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Car Dash Camera's / Black box camera's

Ok, it's 2017. Can we please fix the grammar in the title now?
 
Just saw a Kickstarter ad on my Facebook with the following clickbaity headline

Woah!
With this Dashboard Camera, your car will never be the same again!
Click to expand...

Clicked it out of curiosity to find this https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2130897358/the-vava-dash-cam-capture-the-road-ahead

Am I missing something? Why is this spectacular? Why are there so many backers?

I watched the video and I have a few questions. First of all, you manually have to rotate it to capture inside vs outside. In the clip where she gets pulled over for talking on the phone (1:51), she rotates the camera to show she was eating a chocolate bar. No one would actually do that. The bit with it facing inwards during the keying (2:09), you can only see one side of the car. What if he keyed the other side, or what if she rotated the camera to see only the other side? I'd be more impressed if it had directional motion sensors and would then rotate itself to face the correct direction and follow the motion. Theres also a clip thats a nice reference to Waynes World (2:20), however it then shows them recording and posing for the camera while driving, which I'm not sure is the intended use for a dashcam, and not a behavior that should be promoted. The designer then says "we wanted to go beyond the boxiness of traditional dashcams" (2:35)... ummm, most dashcams are not boxy and are rather compact, unlike this thing, which defeats the point of being discrete. He says "we thought it was important to show the 360 capability of the camera which is why its in the circular form" (2:52). I don't think you know what 360 capable means. He wanted an easy to install camera. Common. It has a suction cup. Most cameras have that. Ok, so one thing it can do that my $55 Mini 0805 can't do is live steam to a phone, but that's hardly a new feature (my dad's year old $80 camera has WiFi streaming). At $129, this seems like a stupid waste of money, and I'm amazed they've raised $190k already.
 
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Rescinding my recommendation for the Mini 0805. The battery in mine has died less than a month after purchase. Now its recording 13 seconds clips and missing skipping the other 47 seconds. Also had some card issues on dashcamtalk forums, but they said it was likely because I have a SanDisk microSD card, though I don't know what the brand of the card has to do with it. I'm trying to get a refund for the camera now. Turns out my dad now has a Goluck T3 and he is very happy with it, so I might try one of their cameras, probably the T2 since its the only black one (I know choosing a camera based on color is stupid, but I don't want one that stands out).
 
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LeVeL said:
The only issue I've had with the Mini (of the three I own) is a bad card in one.
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I was checking dashcam talk and people were saying that if you're lucky enough to get one to survive more than a month or so, it'll last, but they mostly die very quickly. I guess you were really lucky as was I with my first 0803.
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/replace-battery-with-capacitor.20008/
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...i-can-get-one-and-a-installation-video.12961/
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/less-than-a-year-old-mini0805-dead-battery.21916/
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/winter-battery-issues.17415/

Seems like its a known issue that those Chinesium batteries are shit. The T3 my dad has uses a capacitor instead, so theres that, but I was more looking at the T2 which still uses a tiny LiPo battery so it potentially will also fail quickly. Going through a review of the camera here, and it seems pretty good, though worse than the T2.

Someone recommended I look at the G1W, but man is the form factor terrible. I don't want a suction mount bigger than the camera itself. The thing I really like about the Mini was how tiny it was and how easy it was to hide behind the rearview mirror. The highly reviewed A119S is also a no go for me since the lack of ability to hide behind the mirror is a deal breaker for me.

All in all this is frustrating since it seems like there are a million Chinese and Korean sub-suppliers for all of these cameras that all make their own slightly different versions. Maybe I'll just go back to the Mini 0803 since the one I had lasted 2.5 years (if I can find the same brand I had before).
 
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CrzRsn said:
Just saw a Kickstarter ad on my Facebook with the following clickbaity headline



Clicked it out of curiosity to find this https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2130897358/the-vava-dash-cam-capture-the-road-ahead

Am I missing something? Why is this spectacular? Why are there so many backers?
Click to expand...

There are so many backers because most people have no idea that decent dashcams are available outside of the very expensive units fitted to police cars.

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CrzRsn said:
Also had some card issues on dashcamtalk forums, but they said it was likely because I have a SanDisk microSD card, though I don't know what the brand of the card has to do with it.
Click to expand...

Different brands use different memory and different memory controllers. SanDisk uses their own proprietary controller that for various reasons sometimes causes compatibility issues with Chinese dash cams.

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CrzRsn said:
Someone recommended I look at the G1W, but man is the form factor terrible. I don't want a suction mount bigger than the camera itself. The thing I really like about the Mini was how tiny it was and how easy it was to hide behind the rearview mirror. The highly reviewed A119S is also a no go for me since the lack of ability to hide behind the mirror is a deal breaker for me.
Click to expand...

Those of us in the North Texas FG contingent that actually use dashcams are using G1Ws or G1W variants and find the thing vanishes behind the mirror fairly well.
 
 
Hmmmm, seeing as how my primary card is a SanDisk Ultra, and I've been using it for over 2 years, its probably fried by now and that's why its acting up.
 
Got me a GoPro Hero5 Sessions as a dashcam replacement for my aged Contour.
Love the fact that the cam flips the video automatically the right way up, so there is no problem with my simple upside-down mounting solution:
2017-03-21_Di.JPG
 
Spectre said:
Those of us in the North Texas FG contingent that actually use dashcams are using G1Ws or G1W variants and find the thing vanishes behind the mirror fairly well.
Click to expand...

I'm late to this party, but I've been running an A118-C since last June with zero problems.

Hides pretty well, I can almost not see it at all behind my mirror, if I had put it on the other side it would have been completely invisible.
 
A youtuber I follow who reviews as seen on TV products has just reviewed a as seen on TV dashcam:


Not thinking of getting one, but figured I'd throw the video in the thread.
 
Just ordered a Goluk T3 for my fianc?e's car. My dad upgraded to one from his Mini 0805 a few months ago and has been very happy with it. I'll report back once I get a chance to play around with it.
 
CrzRsn said:
Just ordered a Goluk T3 for my fianc?e's car. My dad upgraded to one from his Mini 0803 a few months ago and has been very happy with it. I'll report back once I get a chance to play around with it.
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Set it up. Very painless, very quick and very easy.

Form factor hides away behind the rearview mirror really well.
VcD5BYr.jpg

TBe8SOm.jpg


I just wish it was black instead of blue. And the chrome ring around the lens makes it stand out like a sore thumb.
10kRSxf.jpg


Because the car is a lease, I didn't want to mess with any vehicle wiring. Plan was to tap it into the fuse box with an add-a-fuse, but it turns out Jeep Patriots don't have fuse boxes in the cabin. So I routed the cable across the headliner, down the a-pillar, behind the glove box, under the center console and up to the cigarette lighter. The camera came with stick on wire clips and the dual USB charger, so that was very convenient
MJcWZSa.jpg
.

Camera management is handled through an app on your phone. Everything from changing camera settings to downloading clips. The app is really overloaded with social media features that you default load into and in my opinion are generally useless. The actual camera management screen is pretty straight forward.

The camera also came with a button that you can stick anywhere in your car, when you press it, it automatically saves the preceding 12 seconds of video directly to your phone

As far as the video quality, goes, I'm pleasantly surprised. Its a lot clearer than I was expecting. The audio though, leaves a lot to be desired - its just noise for the most part. The 5 clips below were downloaded via the button and are from various lighting conditions.

There is a setting to turn the Goluck watermark off, which I enabled for the daylight clips (taken after the night clips).

I give it a 4/5. Just needs better audio quality recording and a black chromeless housings to hit the mark. Full camera specs here - http://en.goluk.com/pages/comparison.html
 
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Bump.

To quote myself, from my PYC thread:

MXM;n3545977 said:
Also with the upcoming roadtrip in mind, I think I finally want a dashcam. Something I can hang between the seats from the top of the roll bar. Preferably bullet-shaped, possibly even remote camera head. Most importantly, it needs to be low or zero effort to use it. I do NOT want to turn anything on or off every time I'm in/out of the car. It's no problem to get ignition power to it. Also in terms of actual recording, I'm a bit lost. What's the state of the art now? Is it feasible to do a whole day of recording without changing media?

Oh, and weatherproof, that's a must.
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I thought weatherproof stuff would be marketed to bikers, but tbh I didn't find a whole lot. There's Innovv C3, which is a bit old, but still available on ebay, and a new C5 which looks very fancy and expensive.

Anything else worth considering? Should I just go for an action camera with a weatherproof case? I imagine getting power to it will be a problem.

Preferably the camera should support 128gb cards, just so I have an option of recording a full day of driving (say, 5-6 hours) without changing media.
 
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