After being near a few wrecks on the road, I’ve decided now’s the time to get a dashcam. I’ve never had one nor have any idea what to look for. Amazon has a bewildering assortment. The choices*!* Reading the comments doesn’t help much. I’d like one that can take the heat as it can get to 40C (over 100F) in the daytime. I’d like to get one each for the front windshield and back glass–sometimes what I see in the rearview mirror scares me! Otherwise I don’t know what to look for.
I turn to the Straight Dope for advice on which dashcam to buy.
I got this one a few months ago, $100 from Amazon.
Z-Edge Z3 3-Inch 2K Ultra Full HD1296P 2560x1080
It feels well made and robust, it was easy to figure out operation, gives a clear high-res image night or day, and I have had no problems with it. My only quibble was that it doesn’t come with enough clips to secure the long cable tidily, but you can buy clips for a few bucks.
I’ve read that it’s better to get one that has a capacitor battery than lithium because of the heat issue.
Read the reviews to see which are recording HD natively versus just upscaling a lower quality image. The cheaper cams will capture a lower quality image and then expand it to HD size, resulting in pixelization.
Cams often say they will record in the dark, but quality is often not good. They have a tiny IR light, but it really doesn’t do much.
It’s hard to compare dashcams because there’s so many copycats, knockoffs, and generics. Even on Amazon, you may get a slightly different version than the one in the ad. You may be better off getting a dashcam from a local store like OfficeMax or HomeDepot so that you can return it if it has problems. But the cheap ones will generally work well enough for long enough for you to get your money’s worth.
True. As long as you don’t mind dealing with shipping it. But 3rd party resellers can be difficult for returns, especially if they are in China. The China ones say you have to send it back to them, but the postage to China will be more than what you spent on the DVR.
I bought a no frills Dash Cam for 13 bucks on eBay and it works great, battery holds a charge for about 3 hours and 6 minutes. Works decent enough I picked up another. The video quality is good enough to see license plates too. Doesn’t come with an SD card though. It survived the cold, yet to see with the heat, but It seems to be fine. Been using it for about 4 months with no problems. Just an idea if you are bargain hunting, it feels lightweight and cheap, but it stays in place, comes with mounting gear, battery, car charger etc…best of all it actually works and it segments each video into 5 minute chunks (easier to copy in case of an incident)
I installed the same camera a few months ago. So far so good, but we haven’t hit the hottest days of summer yet here in SE Michigan.
For wiring, if you have car power available anywhere near that location (e.g. for dome lights, sunroof, etc.), you can install a compact 12-volt to 5-volt converter and run your camera from that instead of trying to snake a wire all the way around the edge of the windshield down to the dashboard; makes for a much tidier installation.
If the camera does well this summer I will probably install another one on the rear deck to record the jerks behind me.
There’ve been threads about this from time to time. My current “How can they … ?” is this. An LCD MP3 player for $1.79 … shipped. A decent mSD card for it will cost more.
I’m currently thinking over a camera for the other end of the car. Maybe I’ll start a thread.
Some cams have a 2nd cam for this purpose. The main cam is on the windshield and the 2nd cam is on a long wire that plugs into the main cam. It records both cams at the same time.
I have this Lukas ARA 7900. Great camera and crisp, clear, high quality color videos with sound.
Stands up to the high temperatures your camera will experience inside the parked car on a hot summer day. Goes into parking mode after the car is stopped for 5 minutes. Then it will keep recording in a loop with out saving until it detects an "event’. Then it will go back 20 seconds and keep all of the event. So if someone whacks your car you will see the lead up and the whole event. It is a real high quality camera.
I’m not sure that I would find much use for running a dash cam in my car. But they do produce some interesting videos. Here’s my favorite motorcycle helmet cam footage:
Redneck nearly runs a cyclist and his buddy off the road. The justice is quick and hilarious.
I suppose that’s true, if you never drive your car. But if you do, you are vulnerable to insurance fraudsters and witnesses with inaccurate recall; a dash cam provides objective evidence as to what actually happened, and can save you from unjustified increases in your premiums.
“You rear-ended me!” “No, my dash cam shows you backed into me.”
“My light was green!” “No, my dash cam shows that I had the green light.”
In the bigger scheme of things, people with dash cams also protects drivers who don’t have dash cams: when cameras are relatively common, attempting to defraud someone with a staged accident becomes a risky proposition (since the mark might have a dash cam), and so fraud rates will likely go down. (and of course your camera may also record useful footage of a real crash you weren’t involved in, helping to establish the facts for the participants.)
I’ve had a few people collide with me over the years of driving. I only had one instance where the counterparty lied to the police when they showed up, but the 3 witnesses that stayed, all corroborated my story. So 35 years of driving, not a single instance where a dash cam would have made a difference. I guess there is the possibility that it might some day, but until they come standard on cars, I’m not too keen on running cables and wires around my car.
If you live in North-Amrica I think you’re probably right.
But in other 3rd world countries things are quite different. There are crooks who will dive in front of your car looking to get an insurance payout. Russia and Asia are notorious for this
