if you start driving right after changing the settings. After the next restart, the DVR will record automatically in any case.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by  Frostie.

[Frostie]

To my experience (mostly from the old Innovv forum, where more people were active than here), there are two main reasons for a camera to get broken.

Moisture
Sometimes due to a bad sealing, but also due to usage of a power washer.

Broken cable

The individual wires in the cable are very thin and so are the solder points. The bend protection on the housing of the camera is only a bend protection, but no special protection against twisting of the cable. People often lay the cable first and then, when everything is done, turn the camera in the correct position and twist the cable right at the housing. This puts a strain on the soldered joints and can lead to a broken connection. So it is important to mount the camera in the correct orientation first, then fix the cable near the camera and THEN lay the rest of the cable.

[Frostie]

Hi Martin,

if you want the K7 act more like an action cam, there is the cumbersome solution of laying the yellow cable to the front and then connecting it to switched power via a switch on the handle bar. This way you could start and stop the K7 when needed. It is not a record/pause function, but the result is the same.

Regards,

Marc

[Frostie]

I’ve connected my K3 via EzCan. Runs without any problems. Some years ago I have made a short guide on how to connect the K2/K3/K5 to cansmart, which also applies to the K7.

The drawback using a cansmart adapter for powering the K7 is, that you can not use the parking mode, but you are safe against battery draining.

If you want to use parking mode, you could connect the red and black wire to the battery and only the yellow wire to cansmart to get switched power.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  Frostie. Reason: Typo. Wrote "yellow", but meant "black" wire

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[Frostie]

Hi Hakon,

as the DVR starts when you connect power to USB, the DVR seems to be ok.

The steady blue led at the power converter means that it still senses the voltage of the battery, but does not sense switched power at the yellow cable. To check the power converter, you could connect the yellow wire directly to + at the battery. After some seconds, the blue led should start blinking and the DVR should start.

If the led starts blinking, then you need to check your connection of the yellow wire to switched power.

If the led does not start blinking, then is seems that your converter is faulty and you need a new one.

Regards,

Marc

[Frostie]

Hi Rick,

the “Logging firmware” is for testing purpose only. I can’t say whether it has a negative impact or not. But I won´t suggest to use it all the time.

Better use the latest original firmware or, if you want a higher bitrate, the one modified by me which boost the bitrate to 20 MBit.

[Frostie]

Hi Rick,

so re-flashing the original firmware did the trick? And if so, what did you do wrong during the last tries? Just for other forum members who get into the same problem.

[Frostie]

Can you provide some sample videos? I haven´t check out the K7 yet due to bad weather. Only did some tests on the desk.

[Frostie]

Unfortunately it is not possible to increase the bitrate at the K7 due to technical limitations. I already tried and talked to Rock about that. The limitation comes from the EIS functionality, for which they added additional encoders within the cameras itself. And these encoders are very limited regarding the encoding bitrate.

So sorry….there is no way to increase the bitrate.

[Frostie]

Hi Rick,

what I read from your mail is:

– Wifi seems to work, but the App does not connect most of the time

– Flashing the firmware seems not to work, as the wifi password did not reset

I am still unsure whether the problem comes from the K2 itself or is an issue with the App/phone. So I would like to first addess the problem flashing the firmware.

… the password that I had changed as indicated in my previous emails, remained the same and never returned to the factory data 12345678, despite the formatting of the sim card?”

Formatting the SD card has nothing to do with the wifi password.

To flash the firmware, do as following:

– Put the sd card into your pc and format it in FAT32

– Put the firmware file into the root folder of the sd card and make sure it is named K2.bin

– Insert the sd card into the DVR and start it up.

– Wait for the flashing process to finish. You can find a video of how the leds will look like while flashing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDCpff1fOWk

For your other issues, I would like to get some more information of your K2. There is a special firmware which enables a logging feature. With this firmware installed, the K2 will write its console log to the sd card while running, which would give me some information about what might be wrong on your K2.

You can find the firmware on my dropbox, where I also saved all original K2 firmware files

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/82b33wi8gwou5hi0z3xvl/AGonZ-ZPHGP1AFN8zS_QV6A?rlkey=gpt272tdm3719a6z4mzpxe76c&st=7och5f8l&dl=0

The Logging-Firmware is called “K2-V71_with-Logging.bin”, which must be renamed to K2.bin when saved on the sd card. It can be flashed as decribed above.

When flashed, simply start the K2 and try to connect to it, like you did the last days. After that remove the sd card, but the logging files in a zip and share it with me.

When done you can flash the latest original firmware (V70), which you will also find in my dropbox.

[Frostie]

Hi Rick,

The wifi ”Not secured” of INNOVV is detected on my phone so everything is normal, but as soon
as I want to enter the settings page or the live video or the recordings, the information page of
INNOVV opens indicating a wifi connection problem…

Technically, the app really does the same as a web browser. If you hit the “settings” button in the app, it tries to open the URL http://192.168.1.254/?custom=1&cmd=3002 to read all settings of the K2. There is no authentication. No password, nothing, nada.

If the app isn’t able to retrieve the settings of the K2, there could be the following reasons:

– You are not connected to the K2 wifi
– You are connected to the K2 wifi, but your phone does not know how to reach the K2
– The OS on your smartphone does not allow the app to connect to the K2
– The webserver of the K2 isn’t running (very, very, very unlikely)

To narrow down what is the reason of the issue, we should try to find out step by step.

1) First install the latest firmware. This way we make sure that a) all settings are set back to default (including the wifi password) and b) we talk about the same settings.

2) Start the K2 and connect to its wifi with your smartphone. It should ask you for the wifi password (which is 12345678 be default). If you phone says it is connected, check if your phone got an IP address. Supposably 192.168.1.1
If you got an IP, go to the next stop. If not, disconnect from the K2 wifi and delete it from your phone. Then try again connecting.

3) Start the browser on your smartphone and open the following URL
http://192.168.1.254
You should then see a simple web page like in the attached photo.

If it does not show up, but you get an error message like ” web server not reachable” or something like that, this could be due to a routing problem. In that case, simply put your phone in airplane mode or disable mobile data and try again.

If this web page shows up, it means:

– You are successfully connected to the K2 wifi
– The web server of the K2 is running
– The OS of your phone knows how to reach the K2

4) Now try the INNOVV app. If the app still claims that it can not connect to the K2 or is missing permissions, the source of the problem is the app or the OS of your smartphone.
We could then take a deeper look at it.

But before doing that, please do the steps mentioned and report back.

I still have a K2 myself here on the desk and an older android smartphone for tests.

Should I try as you notified me, a reset through the small hole on the side?

Pressing the reset button does reset all settings back to factory defaults, exluding the wifi password. This can only be resetted by installing the firmware.

[Frostie]

Hi Rick,
Hi Hans,

for me the error message looks like the app does not have the correct permissions to access the wifi network. So a setting within android. I am not familiar with android, but according to the symbols on the upper bar, you’ve put the phone to airplane mode. Are there settings within android to allow or forbid an app to access the wifi network?

There is an easy way to check whether your phone is connected to the K2 wifi or not. Simply open up the browser and try to access http://192.168.1.254
This is the web server of the K2 and you should see a simple web page if everything is connected.
Means: If the web page shows up, but the app still complains about permissions, it is an android problem.

By the way:
The big button on top is only for switching the K2 on or off, not for resetting. The reset button is on the side, pushable with a needle. But pressing the reset button does not reset the wifi password. This can only be resetted by installing the firmware.

Regards,

Marc

[Frostie]

> Ja, der Parkmodus sollte aktiviert sein, außer Du hast wie beim G-Sensor einen guten Grund, das
> hierauf verzichtet werden sollte.

Nicht direkt. Bei der K7 habe ich den Parkmodus noch nicht getestet. Bei den älteren Modellen (K2, K3) brauchte die Kamera bei Auslösung/Erschütterung einfach viel zu lange, bis sie hochgefahren war und mit der Aufnahme begonnen hat. Wenn also z.B. jemand mit dem Auto gegen das Mopped fährt, dann wäre er lange weg, bevor die Kamera mit der Aufnahme beginnt. Ergo sinnfrei.

Aber wie gesagt…bei der K7 habe ich noch nicht getestet wie lange sie braucht von Auslösung bis Aufnahme.

[Frostie]

In general one should avoid twisting the cable, as the wires within the cable are very thin. Especially twisting the cable near the camera could be bad if the force of the twist could be transfered into the camera and the soldering points within.

Regarding your problems which went away after swapping the camera:

At the older Innovv cameras (K2, K3) the system failed if the front cameras was not connected. Or rebooted if the front cameras was disconnected while running. I assume that the K7 acts the same.

So if something is wrong with your front cam (broken cable, bad soldering point, etc.), this could show in the K7 rebooting or failing while riding. If this is the case, the system should run fine after swapping the cameras, but you should then see bad or missing videos at the former front cam, which now acts as the rear cam.