Calling Rube Goldberg (AKA Dash Cam Lamentations)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Warning: Long and boring.

I have managed to come up with a need for the one gopro attachment that does not exist. There are mounts to hold one in your mouth. There are mounts to put one on your dog, or a kite. There are extensions to turn one every which way but inside out.

There is NOT one which has the two male “outie” prongs on both ends. I did find a pattern to 3d print one. So apparently I’m not the first person on the planet who would like to have one. But I digress.

It all started when I wished to buy myself a dash cam. So I decided on a particular one, because it has wifi and the reviews are better than average.

Anker recommends you stick your new Roav up directly on your windshield to the left or the right of your rear view mirror. Slight problem - my windshield wipers don’t reach up there, and it snows here. It starts becoming obvious that I didn’t think this through at all. My windshield is steeply angled, so if I put it where the windshield wipers reach, my arms don’t, and I can’t even see the screen due to the angled design of the camera, never mind get within a inch of any invisible touch screen buttons I might be trying to use. Also, it will be begging “STEAL ME” in every parking lot, unless I take it down which is a chore because I can’t reach it. It will be impossible to put up my windshield sun shade without taking it down.

So fine - I’ll buy a rear view mirror hanger. Except the little nubbin that fits into the camera is proprietary - none of the after market items are a guaranteed match, besides I have concerns that it won’t hang low enough to get the lens pointed into the wiper-cleared area.

I have a GoPro mirror/handlebar mount. I can make it as long as I like with extenders. Now - to find a way to stick my Moav sticky plate with the proprietary attachment nubbin (are you liking my knowledgeable use of the proper jargon?) to some flat surface GoPro mount. Voila! A quick release dash cam I can easily remove and put back up.

Not so fast. The attachment mounts that may possibly work to attach my proprietery stick pad with the nubbin all have the 3 prong female "innies which cannot be attached to the extensions above because the “outies” are on the other end going into the hanger thingie. Got that? You can’t stick two “outies” together.

I gave up and returned the camera to Amazon with a review stating my difficulties with this design of camera.

Anker offered to send me a suction mount. But all of the same problems remain, and I emailed them and told them so, and not to bother because I returned the camera. Now they’re sending me another camera, for free in an attempt to - what? They say I can give it away if I can’t make it work for me. Uh, thanks?

It’s Anker’s first foray into the Dash Cam Product Line. I guess they REALLY, REALLY, want me to like it. I’m now considering putting a sticky disk on the over head console and hanging the damned camera from there.

TLDR: Trying to install this Dash Cam is driving me crazy!

2

And then, depending on where you drive, in a given jurisdiction something actually hanging down below the rearview mirror may be itself against the rules.

But yes, this is one area where we are still a good ways away from there being some sort of universal standard.

3

Most likely against the rules, yes. I may miss seeing that low flying aircraft coming in from the sky because my view of part of the sky might be blocked.

I’ll probably end up just selling the damned thing when it gets here and use my knock-off action camera on the the mounting disc from my old gps that’s already stuck there. I have all the parts to do that. I’ll have to turn it on and off manually, but my power outlets are always on in my minivan, so that’s a problem for dash cams as well. I’d have to turn those off and unplug when I park, too.

Another thing about the dash cams that makes me chuckle is the G-force lock feature. If you get into an accident, most times don’t you know it? You can lock the file yourself, if you’re still conscious. If you’re not, I don’t think the car will keep running and overwrite the pertinent files. It’s an option that sounds good in theory, but has a very limited utility in practice.

My, this post is indeed mundane and pointless. More of a minirant, really.

4

Beanbag it on the dash where it looks correctly and you can reach.
Set on car seat under towel to foil thieves when parked.
I had a 4 port hard wired into my
truck which has an lighted on off stitch. Park, hit the switch.

What do you want? proof of fault in a wreck or some such?
Pretty pictures?

RainX your windshield or just the spot in front of the camera, good nuff for wrecks.

Easy to reach, easy to on & off, easy to move when parked, be legal, all the bells & whistles ?? You’re gonna have to modify the car and get sensors & a computer to make it do all you want automatically.

Duct tape and a shot bag with a no skid rubber shelf liner underneath and Bob’s your uncle. Use fancy colored Duct tape and you’ll be cool. :smiley:

5

Well Guns, if you go to the link for the Roav on Amazon, you’ll see that a bean bag on the dash won’t work. What, lay it screen side down? Lay it upside down? It’s designed to be suspended from the top (or back, if you prefer.) I can’t see any way to mount it on the dash, except upside down.

6

I’m not sure I’m understanding you. The standard GoPro piece has three prongs at one end & two at the other. Are you saying you want to connect two to two? If so, I’ve had a couple ‘threes’ break & they still can be used. See photo; piece on left should have three prongs but the ‘bottom’ one broke; I can still use the two pieces together.

My dashcam (based upon card size) can capture 4-5 hours of data before it starts overwriting. I’m going away this weekend; 4ish hour drive there; 1± hour driving locally, then 4ish hour drive home. If anything happened before my ride home, it wouldn’t be on the card by the time I got home & had a chance to download it.
My dashcam is set to record 5 minute clips. If I even wait to save it until when the PD show up, there’s a good chance it’s not the current clip anymore (especially if it was 3-4 minutes into the then-current video when incident occurred.) I don’t believe that I can save a clip other than the current one from the camera’s menu.

7

Spiderman: That’s why I wanted one with wifi. The video can be viewed and downloaded to my phone directly from the camera.

Regarding the gopro extender, see the link to the 3D file in the op to see exactly what I mean. In fact, the picture there on the right is exactly what I wanted to achieve.

But I’m giving up on that idea.

8

Are you referring to the white (clear?) piece in this picture?

If so, you have three choices, buy one, 3-d print one, or break one tab off a standard 3 & 2 mount to make it a 2 & 2. As my original photo shows, I have a 3-end that was converted to a 2-end (it broke) but still works.