[loggamatt]

Reckon dash cams are worth it? Never really thought of getting one before, but as I may be taking my car into a car audio installer for the rear speakers soon anyway (and they'll have to do some work already to get access to 12v supplies, etc.) I guess that would be a good time to get them to hardwire one in if I was going to get one.

I always thought they were just as likely to catch me driving badly as catching someone else driving badly near me I'd be worried that if the camera footage happened to show me driving over the speed limit that I'd get as much blame as whoever it is that hits my car (speaking purely hypothetically of course officer).

But then, some googling leads me to discover that some insurers offer discounts simply for having dash cams installed, so maybe I should give more thought to it!

 

[loggamatt]

Thanks both! Yeah, I guess to really get the benefit you'd want one of the front and rear setups, because I reckon you're more likely to be hit from behind anyway, but those are pricey!! 🤑 Though, I guess if I'm burning through money with audio upgrades anyway, may as well really go to town on the whole financial ruin thing!

Nevertheless, if you were doing 35mph in a 30 zone, and your camera captured someone pulling out of a junction into your path causing a collision, wouldn't you get in just as much trouble as your footage would show you breaking the law and speeding?

What does appeal to me a bit is the idea of using them as a home security camera. I park my car in front of my garage, and was thinking of getting a home security camera to capture footage of anyone breaking into my garage. If I got one of the 2-camera systems with motion sensitive parking mode, it'd capture someone walking past my car to break into the garage, and capture them stood behind my car breaking into the garage.

 

[loggamatt]

You KNOW how to fix that though

Oh, again, not putting in writing here that I ever would break the speed limit. Just asking hypothetically... you know... for science...

 

[loggamatt]

I‘ve got the Nextbase 222X, which has a rearward facing camera that looks through the cabin out of the rear window.

The rear view as you know is a bit cramped in the ID.3, but it sees enough in conjunction with the front camera to get some evidence on your side. It picked up the trucks behaviour, and the number plate no problem.

With the boot 12v socket, you could even just get a cheap rear stick on camera to look backwards, it would start up on ignition etc, and would be fit and forget?

Looks like that one doesn't do what I want from a security camera perspective though. Parking mode only records when it notices a physical bump to the vehicle. I'd want one that activates from a motion sensor.

 

[loggamatt]

Yeah, I wasn’t offering it up as the camera for you, just that front and rear didn’t need to be expensive or a hassle. 🙂👍

I like the idea of a motion detecting one actually, but my car is covered by cameras at home, and when it’s at work it’s parked securely as well, maybe my next one will be one of those.

I actually might get the Nextbase 222X after all actually! I definitely think I want front and rear recording if I get one, and it looks like any of the ones that would do that plus offer parking security footage are many many times more expensive. So much more expensive that for the use case of security footage for my garage it'd be far cheaper to just put a camera on my house.

 

[loggamatt]

Thanks for posting this @Jon Chalk.

I'd pretty much decided I was going to get a dash cam when I next got a car since the time my ex-wife's car was written off by a truck reversing in to her (whilst doing a u turn where there wasn't space) and then claiming it was her fault. He admitted fault in the end but a dash cam would have made the whole process much simpler and easier. Plus I'll be driving on some busy roads and I've seen enough idiotic driving nearby to want some evidence should anything happen.

In case it's of use to @loggamatt anyone else, this is what my research has lead me to.

I'm planning to get the Blackvue DR750X (two channel version) because it seems to be well regarded and amongst the most slimline around. I'll also likely get a battery pack to extend the 'parking mode' on the camera and protect the 12v battery. The X series has a couple of advantages - it has low voltage protection built in (you set a voltage where the camera will shut down to protect the 12v battery), rather than requiring an external device. It also uses a three wire connection to the fuse box (or battery pack) to detect when the car has been parked and it should switch into 'parking mode', rather than relying on the G sensor.

There is the DR-750 LTE which has the LTE connectivity built in, but this is effectively the previous model so doesn't have those two benefits. So I might get the external LTE module, there is a very good bundle deal from one retailer. That at least gives the advantage that if someone breaks in the camera might have the chance to upload some footage to the cloud before it disappears. Or, far more likely, you'll get an alert if someone bumps in to your car. It sort of works as a tracker too, although a pretty easily defeated one! Blackvue have a deal with Vodafone for 40GB of data for £4 per month, so cheaper than running a separate dongle- although the Blackvue battery pack has a USB socket so you could run one from that for multiple devices.

The only complication with using the X series with a battery pack is that they only come with a two cable for connecting to the dash cam. However if the X series is connected this way it won't know that you've parked and left the vehicle, so you're wiping out one of its advantages. There is a three wire cable that can be bought to run from the battery pack and join on to the the dash cam's own power cabe that will make this work. The battery pack will be either the Cellink Neo 6 or Blackvue B124X (if you buy from the right place there isn't much difference in price), effectively the same battery but slight external differences and their own apps.

It won't be a cheap setup, but given how much I've factoring it in to the overall money I'm putting down on the car. Given my own cack handedness I'm planning to have it installed by a professional. There are some good bundle deals around and they include a CPF for the front camera at least, so given @Jon Chalk's experience today that's a useful thing to have included.

One thing I have read about - Blackvue sell their own Micro SD cards at incredibly expensive prices, which I'm not going to buy, although I am going to get a larger capacity one. For the best chance of avoiding issues the advice seems to be to look for the Samsung High Endurance or Sandisc High or Max Endurance cards, which are engineered for use in security systems / dash cams.

Thanks Jeff! Had a look at those Blackvue ones today, and they definitely look like the Rolls Royce of dashcams! I'm really tempted, but I think it'll probably be too rich for my blood with all the other money I'm likely to spend on audio upgrades at the same time.

It won't give me the parked security stuff that I want, but to save money I think I'll probably go for the Tooks Labs Value Edition Camera (or whatever it was) instead But I'm definitely jealous of you with your forthcoming Blackvue, looks like a serious bit of kit that!

 

[loggamatt]

I guess the kind of reprobate who might occasionally break the speed limit and was worried about being hoist with his own petard/dash cam could get a dash cam that didn't have GPS, and then no-one reviewing the footage would know what speed his car was doing at the time anyway, right?

In unrelated news, the Blackvue DR590 doesn't look quite as ruinously expensive as some of their other cameras, probably because it misses out on a few features like GPS. I'm tempted!