Dash cam advice

[dry run]

Hi,

Seriously thinking of getting a front and rear dash cam fitted to my car. Local company who did the amp/sub-woofer instal have recommended a Thinkware 770. Looking at it, it seems pretty good and the rear camera is really tiny so very discrete. I'll get them to fit it as I'm not the sort of person who wants to start pulling bits of interior trim off my car. Price seems ok at £400 fully fitted (inc vat which I can reclaim).

Anyone got any thoughts on leaving my car with cameras permanently in it? or anything else I should consider?

Regards

Steve

 

[EmilysDad]

....

Anyone got any thoughts on leaving my car with cameras permanently in it? or anything else I should consider?

Regards

Steve

If they're discreet enough, they won't be seen lol
The supply electrickery should .... in theory ... monitor battery voltage & switch the feed off to the camera below a predetermined voltage. Though I don't use it, my ddpai dash cam has a parking mode & switches the camera to a lower resolution to conserve the battery.

 

[Wighty]

When I first got my Blackvue camera wired in it had cost me £120 to buy (for each car) , I would worry that it would be a source of theft and used to put it in the glovebox sometimes . I've now forgotten it's there and just let it do its job (I've only got a forward facing camera) .
My cameras both turn off with the ignition so I don't have any battery concerns

 

[DSK]

I have run many cameras for about the last 10 years and fitted them across a number of family members cars.

Thinkware is decent enough (and I still have 2 of their units) but I'm not a fan of the software. Also consider the DOD RC500, Blackvuew DR900 / DR750S.

Whilst its nice to leave the camera's inplace when the car is parked/unattended, sadly, thieves know how expensive some of these can be and how easy they are to sell on. As a result I have personally had a couple of cars broken into when I just left the mounts in place but always kept the units on me. The hassle of getting broken windows replaced is unpleasant. Neighbours cars have had the key signals copied (keyless cars) and used to gain access to their vehciles and the cameras stolen out of the glove box.

For parking, I have a mobius unit, hooked upto a battery bank and hidden (between the sun visior and roof line, which no one will see, so that takes care of parking protection.

Due to the discretion, I much prefer the barrel types and have a personal prefence for the DOD Tech units overall from having spent thousands over the years on cameras. F1.6 lenses are great for image quality in low light conditions which not many cameras have. I also tend to prefere cameras with no more than a 140 degree viewing angle, as anything more than this gives a very bad fish eye effect and also on playback, a near incident looks like nothing due to the unrealistic perception of distance.

 

[DSK]

If they're discreet enough, they won't be seen lol
The supply electrickery should .... in theory ... monitor battery voltage & switch the feed off to the camera below a predetermined voltage. Though I don't use it, my ddpai dash cam has a parking mode & switches the camera to a lower resolution to conserve the battery.

What is a the reliability like on the DDPAI? I was consaidering the '3' barrel style.

 

[EmilysDad]

What is a the reliability like on the DDPAI? I was consaidering the '3' barrel style.

I've just had to replace the micro sd card in my mini 1 after about 2 years (no idea what fault 'she' was telling me') but other than that, I've not had any problems with it. It's stuck to the screen with a 3M sticky tab and not intended to be removed. The newest version ie mini 3 is intended to be able to be removed but not had any experience of it.

 

[dry run]

Thanks for the replies - very helpful.

Apart from the evidence perspective of a non-fault accident, I primarily intend to use it as I'm fed up of having "unexplained" knocks and scrapes to my car. I live in a dead end road and parking is tight. So many people drive into spaces at the dead end that they then can't easily reverse out of (rather than reversing in and driving out) and of course no one ever owns up I'm only planning on using "parking mode" when I feel I'm parked in a vulnerable space - so battery drain should be minimal.

 

[rorywquin]

Viofo look pretty neat to me, also very discreet and apparently good!

 

[ajlsl600]

i use nextbase mirror cam for sl and 2 38 quid nextbase ,1 front ,1 rear in a class. i opened the fag lighter adapter and hardwired them in thru,if i remember correctly a 2 amp fuse. all working good.