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Looking at my first dashcam, so I'm a newb in this department. I have a few questions for the group.
1- is fairly basic. I know I want a front facing dashcam and there is a natural space to attach this next to the rear view mirror, with simple wiring. My question is this. How many of those who have front dashcams, also have rear dashcams? How necessary is a rear dashcam? Where would you install it so it's not in your way when looking out the rear mirror? How tough is the wiring for a rear camera?
2- Sorry for another newb question, but is Blackvue the clear champ for dashcams? Any other good companies I should consider?
I have the Blackvue 900, which BV's latest and greatest. Have both front and rear. The rear camera has a small footprint, so it is easy to mount by the top of the rear glass and it is so small that there is no obstruction and you don't even know it is there. Not necessary, but good to have in my opinion just in case of a rear end collision or someone tailgating you, you got the video. Not tough at all to attach and the wiring attaches from the front cam to the back and they provide plenty of wiring.
I would not consider BV the champ, but it is good. There are others that are comparable and less money. Here is a good review of various cams.
I purchased this about 6 months ago. It's a basic unit, with average recording quality, but is certainly good enough to use to protect yourself if you need to fight an insurance company. It's dead simple to set up by mounting it behind and to the right side of the the rear-view, running the power cord along headliner trim, down A pillar, then across underneath glovebox to the power outlet in the passenger footwell. It powers on and off automatically with application of accessory power to that cigarette lighter outlet.
I have the ThinkWare F800 which has its plusses and minuses over the BlackVue. I like its 1FPS continuous parking mode better than the event or motion alternatives and it doesn't require an external parking-mode box like the BlackVue's PowerMagic Pro.
The parking mode switching logic and battery protection (time and voltage) is built into the unit itself and is programmable from the smartphone app. Image quality day and night is very good. I have three mounts and swap the camera back and forth between different cars I drive... the mounts are made for easy swapping and are relatively cheap. I turned off the annoying voice prompts though. it seems unphased by Texas heat... earlier cameras I had would shut down at times.
That said, the 4K support now on the BlackVue D900 provides the best resolution out there, so that gives a video with 4X the pixels for a little more clarity on license plates.
Ultimately I could have gone either way. Also I don't have the rear camera as I just don't want to deal with its wiring or storage impact (I can store more front time on the card instead). I figure 95% of the time the front will catch the things I'd want, but understand I might miss the rare rear-view recording I might end up wishing I had.
A nice sporting ride this morning with some fellow Rennlist members reminder of the biggest thing I hate about the ThinkWare F800 I mentioned in the last post. The audio sucks.
We had a nice run this morning with two GT3s, a Carrera T (driven by S S), a Cayman R, and my C2S. To my ears everything was a nice symphony and I even rolled downed the windows at times to hear it better as we'd pull away from turns and corners. However the audio captured by the F800 is really poor, and when the windows are down the little bit of wind buffeting makes it almost useless (also bad when recording my autocrosses). Just for this reason alone I'll probably choose something else next time.
Keep in mind if all you want is a "basic" dash cam, you probably don't need anything as expensive as the Blackvue. The main difference between the expensive vs cheaper cams is the quality of night vision and maybe audio. I have a Mio cam which I bought for around 100$. It is very tiny with ~2.5 high res screen, fits discreetly on the windshield behind the mirror, has great video under daylight conditions and pretty decent at night, and good audio (easily hear conversations in the car). Unless you do a lot of night driving, a cheaper cam will prob do.
kuma1416 - curious which Mio model you have? I would like something portable to move between cars. Seems that the Mio and Garmin portable dash cams get the best reviews.
I'm going to chime in here, if one is looking for an inexpensive solution, the Blueskysea BW1 has worked for me for nearly 1 year. Extremely small, no LCD, yet will continue to record each time you start your vehicle without skipping a beat. The iPhone interface works well and image quality is acceptable for both day and night. Best of all, these units can be purchased for <$50. I've had several others that cost substantially more however, its small form factor, image quality and of course its ridiculously low cost, make this an incredible find. I just bought a second one for my 991.2 and it will mount neatly tucked under the rear view mirror where it will be well hidden.
01-03-2019, 05:06 PM
Dashcams
