Question :

I just bought the best dashcam I could find for an affordable price : the Xiaomi 70mai A800 4K Ultra HD video with WiFi, GPS and ADAS driver assistance built-in.

I can’t get it to connect properly to my iPhone over WiFi however… I can find the 70mai WiFi network in the list of available WiFi networks in the iOS Settings-app, and I can connect to it, since it is shown as the connected WiFi-network… but the WiFi icon (the pie-shaped triangle) isn’t shown in the upper right corner of my iPhone… and when I startup the 70mai.app and click on the “70mai Dash Cam A800” in the “Please add 70mai devices”-window, I get an error : “Unable to get Wi-Fi connection Please enter [Settings – 70mai] to open location permission and then connect the device.” …and when I click on the “Go to open it”-button, the Settings-app opens …there I can set Wi-Fi, but that is already connected to the 70mai WiFi-network…

What is going on… how can I fix this ?

 

Answer :

The solution is simple, but you didn’t understand the given directions… probably because the the error message isn’t really straight forward : it’s in awkwardly translated English and the button only links halfway to where you need to adjust the settings…

First, make sure you are using the right iOS-app : you need the 70mai (Worldwide) app that can be downloaded here.

Then, do this :

• connect the 70mai A800 dashcam to power
• open the “System Settings” page (the icon is a hexagram with a dot in it)
  • Note that there’s no touch-screen so you should use the 4 buttons below the screen to navigate through the on-screen menu-structure
• On the Settings page, you need to set “Wi-Fi hotspot” to “Enable” :
  • select “Disable” (at the top line, right of “Wi-Fi hotspot”)
  • in the “Wi-Fi hotspot”-page that opens you will see the name of the WiFi-network (at “Wi-Fi SSID”) and the WiFi-password (at “Password”)
  • remember these (or leave this screen open)

Then, open the 70mai.app on your iPhone and do this :

• on the first page (simply called “70mai”) click the “Add device”-button (the only button on-screen)
• in the “Please add 70mai devices”-page that opens, scroll down to “70mai Dash Cam A800” and click on it
• when you get the “Unable to get Wi-Fi connection Please enter [Settings – 70mai] to open location permission and then connect the device.” error message, click on “Go to open it”
• now the Settings.app will open, but it won’t always on the same page inside the Settings.app
• so, make sure you go to the main Settings-page and clcik on “Wi-Fi” in the list
• when the “Wi-Fi”-page opens, select the 70mai WiFi-network (with the name that was listed at Wi-Fi SSID”) from the list of “Other Networks” (or “My Networks”)
• if the WiFi-password is required, use the “Password” that is (or was) displayed on the dashcam’s screen
• now, even when the 70mai WiFi-network is connected you will still see 4G (or 3G or some other mobile data indication) instead of the WiFi-icon in the top-right corner of your iPhone screen
• then click on “<Setttings” top-left
• back in the main Settings-page, scroll all the way down to “70mai” (in the list of apps that starts after “Game Center”) and click on it
• in the “70mai” page that opens, set “Location” to “While Using the App”
  • you could also set it to “Always”, but that isn’t a great idea since the 70mai WiFi-network is rather poorly protected
• now, open the 70mai.app again
• in the “Please add 70mai devices”-page, click on “70mai Dash Cam A800”
• now, the “Turn on Wi-Fi hotspot”-page will open with a picture that resembles the “Wi-Fi hotspot” page that is displayed on the dashcam
• there, you should click on “Dash cam WiFi hotspot is turned on” (eventhough it appears to be greyed-out) so a green checkmark will appear
• then click “Next”
• on the next page (the “Connect to WiFi hotspot”-page) click “Connect”
• now the Settings.app will open again, check that the 70mai WiFi-network is listed at “Wi-Fi”
• then, open the 70mai.app and you will see a countdown-circle on your iPhone and you will hear a voice from the dashcam
• so, go to the dashcam screen and tap the button bottom-right to confirm
• now you will see what the dashcam is ‘seeing’ / ‘recording’ in the 70mai.app on your iPhone

…that’s it !

enjoy 😉

Note that you can adjust various dashcam settings (like the Speaker Volume, Video Resolution, Parking Surveillance, ADAS Driver Assistance, etc.) by clicking on the 3dot-icon top-right in the 70mai-app screen.