Dashcams!

@ShiWarrior that's great to know, thanks.

@Quartz As handy as that is I suspect that would cause issues around routing the cable. I know prep for exterior mounting was an option on the VW spec sheet but not viable choice for the Motability order. Getting a long enough internal cable is going to be fun as it is :D.
 
Gepetto said:
Thanks @radderfire

I'm reading up on the Nextbase Piqo2k which looks perfect actually. And direct from Nextbase at the moment they are really cheap.

I can download the Nextbase software to my PC, and don't have to worry about the vagaries of any App.

One thing does concern me, in that the reviews state that you cannot make out a numberplate clearly beyond about a car length in front. That seems very inefficient for a 1440p camera these days. My 10 year old RoadHawk at 1080p was better than that.

Does anyone have any experience of the Piqo2k? TIA.
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Would also like to know if anyone has any real world experience of the Piqo2k please :)
 
dcsarge said:
How well can rear cameras see through tinted rear windows?

We have a delivery date on the new van and I want to get a dashcam this time. Motability don't allow hard wiring but it has a dedicated USB port on top of the dash.
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Mine is fine and I have dark tints on the rear, I also upped the exposure by a point to compensate. (Viofo A129 pro duo)
 
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dcsarge said:
How well can rear cameras see through tinted rear windows?

We have a delivery date on the new van and I want to get a dashcam this time. Motability don't allow hard wiring but it has a dedicated USB port on top of the dash.
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Motability may not "allow" hard wiring, but I've done it on our last 3 vehicles (it's simple enough to do, if you know which fuses to tap into). All three cars have been serviced/MOT'd with wiring in place, without a problem.

So long as you remove the wiring before the lease ends, it's not an issue at all.

I've got the RedTiger F77 and the rear camera records through our very dark rear windscreen absolutely fine - just a slightly purple tint at night:

(Not the best example, but you can see how dark the rear windscreen is)
 
dcsarge said:
@RedMogg Thanks for that, I might have a look at that. The F77 is on my list of cameras, so that is good to hear. The video quality of it on many YT videos is very good.
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My only gripe is that the USB-C cables are really thick - makes tucking them behind trim & seals a bit of a challenge.

I've also put a 512Gb SD card (Lexar Silver Plus, £47) inside without issue - the manual says "up to 256Gb".

Otherwise, really happy with it.
 
I picked up a Nextbase 522GW but am having some issues with it. The app on iPhone is so slow to download thumbnails or video I got bored waiting after 10 minutes for a single 1 min clip to download and just took the SD card out and grabbed the file that way. Is this normal behavior for this? My old - el cheapo - dashcam was many orders of magnitude faster to grab files via WiFi.
 
Rilot said:
I picked up a Nextbase 522GW but am having some issues with it. The app on iPhone is so slow to download thumbnails or video I got bored waiting after 10 minutes for a single 1 min clip to download and just took the SD card out and grabbed the file that way. Is this normal behavior for this? My old - el cheapo - dashcam was many orders of magnitude faster to grab files via WiFi.
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I had this exact issue with the Nextbase dashcam that I used to have. Always very slow to download video via the app. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a fix for this, so I chalked this down to just an issue with Nextbase. Their customer support weren't that helpful either.

I have since changed to Viofo (not because of this issue, wanted an upgrade in general), specifically the A129 Pro Duo, which doesn't have this issue when downloading video on their app.

Sorry, not much of a helpful post for your issue, but might be worth trying your luck with Nextbase customer support? I have a feeling they'll just suggest to use the SD card/the Nextbase PC software though... which isn't really a solution in itself.
 
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Rilot said:
I picked up a Nextbase 522GW but am having some issues with it. The app on iPhone is so slow to download thumbnails or video I got bored waiting after 10 minutes for a single 1 min clip to download and just took the SD card out and grabbed the file that way. Is this normal behavior for this? My old - el cheapo - dashcam was many orders of magnitude faster to grab files via WiFi.
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i bought that exact same one as a temporary one (old car had a new windscreen fitted, and i was in the process of buying a new car) so i wanted a suction mount camera, so i bought that, soon as i got my blackvue re-fitted i sold the nextbase, i hated it
 
Gah. I thought it would be good as it reviewed well and seems popular. I should have stuck with my el-cheapo.
 
I recently installed a NextBase 522GW. With a rear cam as well. The iOS isn't great - but I don't use it. I just take the card out and plug it in to the Mac. It's not often that I need to do that anyway. Other than the crappy app; I don't have any issues with it.
 
I've had my 422GW for over 5 years now and the app is that rubbish that I'm not sure what I'll do if I ever need to retrieve files from it, I don't have a computer at home and in that 5 years I've had two phones both of which just spin forever when connecting to the dash cam
 
Inherited a nextbase cam from my dad.
Can confirm have all the same problems with it, so much so I give up with the app and will grab the card in the event of an incident. But means got to get it to the laptop and not have it ready on my phone. Their app is appalling.
 
Have to mention the RedTiger F77 I installed in our new car - aside from the really thick usb-c cables for power & rear camera being a pain to tuck behind trim & seals, I've been really happy with it.

My folks paid £LOL money for the factory fitted camera on their new XC60 - about double the cost of the F77, with less features, an older sensor and no screen whatsoever. Dad's pretty grumpy about it, much to my amusement.
 
Right. Managed to get a return of the Nextbase PoS after a week of trying to get a response. Bloody awful support experience.

What should I buy? These are my requirements:
GPS
Parking sentry
Front and rear cameras - this is an odd one as I have a convertible so nowhere to mount the rear camera. The Nextbase had an addon that gave me a rear camera attached to the front camera to give me a view behind
Good app that enables me to download videos quickly
 
Rilot said:
Right. Managed to get a return of the Nextbase PoS after a week of trying to get a response. Bloody awful support experience.

What should I buy? These are my requirements:
GPS
Parking sentry
Front and rear cameras - this is an odd one as I have a convertible so nowhere to mount the rear camera. The Nextbase had an addon that gave me a rear camera attached to the front camera to give me a view behind
Good app that enables me to download videos quickly
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Budget?

Not mounting rear camera is an issue, as a front mounted/rear facing camera only records the inside of the vehicle, rather than cars behind you. You could look at externally mounted cameras (with a decent weatherproof rating), but wiring is a pain...

Mine: https://amzn.eu/d/4bLJahg (separate hardwire kit is £20ish)

I've put a Lexar Silver 512Gb SD card (£28 £47, sorry!) in which was accepted, despite only being rated for 256Gb.

Cheaper alternative I considered: https://amzn.eu/d/4plf3eg (includes hardwire kit).
 
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I don't really have a budget. That Redtiger looks good actually. They do a slightly cheaper one I see with only a 1080p rear camera.
 
Rilot said:
I don't really have a budget. That Redtiger looks good actually. They do a slightly cheaper one I see with only a 1080p rear camera.
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I've set the front 4K camera to 1440p/60fps, with the rear camera to 4k/30fps.

The cheaper version misses the latest Sony Starvis 2 sensor and the 128Gb onboard memory, but it's still very well reviewed.

The software is snappy and transfers over 5Ghz WiFi very quickly.

The hardwire kit is important to get right - on my first go I got the wrong fuse for the parking monitor, so it didn't switch to the 1fps time lapse mode; it just ran continuously until the car battery dropped to the cut-off trigger level.

Wired up properly now and it's working great.
 
Rilot said:
Right. Managed to get a return of the Nextbase PoS after a week of trying to get a response. Bloody awful support experience.

What should I buy? These are my requirements:
GPS
Parking sentry
Front and rear cameras - this is an odd one as I have a convertible so nowhere to mount the rear camera. The Nextbase had an addon that gave me a rear camera attached to the front camera to give me a view behind
Good app that enables me to download videos quickly
Click to expand...

Regarding the rear view camera: I mounted my one on the headrest bracket, which luckily had a flat surface I could use an adhesive pad with. Worked well, roof up or down.
 
RedMogg said:
I've set the front 4K camera to 1440p/60fps, with the rear camera to 4k/30fps.

The cheaper version misses the latest Sony Starvis 2 sensor and the 128Gb onboard memory, but it's still very well reviewed.

The software is snappy and transfers over 5Ghz WiFi very quickly.

The hardwire kit is important to get right - on my first go I got the wrong fuse for the parking monitor, so it didn't switch to the 1fps time lapse mode; it just ran continuously until the car battery dropped to the cut-off trigger level.

Wired up properly now and it's working great.
Click to expand...
This one has the Starvis 2 - F7N Pro
 
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