dash cam recommendations

[Glasgowrob]

looking at getting my old man a dash cam for christmas,

ideally something with decent quality and useable low light imagery ease of access would be a bonus too something with a phone app (ios) would be fantastic, installation not an issue as he should be more than capable (he's an engineer so no excuses) budget say up to £150? maybe more if theres a case for it

suggestions please

[Sensibleboy]

One of the Blackvue cameras...much more discrete than some others are too. Halfords sell them.

[Baldchap]

Yeah, had Blackvue in my Golf and it was great.

[Sir Bagalot]

Viofo A119 or A129

Amazon

[Rich_AR]

Another vote for BlackVue. I've got them on my cars, one of them (DR900S) is now over two years old, never failed on me in varying temps (-40c to +40c). Small, discreet and the app works very well with continued firmware updates etc.

[Hackney2]

Purchased a Garmin 67W.Not a bad unit,has a ‘parking guard’ feature built in.When car is parked etc..if car is knocked it records.Ran the cable up into the headlining & down the side pillars & under the dash.Cable is completely hidden.You can purchase (I believe for most brands) a connection from ‘Dongar industries’ that plugs in directly to the back of your mirror. If I had not gone down the Garmin road,I would have seriously looked @ the Blackvue range.

Edited by Hackney2 on Friday 10th December 20:31

Edited by Hackney2 on Friday 10th December 20:45

[Hackney2]

This is also not a bad unit,the Garmin ‘Mini 2’,very small & compact.Hook it up to your phone for a live view.These are proving extremely popular.Great little cam.Also purchased a Garmin filter for the lens,otherwise the reflections can play havoc.

Edited by Hackney2 on Friday 10th December 20:44

[sawman]

Hackney2 said:

This is also not a bad unit,the Garmin ‘Mini 2’,very small & compact.Hook it up to your phone for a live view.These are proving extremely popular.Great little cam.Also purchased a Garmin filter for the lens,otherwise the reflections can play havoc.

Edited by Hackney2 on Friday 10th December 20:44

Quite like the sound of these small, screenless dash cams, i cant really see the point of a screen on a cam that ports footage to your phone

[Sensibleboy]

If you watch the YouTube dashcam videos where cars crash and the camera is suddenly pointing at the sky it's because it will be a big camera possibly with a pointless screen that's swung round on impact.

[Mr Miata]

Baldchap said:

Yeah, had Blackvue in my Golf and it was great.

For anyone wanting to fit a BlackVue camera, this is the best guide…. https://www.autoinstruct.com.au/manufacturer/volks...

You need to buy fusebox piggy backs and crimp the cables into them which is very easy if you can squeeze a pair of pliers, I routed the cable up the A-pillar behind the airbag (so it doesn’t obstruct the airbag in a crash), I then tucked the cable in the roof lining using a plastic trim lever, then I did the rear facing camera cable the same way along the roof lining. However threading the cable through the rubber tube to the boot was the only difficulty.



^^^^ it’s a tight fit.

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Glad I have a rear facing camera though, in case anyone crashes into the back of me.

Edited by Mr Miata on Tuesday 14th December 15:00

[Dash-Cam Man]

Mr Miata said:

For anyone wanting to fit a BlackVue camera, this is the best guide…. https://www.autoinstruct.com.au/manufacturer/volks...

You need to buy fusebox piggy backs and crimp the cables into them which is very easy if you can squeeze a pair of pliers, I routed the cable up the A-pillar behind the airbag (so it doesn’t obstruct the airbag in a crash), I then tucked the cable in the roof lining using a plastic trim lever, then I did the rear facing camera cable the same way along the roof lining. However threading the cable through the rubber tube to the boot was the only difficulty.



^^^^ it’s a tight fit.

Edited by Mr Miata on Tuesday 14th December 15:00

Excellent advise but you appear to have broken the clip to keep your rubber conduit in place for the manufacturers intended water tight connection. As a workaround, get yourself a cable tie and soldering iron and re-create what you have snapped off. It will look like it sits in place nicely despite the fact it's missing but I can assure you that side will not be water tight and over the winter months will leak in water into your headliner.

[thetapeworm]

I'm still using Aukey DR02 D cameras in my cars and apart from the add-on motion sensor module on one causing the camera to switch on and off too much when it's parked (even with no motion to detect) they're cheap, robust and the output is usable in the event you need it (Techmoan's last dashcam recommendation before he stopped reviewing them and went on to other things).

All that said if I was to replace them now I'd probably look at the VIOFO A129 Plus Duo or the Blackview DR900X Plus range if I was feeling flush (unless something better has come out since I last looked at those two).

[vikingaero]

I have an older Blackvue camera in one of my cars. I think it was £350 back then, although Blackvue now have cheaper variants. Would I buy another one? No. I'm converted to the Yi dashcams for my general cars. They were £40ish and reduced to as low as £26 on Amazon offers. I've now started buying the Yi Nightscape dashcam from Amazon and the video quality/clarity is better than the higher resolutioned Blackvue and it has a capacitor rather than a battery. I also have a couple of Garmin Minis used as rear cameras that i quite like.

The only advantage I see of Nextbase cams are their general widespread availability. I never liked my Nextbases - batteries tended to fail frequently and too many corrupt files that can't be read/recovered.

[RazerSauber]

I used to sell Nextbase cameras by the truckload and very rarely had any of them returned for faults. The only fault I've had with them is the mounts. After a while stuck in the same position it stretched the rubber sucker and ultimately tears it off. The one I'm currently using is rattling away now so I suspect it's not long for this world. Otherwise, it's fell off a few times as all suction mounts do after a while and still works fine so I can't complain. All I ever do is set up the date, time, reg number and turn the G sensor to low and never think of it again!

[Dog Star]

Hackney2 said:

This is also not a bad unit,the Garmin ‘Mini 2’,very small & compact.Hook it up to your phone for a live view.These are proving extremely popular.Great little cam.Also purchased a Garmin filter for the lens,otherwise the reflections can play havoc.

I've just got one of these for my car, very tiny and discreet.

[Mr Miata]

Dash-Cam Man said:

Excellent advise but you appear to have broken the clip to keep your rubber conduit in place for the manufacturers intended water tight connection. As a workaround, get yourself a cable tie and soldering iron and re-create what you have snapped off. It will look like it sits in place nicely despite the fact it's missing but I can assure you that side will not be water tight and over the winter months will leak in water into your headliner.

Well observed. Reading guides on fitting a rear view camera to my car, that bit of plastic snapping is a very common problem, as they’re made out of brittle biscuit. It was the only difficult part of the install.

Edited by Mr Miata on Sunday 23 January 19:29