Dash Camera Recommendations

[rad]

After a little incident this morning, I am looking at buying a car Dash Camera, any recommendations on what to buy and what not to buy.

 

thanks

[SteveB_NI]

I have a Transcend Drive Pro 220. I thoroughly recommend it & thankfully whilst it hasn't been needed the footage of various things I have transferred from it is great quality - especially at night.

 

It was given to me as a present, alongside a suction cup dash mount. I then paid an auto electrician to hard wire it in & conceal the cam behind my rear view mirror, so it's very discrete. The convenience of just getting in car and setting off with the cam recording automatically was essential for me.

 

Also handy feature is the collision detection / notifications and also the lane changing detection - both handy safety features.

[synaesthesia]

The nextbase kit is pretty awesome. Looking at one myself when I can afford it. I have a cheap and cheerful Chinese thing that i've hardwired into my head unit currently. It's ok and full HD but not exactly brilliant

[Guest MD5T]

+1. For next base kit

[MatthewL]

Nextbase 312GW, I have one wired in front and back. Cracking bits of kit, be lost without mine now.

[JOrdan01070]

I have a g1wc (not clone) hard wired it into the car 3 years ago fantastic bit of kit (£40 including hardwire kit), but head over to https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/ and have a look. When looking at video samples try and download proper footage not what has been uploaded to youtube there is a difference in the quality.

[sippo]

I have a blackvue. Can't remember the model as it is around 4 years old. Absolutely superb and small. Hardwired, and fits behind the rear view mirror. Don't even know it's there.

 

It's more expensive, but blackvue are a leading player in this market.

[NB9457]

Goluk The Super Fun Dashcam

 

The Goluk cameras are very feature packed, nice design and have a big following, around £90 on amazon they are

[hardtailstar]

Dont go for E-Prance. They are shocking quality, ordered two different models for myself and my mum. They both need to be factory reset quite often and do not always record video.

[noelmm]

I have the roadhawk hd 2 and the picture quality is great. If you connect the gps it also logs your location and speed and this information is viewable when you use the software that came with the camera, if you send the file off to anyone and they use a normal video application they cannot see the gps information (at least I think so). The kit is a little pricey when you also buy the car fitting kit but it took me around 15 minutes to wire it into my car and I've not had any problems with it.

[Passat1983ICTech]

i would get this one is dose rear and the front view as well

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[TD]Have one to sell? Sell it yourself

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[h=1]NEXTBASE iN-CAR CAM™ DUO - DVR video recorder for car[/h]

 

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[h=1]NEXTBASE iN-CAR CAM™ DUO - DVR video recorder for car[/h]

[Ant]

I know it's not officially marketed as a dash cam, but I have been very happy the Mobius with the wide angle lens fitted. I used to have a Transcend DP200, but changed to the Mobius as I wanted something much more discreet. I blacked out the Chrome on the Transcend to try hide it, but it was still a little big for my liking. I also didn't need any of the features such as GPS and bump detection that some of the better dash cams have now.

 

I have the Mobius (and had the previous cam) hardwired in to start with the ignition, so really a install and forget setup. No parking modes unfortunately though.

 

I'm sure things have moved on quite a bit since I installed mine, but I found Techmoan a useful resource.

 

 

Slightly off-topic, the only thing I hate about dash cams these days, is the current trend of uploading hours of either complete non-events, or non-events made into confrontations by the DCW (Dash cam warrior). It's getting a bit silly now.

[m25man]

Another Nextbase user here, been faultless and quality is excellent.

One niggle though the supplied mounts failed to provide me with a compact solution, the camera and suction mount looked horrible in the tiny windscreen of the Smart4two!

 

One email to Nextbase support and the very next day I had a choice of three new windscreen mounts to choose from!

 

Excellent service [emoji3]

[steveking]

I know it's not officially marketed as a dash cam, but I have been very happy the Mobius with the wide angle lens fitted. I used to have a Transcend DP200, but changed to the Mobius as I wanted something much more discreet. I blacked out the Chrome on the Transcend to try hide it, but it was still a little big for my liking. I also didn't need any of the features such as GPS and bump detection that some of the better dash cams have now.

 

I have the Mobius (and had the previous cam) hardwired in to start with the ignition, so really a install and forget setup. No parking modes unfortunately though.

 

I have a mobius too, and it works really well. I bought the capacitor to replace the battery as my old dashcam failed to work properly once the battery had died (I don't think li-ion batteries like the heat of being behind a windscreen all summer, so that meant that it never recorded the last section of video to the sd card). There is a cheap android app which works well with it too. I too have it hard wired to the fusebox, and it's mounted behind my rear view mirror so it's out of sight. It records everything visible (with both edges of the windscreen visible)

[FN-GM]

@SteveB_NI How much did it cost to have it installed please?

[Davit2005]

NextBase here as well. Spent a lot of time going through reviews (Transcend, BlackVue etc) before decided on a relatively cheap 212, was looking at the 312gw but Halfords was out of stock. The camera is easily removed taking it's power from the mount but I found the suction cap to be a bit wanting and wish it came with self adhesive pads as other cams do.

 

Hard wired myself, kit was about £40, not too difficult if you've done any automotive wiring in the past i.e. Stereo's, Spot lights etc but leave to a professional if you are unsure. The power piggy backs off a fuse in the Internal fuse box in my case and the hairiest part was feeding the cable up the A pillars without setting off the AirBags.

[sippo]

@SteveB_NI How much did it cost to have it installed please?

 

You can do it yourself. It really is cheap as chips. One cigarette adaptor and piggy back fuse. Less than a £10.

[crc-ict]

You can do it yourself. It really is cheap as chips. One cigarette adaptor and piggy back fuse. Less than a £10.

 

Bear in mind that this approach might not work on a modern, fully can-bus equipped car.

 

My 2011 Mondeo is a nightmare for this - there isn't a single ignition switched supply available in the car at all for this sort of thing, everything is permanently live and then enabled or disabled as needed by the can-bus signals.

 

If you have a car like this, you can buy a special can-bus interface to provide the equivalent of an ignition live, but they are not cheap, and getting the needed connection to the can-bus isn't easy - you usually have to tap into it from the back of the stereo.

 

I have cheated with mine - I've got a towbar fitted with full electrics and this does provide a switched supply so I have tapped into that. Although that is a pain bringing it right through the car!

[sippo]

I hooked my onto the rear wiper fuse. This isn't always live, and is only live once the ignition is on.

[rad]

Thanks all for the replies. Keep them coming.

[SteveB_NI]

@SteveB_NI How much did it cost to have it installed please?

 

It cost £48 for me to get it installed.

 

I drive an Astra so the cigarette socket is a permanent live connection on mine -therefore a cable from the socket in the car was not an option, so I had to get a connection made to the fuse box / wiring to ensure it switches off after every time I switch off the ignition.

 

I also didn't want to mess around with the pillars etc to conceal the cable as there is airbags all round them - thought I'd leave that to the professionals due to the wiring issue also.

 

Great solution - love how tidy & discrete it is.

[synaesthesia]

Bear in mind that this approach might not work on a modern, fully can-bus equipped car.

 

My 2011 Mondeo is a nightmare for this - there isn't a single ignition switched supply available in the car at all for this sort of thing, everything is permanently live and then enabled or disabled as needed by the can-bus signals.

 

If you have a car like this, you can buy a special can-bus interface to provide the equivalent of an ignition live, but they are not cheap, and getting the needed connection to the can-bus isn't easy - you usually have to tap into it from the back of the stereo.

 

I have cheated with mine - I've got a towbar fitted with full electrics and this does provide a switched supply so I have tapped into that. Although that is a pain bringing it right through the car!

 

Same electric system as my Focus; piggyback from the red cable to the audio loom which does exactly that, with or without the canbus installed. Used the same trick to avoid hooking up my chinese head unit to the canbus, I don't trust anything Chinese to go anywhere near the computer of my car! And indeed my dashcam is wired into the same ignition feed.

[FN-GM]

@sippo I really can't be bothered!

[Ant]

I hooked my onto the rear wiper fuse. This isn't always live, and is only live once the ignition is on.

Exactly what I've done in both my last cars.

 

Using a piggy back fuse and 12v to 5v adapter makes it an easy job. Routing the cable is the trickiest bit.

[LincolnE]

Mini 0806 dash cam here. Once it finally goes, I'll just get a next-base as opposed to something of ebay.