Looking for a Dash Cam recommendation

Just curious from those of you who have dash cams what you would recommend. I'm looking for something to just protect me in an accident, While my car is parked, and Theft. My budget is about $300. I just want to get some good insight on what works/doesn't and what you might recommend.

 

@USDashCamera

 

For that price range my personal fav is the blackvue dr590w-2ch. All blackvue cams have great automatic parking mode that's buffered so when someone comes on screen it saves 10 seconds leading up to it instead of seconds after like cheaper cams without buffered parking mode. You can also turn motion sensing to whatever part of the screen you want it to sense in a 4x4 grid so you can set it so the trees blowing in the wind don't set it off or whatever else. Or you can set motion detection to 0 and it will only record when it senses an impact. But it's still buffered so you see the 10 seconds leading up to the impact not the moment after, which means you capture the actual impact unlike cheaper cams parking mode.

I did a review on the non-W model. The w model includes wifi so you can change the settings from your phone and download clips to your phone. GPS is an add on for this more budget model.

https://youtu.be/jYAjF6s8gTk

The 750 and 900 series are in the $400-500 price range and offer higher frame rate or resolution such as 4k in the 900 series.

But the 590 series still has decent 1080p front and rear. If you put the rear cam just on the cab back window that might be hard to capture plates with the bed in the way and you'd might wanna consider backing into spots as often as possible. My truck has a topper so my rear cam is on the toppers rear window which is great.

You can get it with a 64gb card and the power magic pro hardwiring kit (necessary for parking mode) for $320 but you can get $30 off orders over $300 with coupon code USDASH30. or you could get it with the 16gb card for $260 and get $10 off with coupon code USDASH10 ($10 off orders over $100) and buy a 128gb Samsung endurance card for $35 on Amazon and you'd be $5 cheaper before any tax or shipping. Pretty sure blackboxmycar is free shipping over $100.

https://www.blackboxmycar.com/colle...vue-dr590w-2ch-dash-cam?variant=6844741353527

Pretty sure the Amazon prices are the same for the camera. There are lots of different bundles tho so it's worth shopping around. But if you do choose to go with everything on Amazon I do have affiliate links in my videos description linking to them, they help support my channel and I'm always willing to help trouble shoot or give more advice.

 

One thing to note is some decent cams without advanced parking mode often have better video quality such as the viofo A129 because their processing is based just on recording good video quality. Viofo is working on adding buffered parking mode, but typically you sacrifice video quality when you start adding more advanced features unless you opt for the even higher end cams.

I personally think the parking mode is very important. Here is a hit and run I captured in my Prius with the rear 1080p cam of the blackvue dr900s-2ch. (Yes I own a Tacoma too haha, run the thinkware q800 pro in that)

https://youtu.be/HM84gM1a4Zw

 

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When it comes to theft that's pretty hard since no cam really prevents theft but the owl cam is $350 and has a rear facing cam that can capture break ins and theft and send you videos and notification over 4G but it requires a monthly subscription. Last I saw you got a free year tho.

The blackvue dr900s-2ch can also show you clips or live streams over the cloud and notifications but it requires a hotspot connection, doesn't have 4g.

 

Standard fare ChinaTronics in “electronics” section of my build thread works pretty well.

 

Out of your budget OP but in case anyone is interested in what I'm currently running in my Tacoma.

https://youtu.be/FgxKqXfOGCE

 

Run about 3000 miles a week. I just use a cobra dash cam like the radios. Have one in my dodge truck, one in the big truck. 70 to 90 dollars depending on where you get it. You don't have to spend a lot of money on this idem.

 

From what I have seen cobra dash cams don't have any parking mode which OP was asking for. Has cobra added any advanced parking model lately? I never bothered with them because their dashcams are just chinese cams with their brand on them. Chinese companies released many clones of their cams for cheaper.

There are some decent Chinese cams don't get me wrong, but the Korean cams are the superior cams when it comes to parking modes.

 

I’ve read your replies and taken in the information but I was just curious what you thought about these two dash cams (going a cheaper route) Roav C2 Pro OR Roav S1. A buddy of mine told me these are two good ones.

I don’t feel that I need a dual dash cam but it could be nice. I’d imagine most of what’s gonna happen will be obvious from the front and I back in all my spots. (Another big concern of mine is someone breaking in and stealing the dash cam)

 

Check out Owl Cam

 

Here is a link to another thread, it's a bit of a read. Seems like quite a few people use Rexing, Blackvue, and small Chinese companies. The dashcams don't last forever in my experience, my

$160 Rexing V1P 4K Car Dash Cam 2.4" LCD 2160p Front + 1080p Rear Wi-Fi 170° Wide Angle Dual Channel with Rear Cam, G-Sensor, WDR, Loop Recording Mobile App Supercapacitor

Rexing V1P is already beginning to have problems but has not completely broken down yet.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/best-dash-cam-for-taco.530555/

 

I have bought and reviewed every Anker roav dash cam and to be honest I thought the c2 pro was the only bad one. It's ok, but for the price it makes no sense. It's video quality is worse than their other cams if not just the same, it adds GPS and wifi over the old c2 but there's no reason it should cost $150.

https://youtu.be/8F-MARvXFfk

The S1 is in my opinion the much better option. The c2 only does 1080p30, s1 does 1080p60 and has all the same features as the c2 pro, yet is $90 instead of $150.

https://youtu.be/OMfA5dfvlpI

But regardless none of the Anker cams are great if you want parking mode. They use internal batteries, which isn't ideal in hot climates, to power them in a low power state while you're parked, and if someone impacts you they wake up and start recording. Unfortunately there is a few second delay from the impact to when it starts recording. I like the cams but they aren't really good options if you are really concerned with parking mode. It's impact only too so say someone keyed your truck, it can't sense someone walking by and won't record.

 

I have a DoD model something something which has proven to be pretty reliable, good nightime video quality (with light setting changes) and event clip management, and everything else you'd want in a dashcam, but has a very cumbersome menu system. Something as simple as setting the time every DST change is not an easy task, and its imperative to have the correct time/date when capturing the incident!

Another thing I don't like is their fisheye lense selection - I understand why its needed (to make the field of view as wide as possible to capture contributing events off to the sides), but when reviewing the film, it will look like you are really really far away right before an incident occurs...it may work against you in court or to insurance as it will appear at first impression that you had lots of time to react given the distance perception. Make sure to get a camera that doesn't have a super wide field of view. Medium field of view would be preferable.

Check Dashcamreview for current recommendations.

 

Didn't realize I had been watching your videos on dash cams this whole time! Small world. Anyways I think with that being said I'll just go with a front cam the Blackvue dr590w-1ch. Found it on Amazon for $159 (I will use your affiliate link when I purchase) I feel as though having a truck I will never be able to use the rear cam to the full extent other than maybe helping complete a video Example: someone hitting the side or rear and seeing them go up from the back hitting my truck and then front cam getting license plate, although I'd imagine you can just use a front cam and it'll be obvious the car is hit from shaking & the crunch sound and then just watch the car drive by and grab the license plate but in that case I would just chase them down. I'm more worried about people hitting my car when I'm not there and driving away though. I will just force myself to start backing into spots its better anyways & I could always buy the second camera if I felt it necessary to add on. I think this logic makes sense what do you think?

 

Yea with out a truck topper like I have, the bed definitely makes the rear view much worse. But the thing about blackvue is you can't by a rear cam and add it later, you'd only be able to either buy a second front cam or replace it with a 2ch model. Running two 1ch cams is going to be much more power hungry than running the 2ch model. So if I were you and I thought might want a rear cam in the future you're better off just getting the 2ch model. You never know how the rear cam might eventually come in handy even if your truck bed blocks the view some.

Whatever you do decide on make sure you get the power magic pro or power magic EZ to hardwire so you can use parking mode.

I always recommend getting the 16gb bundle then buying a separate memory card. Best card you can get for blackvue cams would be a 128 gb Samsung pro endurance card. These cards are meant to withstand constant video recording. They just dropped in price a lot to $35. It's much cheaper than buying the 128gb blackvue bundle, and this way you can keep the 16gb card in your truck as a backup.

 

In that case would it be a good option to just get the 2 channel for $50 more and just set it up even if It's not that great? Another question would it be worth it to just invest the money in something like the Thinkware F800 pro 2 channel? Either way I will be buying that samsung 128GB sd card.

Are Power magic pro's/Power Magic Ez's are necessary to both options (thinkware F800 & Blackvue cams) ? They are power packs I'm assuming that hookup to battery and ground and then have a cut off so they don't drain your battery? Where do most guys install and hide these boxes?

 

Well personally I think it's better to get the 2 channel version, $50 extra isn't that much if it could potentially save you in an accident from someone else being at fault.

The hardwiring stuff gets confusing because blackvue and thinkware do it different.

The power magic products are strictly for blackvue. They are devices that sense when the car is off with a 3 wire batt/acc/ground connection and continue to power the camera when the car is off. The blackvue cams sense after a few min you aren't moving and switch to parking mode. They allow you to set voltage cut off to different settings such as 12, 12.2, 12.4 volts or so. So if you truck battery is getting low it will cut power to the dash cam so you don't kill your battery. They also have a timer so you can say shut off after 6, 12, 24 etc hours.I like timers because typically I don't park in public more than 8 or 9 hours for work but sometimes I park at home for days on end since I have 2 vehicles. The timer saves battery power that way. The voltage and timer settings are adjusted by flipping dip switches on the power magic devices. The power magic EZ plugs into your OBD2 port so it's supposedly way easier than the power magic pro. I haven't used it yet but it seems like the obvious choice.

Thinkware on the other hand has the low voltage and timer function built into the cameras and these settings are adjusted in the WiFi app. You need either the blackboxmycar or thinkware hardwire kit which also uses the 3 wire batt/acc/ground connection but it goes directly to the cam so the camera itself senses your truck is off and switches to parking mode within a min instead of 4 or 5 min like blackvue.

Personally I think thinkware does parking mode better but blackvue seems to have slightly better video quality. There's so many differences it's hard to list them all without rambling.

I really do feel like the dr590w-2ch is a great value in terms of decent video quality with advanced parking mode. Thinkware has some more affordable options like the f200 or fa200 but I haven't used them and also not a fan of their digital camera on a mount style design.

But again, personally I'd get the 2ch because you never know what could happen behind you. It's basically extra insurance. Maybe it won't pay off, but $50 in the grand scheme of things, is that really that much more?

 

Thanks for all the help this was some seriously good information and I'm just gonna end up going with the Blackvue DR590W 2CH/Power Magic Pro and hook up both cams whether or not the rear can see all that much and call it a day. Also going with the samsung endurance 128GB like you recommended. I got some good information here and will ask questions once I get the dashcam and start going through the setup. Thanks again!