A Brief Introduction To The G sensor

What Is G sensor

G sensor (Gravity sensor), also known as acceleration sensor (accelerometer), can sense the magnitude of acceleration. G sensor has been widely used in various industrial products, such as vehicle structures, G senser dash cams, etc. And even phones have them built in.

How the G sensor Works

If you want to further understand this issue ” What is G sensor”, you may need to know how the G sensor works.

As the model in the figure indicates, a mass block is held at both ends by a spring. In the absence of acceleration, the spring is not deformed and the mass is stationary. When acceleration occurs, the spring deforms and the position of the mass changes. The deformation of the spring increases as the acceleration increases. Thus, if the coefficient of stiffness “k” of the spring and the weight “m” of the mass are known, the acceleration of the system can be found by measuring the deformation of the spring.

This section is for readers who are interested in the principles involved. However, it does not matter if you do not understand this, since it does not affect the understanding of what follows.

Application Of G sensor In Phones

Although most people are unfamiliar with G sensors, it accompanies their daily life because of the built-in G sensor in phones. Nowadays, G sensors have become common in smartphones, tablets, smart watches, and other digital products. And, in fact, we use the functions provided by the G sensor every day.

The G sensor plays its role when the phone automatically rotates the display of the screen with the direction of gravity to ensure that the picture is displayed upright. The G sensor is playing its role when we use gravity sensing to run racing games on our phones, using the phone as a steering wheel with gravity sensing. The G sensor is also playing its role when we are bored and open some tool apps like electronic compass just for fun.

So, as you can see now, although the principle of G sensor is complicated and the name is not well known by most people, we are in contact with G sensor every day. It just sounds complicated, but actually very easy to use.

Application Of G sensor In Autos

G sensor, as one of the key automotive structures, also plays an important role in driving safety.

Vehicle safety has gradually become a hot topic of discussion in recent years. With advances in dynamics-related technology, vehicles can now accelerate to faster speeds, but they also bring more pronounced bumps and more frequent traffic accidents. However, when the dynamics-related technology gets improved, the safety of the vehicle has not increased in tandem, leading to a higher likelihood of traffic accident. Therefore, even though safety equipment such as seat belts and airbags are now available, the role of G sensors should not be overlooked.

As shown in the picture, a vehicle is usually equipped with four acceleration sensors. Among them, the number 2 indicates the right front wheel accelerometer, the number 4 indicates the right rear wheel accelerometer, the number 9 indicates the left rear wheel accelerometer, and the number 10 indicates the left front wheel accelerometer. They detect the speed of the car and control the computer input signal to control the engine idle speed, automatic transmission torque converter lock, automatic transmission shift, engine cooling fan on and off, cruise control and other functions.

Application Of Dash Cam G sensor

There are also G sensors at work in some car gadgets, such as dashcam. Since WOLFBOX is a professional dashcam manufacturer, we will tell you more about dash cam G sensor in the next section.

How The G sensor Dash Cam Works

G sensor’s Meaning For Dash Cams

Most dashcams have dash cam G sensors, by which they are equipped with gravity sensing function. Therefore, dashcams can record gravity-sensitive data and react to the up, down, left, right, front, and back offsets of the environment. This is the G sensor meaning for dashcams. This process consists of two steps.

When the vehicle is in normal driving condition, the dashcam will operate normally without being affected. However, with the G sensor, the dashcam can always monitor for unexpected behavior, such as violent braking, collision impact, or even movement when the vehicle is stationary (such as when someone shaking the vehicle). When dashcam detects such a change, it will trigger the so-called “emergency mode”.
After entering “emergency mode”, the current video filewill be saved in the protected part of the TF card to preserve the video evidence and ensure that it will not be replacedin future recordings. This means that if your vehicle is involved in an accident, the G sensor will sense it and automatically direct the dashcam to save the current recorded video as an irreplaceable “emergency file”. This ensures that the video recorded before and after the crash is saved to the TF card intact, providing evidence to support the identification of accident liability.

Through such a complete process, dashcam with sensor can achieve both more accurate auto wakes up and longer standby time. With a simple accessory, G sensor, the dashcam’s native function has been revolutionized. The longer standby time can significantly reduce the frequency of charging the dashcam by the driver without affecting the timely recording of key video clips.

On the one hand, this relieves the driver of the burden of having to charge the dashcam frequently. On the other hand, if the driver forgets to charge the dashcam regularly, it can standby for a longer time, and therefore leave more critical video clips.

How Does Dash Cam With G sensor Help You

However, some would say that even so, the G sensor in the dashcam is still dispensable. Because, when a vehicle is in an accident, the driver is usually in the car as well, and it is very convenient to stop driving and check the video.

There is some truth to this argument, however, the G sensor is more of a preventative measure than a precaution. For example, although the probability of your home being burglarized is low, once the thief does burglarize your home, the absence of home surveillance will always make it more difficult for the police to solve the case. Similarly, the G sensor in the dashcam does not always play a role, but it will still play an irreplaceable role in some specific occasions.

First, drivers will need the G sensor when they are involved in a more serious car accident. Not all car accidents are minor vehicle cuts, and in some of the more violent vehicle collisions, it happens that the driver temporarily falls into a coma. In this case, the dashcam with sensor can still automatically store the key video clips, even without the driver’s operation.

Secondly, G sensor makes it possible for dashcam to be on standby for a long time. Previously, to achieve 24-hour vehicle security monitoring, dashcam must be kept on. Because of the limited capacity of the battery, the dashcam usually could not standby long enough. But G sensor solves this problem perfectly. Thanks to the G sensor’s monitoring of vehicle movement, the dashcam can be selectively turned on by the G sensor’s alerts, thus ensuring that critical recordings are not missed while significantly extending the dashcam’s battery life. For example, when your car is hit or scratched while parking, G sensor will automatically wake up the dashcam to start recording and save the recorded video files separately, leaving you with the key evidence that can be provided when you call the police.

Take our Wolfbox product as an example, when the car is turned off, the dashcam screen will show “ACC is disconnected” and then go into standby mode, but the G sensor will keep working. When the car vibrates, the G sensor will automatically wake up the dashcam for about 10 seconds of recording, and then automatically shut down.

Tips About G sensor Dash Cam

G sensor Dash Cam Setting

G sensor dash cam setting is mainly about the sensitivity setting of G sensor. In brief, the higher the sensitivity of G sensor, the more likely it is to trigger the automatic recording function of dashcam, and the more video files you will get. Therefore, the G sensor can only be fully functional at a suitable sensitivity setting.

The sensitivity of G sensor can usually be adjusted in the dashcam settings menu, and you can manually set the sensitivity to “high”, “medium” or “low” depending on the driving conditions. However, none of them can fit all scenarios, thus you need to set different G sensor dash cam setting according to different scenarios and their related usage needs.

Specifically, if you decide to drive off-road, you may want to set the sensitivity to “low” to avoid generating too many non-replaceable video files. Considering that mountainous terrain is usually undulating, if your car is off-road, then violent bumps may occur from time to time. Compared to normal road driving, most of the bumps are huge at this time. In this case, the high sensitivity of the G sensor will lead to multiple unnecessary triggers of the “emergency recording mode”, producing too many irreplaceable “emergency video files” in the TF card with no information value. Therefore, if you plan to drive to rally or off-road, remember to set the G sensor sensitivity to “high”.

Conversely, if you want to enhance security monitoring while parking, you can set the sensitivity to “High”. On the one hand, some vehicle vandalism by passers-by does not cause violent vehicle shaking, such as paint scraping, door banging or car theft. For dashcam to maximize its security surveillance function, you can set the sensitivity of G sensor to “high”, so that dashcam will record all suspicious vehicle shaking video as much as possible. On the other hand, not all parking spaces have security cameras nearby, and often, it is very difficult to get evidence of vandalism in places where there is no surveillance. Therefore, when you set the sensitivity of G sensor to “high”, dashcam can play the role of a 24-hour surveillance camera as much as possible. Based on the automatic wake-up technology we mentioned in the previous article, G sensor can help dashcam to achieve a long standby time, so it can achieve the role of 24-hour accident monitoring in a long-time span.

The Importance Of Choosing A Dashcam With Brand Guarantee

Many cottages of G sensor dash cams are only the rough integration of camera and TF card, and due to the absence of G sensor, the above related functions are all not guaranteed. Even if some of them are equipped with low-cost inferior G sensor, it may also face a series of potential problems, such as key video omission caused by the G sensor not advanced enough, and so on. In this regard, all dashcams produced by Wolfbox, such as G480S, G850, etc., are equipped with advanced G sensors, which can record key video clips as much as possible.

Not to mention, some of the cottages have almost no after-sale service. After you pay for such a dashcam, all you can get is a dashcam that may not have all the basic functions. And, some additional services, such as after-sales consultation, troubleshooting are usually not available.

But we WOLFBOX can provide customer-consulting service and after-sales service with a high quality. After you purchase WOLFBOX‘s G sensor dash cams, if you have any questions about the use of the product or quality issues, you can always consult our dedicated customer service. Our customer service staff can provide detailed and patient answers to relevant questions. In addition, if dashcams break down during the warranty period, we can repair your dashcam for free. All these services are not available in the cottage dashcam products.

So, if you are considering buying a G sensor dash cam, we Wolfbox are a dashcams manufacturer you can trust.