I want to buy a dash cam but have no idea where to start or what is most popular brand and model
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do a bunch of online searching just to see what kind of features you want. That may inform you that you want one beyond your own ability to install.
One that suction cups to the windshield with integral fore and aft cameras and plugs into a lighter socket can be installed by anyone. one with a remote rear camera or that makes use of the car’s backup camera likely requires a pro installer to avoid damaging things.
If you want more than you can install yourself, call some local car audio installers as they almost always do alarms and cameras.
otherwise, like much of electronics, the industry is dominated by no-name chinese brands. good luck.
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I ended up with a Viofo unit for my work truck. Front/cabin/rear views. I also bought the integration kit so it turns on/off the main recordings with the key, and switches to 1 FPS photos the rest of the time.
It is effectively impossible to buy something that is not made in China. I do not let the unit connect to the cloud.
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And many of the things that are not marked “Made in China” contain essential Chinese components – which the US no longer has the capacity to manufacture. Our Betters have managed to give away the factories, the jobs, and the tax revenue. Yet we just went through an election, and this existential issue ranked somewhere below transgendered bathrooms. Talk about sleepwalking into disaster!
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After an unnecessarily unpleasant interaction of a local police officer (100% his fault), I considered one and started research. It turned out to be sufficiently complex that I gave up. One of the impediments is secure, real time storage. I didn’t want a cloud $ervice, partly due to lack of reliability of cell signal. I did want local storage, but a flash card in the unit can easily be located and taken. Mainly, you see, I want recording and secure storage of events like carjacking or inappropriate police behavior. Whichever of these sees the dash cam could simply take it or the storage device and I would have no evidence. The simple tactic of storage in the vehicle but not within the dash cam device seems to me to be a good solution. I was unable to find this option.
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Conventional dash cam plus a hidden spy cam or two monitoring the interior and recording audio. Bad actors take the card from the former, but don’t notice the latter.
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My unit can stream to a wifi client in addition to SD card storage. (Not sure that you can get all three cameras at full resolution this way.) Pretty sure a USB device that provides power can also read the SD card live. Consider putting an RPi under the dash to make the WiFi connection and storage.
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How is the battery life? Mount stability?
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There’s no battery. Must be wired or use the supplied cigarette lighter plug.
Mount is adhesive to glass, not suction cups. Front has been very stable. Rear was marginal until I added some wire supports to relieve some stress.
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It’s a sad commentary on the state of the country that dash cams are becoming necessary. As I understand it, they have been commonplace for years in third-world and other countries rife with corruption. Just another sign of the deterioration of social trust.
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Can you please say some more about this. I’m not technical and my search of RPi confused me further, as it has several meanings in this domain. If it stored the interior video stream only - with decent resolution and clear audio, that would suffice for my purposes… Thanks.
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I think he means a Raspberry Pi…it can be used as a “normal” computer that will pick up the camera’s wifi signal and store the video (e.g. on a SD card). Yeah, I hate TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms) too.
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Sorry, yes, I meant a Raspberry Pi. It is a powerful small computer–about the size of a deck of cards in some cases–that has on-board WiFi and runs Linux. You’d need some scripting to manage the video streams. I suppose I should do this and publish it.
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by Helen Andrews
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I was going to recommend one that was fairly inexpensive, but after looking at my orders on Amazon, it is no longer available.
I purchased three. One for my truck, one for my car, (yet to install it or even open the box), and one for my lady friend’s car.
There still is one made by SSONTONG on Amazon. It looks identical to the three I purchased but with a rear view camera as well.
The link is:
It’s only $55.99 !!!
Based on the satisfaction with the front only camera, I think I’ll buy one now.
It also had a “clip coupon” on the check-out area, so it was $47.48 and included a 64GB card !
For less than $50 how can you go wrong?
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For reference here is a link to a recording that I had on my dash cam last spring.
It records in AVI format, and at 1920 by 1080 pixels, darn high resolution. (Full HD)
The posted clip is the full length of a recording as it does it in sections, erasing the oldest recording.
If you can, use a computer to view it as it is at the actual size.
(viewable on a cell phone as well)
All I did was to convert it from an AVI format to a MP4 format.
https://www.ourpage.com/dashcam/index.html
This is on my server.
Enjoy
(Note the idiot that wanted to play chicken with my truck.)
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