Any interest in a dash cam group buy?

That's a perfect amount of time. Thanks for the info. Hopefully I'll be in for 2 Blackvues.

In your opinion how is the DR450-1CH? I know it's an older model but, I was planning on putting it in my convertible so it at least has something. Looking at the DR590-2CH for the truck, the 750s would be awesome but, IDK that the jump in price is worth the WI-FI features

 

i tested the dr450-1ch and reviewed it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRh6S7UwJI

it was ok, i liked it but the video quality wasn't the greatest. I struggle to really recommend a single channel blackvue because the best part of blackvues is their parking mode, but if you only have a front camera, the rear of your car is never protected from a parking lot hit and run. for $120 its not bad tho, the video quality is good enough that when you are parked and not moving it can pick up license plates. its when you're driving at night that its pretty hard to read plates but even the best dash cams struggle at night. if you can live without parking mode for just a front camera, the A119 is my preferred cam currently and I actually use one on my tacoma along with the thinkware f800 pro just as some redundancy and better video quality for while im driving.

since there is a $250 minimum, if you order one 750s, and one dr450 it might count as just one order towards the 16 fyi since youd have to do it as one order.

 

Thanks for the video.

The single channel is going in my summer car so it's not as important being top of the line. I would put in a 2 channel but with it being a convertible I'd have no way to mount it. I could planning my parking to always back in so the parking mode would have a better chance at catching anything.

Yeah the $250 minimum was the reason I was looking to add the 2nd cam the the DR490 so I would hit that min amount.

 

Cool! Gonna decide what all I'm going to get and buy deposits on Friday.

 

I wonder why they don't offer single channel DR-590? It's available elsewhere.

I am leaning towards it (well, two of them), and if so, I may be out of the GB.... still pondering.

 

I would be interested in this group buy if it jus not too late. I am leaning towards the DR590 with the $250 minimum purchase. Might want to get something better with such a good discount. Just need to review all of your great information. Hope to figure it out by Friday and purchase the $20 deposit at that time. Thanks for putting this together!

 

the single channel models arent close to as popular as the 2ch ones. it is strange tho it seems like some online retailers have some models and others dont.

 

no problem, lemme know. I think we are going to keep it open until wednesday night.

 

and I dunno what the deal is with the street guardian one. they are taking so long I might consider suggesting it gets shelved for now. Maybe once the SG9663DC has its wifi and parking mode enabled we can boot it back up.

edit: talking to him now and it sounds like we may shelve it for now. they need to get their group buy plug-ins working on their online store (they want it stream lined to do them without deposits or anything complicated which would be nice) and then they would be set up to do group buys easily.

ill confirm once i get word.

 

So are you saying the street guardian is a No go?

 

99% a no go now, at least for awhile.

we discussed that i thought it would be better to do once the SG9663DC also has all of its features available as its sort of confusing and almost like a beta product in a way. supposedly it is great as of now, but without the wifi and parking mode available when they say its coming makes it feel like it would be better to wait anyways. and also with these delays several people dropped out so there just wasn't much support for it.

sorry if you were banking on the street guardian one.

 

TBH none of these i would consider "best bang for your buck" that also have wifi for you to watch on a smart phone. i think the dr590-2ch from blackvue is the best bang for your buck for a 2 channel front and rear 1080p cam but it doesn't have wifi. the street guardian sg9663dc should have the best video quality but its wifi app is not released yet so its up in the air, plus the cam is $350 so its not exactly cheap.

in general all of the 2 channel cams have worse video quality then single channel cams. you might want to consider getting two separate cams, but even most cams with wifi tend to have lesser video quality than cams that are more simple like the A119.

 

talking to him again and we might do something else for the few people who still wanted a SG9663DC and the SGGCX2.

Basically he really wanted this to happen and we were disappointed we couldn't get close to the 11+ per cam. so instead he is going to offer individual coupons. $50 off the DC and $30 off the X2 which is very close to the original discount for 11+ people.

PM me if you are interested.

 

A little more interest on his part may have gotten more interest. Wasn’t until today that I bought in on the other one even though it wasn’t what I wanted.

 

I gotta check this group buy section more often. Dash cams are a plus, you'll never know what you'll capture. Something funny, something crazy and something insane.

 

Before I jump in on this, what's the ideal combination for our trucks? I'd prefer to wire it in vs use the 12v plug.

 

well i personally prefer the thinkware f800 pro but it is also the most expensive one. its what I use. but i also have a topper so the rear cam is way in the back over the tail gate.

the problem of course is the truck bed takes up a lot of the view on the rear cam if you have no topper, but it can still be very useful to have a rear cam regardless to see what a driver was doing before they hit you for example.

all of the blackvues or thinkwares have an affordable ($20-30) hard wiring kits that hardwire to your fuse box so you dont have to use your 12v port. its really recommended as they are necessary for parking mode which is one of the prime features of these high end cams.

 

I have a shell also.

It looks like there are several options for the wiring kit though. That’s where my (additional) confusion comes from.

 

The problem with the blackvues is they use a proprietary coax cable for the rear camera. if you want to wire the rear cam all the way to the back like I did (in my video in the original post i show it) you need a pretty long cable. blackvue sells longer cables but they can be $20-30. with thinkware they just use micro usb for the rear cam so when the cable that came with wasnt long enough i used a standard micro usb cable extension.

for blackvue the power magic pro is their hardwire kit. it adds a timer and voltage settings so you can have it cut power to the camera if your battery is too low, and you can set the timer so it doesnt run forever and potentially drain your battery. i set my timer on my thinkware to 24 hours. the power magic pro also has a physical switch so you can turn it off so the camera will only turn on when your truck is on. but if you want parking mode you have to flip the switch again.

thinkware uses a built in timer/voltage protection so you set the timer and voltage cutoff through the smart phone app. blackboxmycar sells a generic hardwire kit which is $10 less then thinkware and personally i would just get that, its literally just a cable with a ground, red batt, and yellow ACC wire.

whats nice about thinkware though is it has a power button. when i get home and park in the garage i press the power button so it turns off and doesnt use battery. but i use the cellink battery b so i dont ever have to worry about my cam draining my truck battery on really cold days. with the blackvue you only have the power magic pro power switch. if you connect it to a battery pack there is no power switch so if you want to conserve battery you have to unplug the camera. which means you might forget to plug it back in later.

thats what of the main reasons i prefer thinkware, i like to make sure i maximize my battery life but always turning it off when i get home. some people might be too lazy but with minnesota weather like today it was -6 F ill do what i can to conserve battery.

the battery packs arent really necessary tho, i use to use a power magic pro but i started having battery problems because i was running two 2 channel blackvue cameras on a honda civic, so that was way too much power demand. the cellinks can be good in general tho since you aren't taking power from your starter battery. and these cams can take a surprising amount of power. i dont know the difference between my tacomas battery vs my civics tho.

i would personally recommend just getting a normal hardwiring kit, then maybe get a cellink if you find you're draining your battery too much.

cellink is more expensive then the blackvue power magic battery but it has more capacity. they use to sell expansions too, i use two cellinks because i bought the expansion back when it was available.

 

Blackboxmycar group buy is at 10 deposits. I know for sure there were 15 confirmed interested and possibly 2 or 3 still deciding.