Dash Cam (again)

[Bill]

I'm thinking of upgrading the very cheap camera in the car after an incident (now resolved) where a recording showing accurate time and place would have been useful.

Looking on ebay, I see a few devices that feature wifi and GPS. I've looked up datasheets of the Ambarella A7LA and Novatek chipsets that seem to be most common, but on both GPS appears to be via a separate chipset and doesn't seem to be integrated into the recorded video. So it looks as though the cameras record pictures, but the GPS track is recorded separately.

Is this right? I've looked on Halfords site, but the ones they offer seem similar, just more expensive. The present cams were both under a tenner, so I'd really like to be way below 100.

Has anyone got a cheap camera that does integrated wifi and GPS? Is the wifi and any laptop or Android software any good?

[Martin Brown]

GPS seems a lazy way of noting your position on the road since it is only good to about 3m. I'm inclined to view it as a feature with limited benefit that only serves to decrease standby lifetime.

I'd be more inclined to go with 1080 HD video and low light sensitivity as the main priorities. Almost all of them have a quartz local clock with date/time that is good to a few tens of seconds a month. That way you have a better chance of reading number plates at greater distance or having good footage of any wildlife that crosses your path.

The other good thing to have is the trigger on impact option when the camera is in standby and some muppet drives into you in a carpark.

There are good ones (hardware wise) for around the £50 mark on Amazon but the instruction manuals appear to have been translated out of Sanskrit via Venusian and lost everything in the translation. You basically have to experiment pressing different combos of buttons until you hit upon the right key sequences to make it enter the right mode!

Again I don't see Wifi as a priority - just another thing to shorten battery life (and the standby battery life isn't all that generous).

[Another Dave]

A guy calling himself Techmoan has a lot of dash-cam revues/advice on youtube:

and a website:

Well worth a look.

Another Dave

[Brian Gaff]

Its getting to the point these days when pedestrians will need these cameras to show the stupidity of motorists and cyclists when in these useless new fangled shared spaces that are dangerous. Brian

[NY]

I could fill up several terabytes of hard disc with videos of the stupidity of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists when I'm walking, cycling or driving. No-one seems to obey rules any more.

[Munch]

Bill submitted this idea :

Considering that the main reason for these things is to provide evidence, your priorities should be a good, clear picture in both daylight and night-time, so 1080p recording rather than wifi and GPS. I've got a Nextbase 402G and it is excellent. Like someone else said, have a look on Youtube at Techmoan's reviews.

[Nightjar]

That is more than adequate for a dash cam that is intended to provide evidence in the case of an accident.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , NY writes

:-) I was easily confused yesterday when a cyclist pulled of the road and rode along the footpath to allow cars to overtake. What confused me was... having run out of path at a junction he then waited for me to get by before rejoining the road!

12ish midnight on Friday so he might simply have been concerned about pub departees:-)

[NY]

Yes, GPS (with timestamp and lat/long stamp) and video would seem to be fine.

If GPS is lazy, what alternative way of establishing location (apart from video which is a "given" since the thread title is "Dash Cam") would Martin Brown suggest?

[Bill]

In message , NY writes

Thanks, everyone. I'd forgotten about the Techmoan site, which is interesting and useful. It does look as though some cameras do "track recording", but not a specific lat/long stamp. Not sure this would be useful in a dispute.

FWIW, I've been involved in, witness to or related to someone in 3 events any one of which could have ended in a dispute or possible prosecution, but not an actual accident.

In one case a vehicle found itself on a closed motorway because of faulty, temporarily unmanned, diversion sign and coneage. A second case was a dispute about a speed camera, where the driver is adamant that the overtaking police vehicle must have triggered the reading, the third case being a police vehicle speeding along the hard shoulder, throwing up grit and debris, damaging paint and windscreen.

[Tim Watts]

After a lot of research, I went for the Blackvue - and the recording quality is good. Very good in daylight and not at all bad at night.

[Bill]

In message , Tim Watts writes

Well, I've ordered a DDPai M6 Plus like the one in the video pointed to by Another Dave. It looks as though a second camera can wifi into it but it's all a bit vague.

I have many reservations, not least that it relies on a mobile phone for control which might not look good after an accident., The manufacturer seems to be actively updating firmware very frequently. I don't think it puts GPS data in the pictures, but maybe third party programs can do that. If not, I'm gambling that the feature will be incorporated in future.

[therustyone]

i got a Transcend camera which has v good video quality. The drawback is t he internal battery for the clock only lasts a day. So if you don't use th e car every day, and the cig. socket doewn't stay on, the date and time is lost unless you fiddle with the settings for 5 mins. Some cars can have the socket set on permanently by swapping cables round, like my very old departed Saab 9-5

J

[NY]

I've not seen that with our Transcend DrivePro 220. Although my wife uses her car every week day, there are times when it is not used between about 6 PM on Friday and 7 AM on Monday, and the time hasn't been reset.

Is there a setting to make the dashcam get its time from GPS rather than from its own internal clock? If so, I wonder if yours is set to use internal clock. I know that the internal battery for continuing recording after the power is removed gives very little recording time (only a few minutes) but as I understand it, that uses a separate battery (maybe even a capacitor) to the one used for battery back up of the clock.

Leaving the cigarette lighter on when the ignition is off would have the side effect that the camera would carry on recording when the car was parked, overwriting earlier recordings after an hour or so (time dependent on size of memory card).

[therustyone]

Mine's only a Drivepro 200 and other people have reported the same clock problem on this one. I hadn't realized when I bought it that the GPS enabled version would fix a clock problem that I didn't know existed. I suppose they need a USP to sell the 220 for more money.

J