Dashcams!

Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
44,880
What did you go with in the end, and who's fitting?

Nextbase 522GW plus the plug in rear view camera. Halfords mobile coming to fit it on the drive. It was one of the few that came with an SD card plus mobile fitting as a bundle. It’s also a decent option I feel for a soft top car with the rear cam.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
44,880
The dashcam has been installed. Only took about 20 minutes and they’ve done a great job, I can’t even see where they’ve put the cable other than the bit going down to the cam. The rear cam works surprisingly well too - it’s a decent solution for a soft top. I’ve connected it up to the app, updated the firmware and have set up parking mode.

 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
44,880
Is there a chance, parking mode will flatten the battery, other half bought me one for Christmas. Not got even round to fitting it yet.

I didn’t get them to put it onto an active fuse, so it’ll rely on its rubbish internal battery for parking mode. I’ve turned the sensitivity to low, so hopefully it’ll only pick up critical stuff. Better than nothing I guess.
 
Underboss
Joined
20 Oct 2002
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32,240
Location
Oxfordshire / Bucks
Parking mode is probably one of the most important features a dash cam offers. But it is also one that requires a little more attention than just tapping some setting controls on an app. To properly run parking mode, you will need constant power sent to your dash cam. Typically, it means you have to hardwire the dash cam to your electrical system. But there are disadvantages to this method. Car batteries last much longer when stored in a charged state. But the constant draining and charging by your dash cam can damage the battery cells prematurely. There’s a name for this - battery sulfation.

Of course, the extend of damage depends on the age, capacity, and type of car battery. Most cars nowadays don’t have a massive battery, so right off the hop, power is already limited. And with the average driving duration of less than an hour daily for most urban dwellers, cars are being left parked longer. We see more problems to the life and performance of their car batteries.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
44,880
2 days of ownership and we have our first idiot who doesn’t bother to give way at a round about. If I didn’t expect these things to happen I’d be involved in so many collisions. It’s not hugely quick connecting my phone Nextbase app to the cam, but it’s pretty quick to transfer the file once connected.
 
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V_R

V_R

Soldato
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