Dashcam

D

davecci

Member
 Leics/Notts border.
Morning all,
There are a lot of dashcams out there, and it gets confusing which one to buy, so could anyone who has bought one, for a budget of £50 or less, give me any recommendations, i know it's not a lot of money, but that's my budget for now..
I will only be running it from the cigarette lighter for now, so i can swap it between the Z and the dd... thanks in advance , Dave. :thumbsup:
 
We have a nextbase 212 from halfords in the x3 and it works really well. The cable is plenty long enough to run around the windscreen and to the lighter to charge it without being seen.

In the Z i use an app on my galaxy s6 called daily roads voyager it is free to download and acts exactly like a dashcam. I use a widnscreen phone holder to position it in place.
 
davecci said:
Morning all,
There are a lot of dashcams out there, and it gets confusing which one to buy, so could anyone who has bought one, for a budget of £50 or less, give me any recommendations, i know it's not a lot of money, but that's my budget for now..
I will only be running it from the cigarette lighter for now, so i can swap it between the Z and the dd... thanks in advance , Dave. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Not really a dedicated dashcam but I use my SJCam SJ4000 action camera as a dashcam. Can be bought for under £50 but there are fakes about. It has a dashcam mode so that it turns on when when power is applied. I have a 12V to 5V adapter hidden in the mirror housing that is switched with the ignition.
The video quality is very good. 1080p. I bought a window suction adapter to mount. it. If you want it powered all the time then you could just run it from the cig lighter socket. I also use it away from the car for use on my motorbike, quadcopter, holidays etc.
 
I posted in the other dash cam thread but I agree there is so much choice. After being hit last year and no note left and causing over £400 worth of damage I've decided to get one. There seems to be an increase in hit and run these days. My wife's brothers car has just been hit also. They've done the bumper, wing and door.

It's above your budget but I've been looking at the DOD TECH LS470W. If you get them hardwired you can also get parking protection. Basically it will record if it senses movement or g force.
 
Nextbase 212. It's a Which? Best Buy. We have them in two of our cars and seem to do what you would expect them to do. Can be run off ciggy lighter or hardwired using an extra kit.
 
Here yah go :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amjcsoExAQU&t=93s

An installation vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb7FDycTQaM

Cheers and Good Luck
Bumpy
 
Thanks guys , much appreciated, will have a look at the ones mentioned... cheers , Dave... :thumbsup:
 
Paulr said:
Bought this one when it was £34 on offer. It sits under the rear view mirror and can be left in place with the hood down.

71eB%2BC3Xc2L._SL1100_.jpg

Very neat, high def.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ALFSO6A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Video looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wOLhCujia0

[youtube]https://youtu.be/5wOLhCujia0[/youtube]

(could someone get the you tube link working please?)
Click to expand...


Thats one id get, there is a newer version now around 50 quid slight better camera etc
 
Generally speaking, do these dashcams require a switched live or permanent live?

On my DD Polo the ciggy lighter seems to be permanently live, does this mean that the dashcam will be recording all of the time or are they smart enough to recognise when they have been stationary for a while & stop recording even if on a permanent live feed?

I don't want to permanently wire in a switched (or unswitched) connection as the car is 14 years old with 160k miles on the clock & wont go on forever.

I have the Nextbase 212 in mind, this is from the manual & seems ambiguous to me...

"The iN-CAR CAM will automatically power on and start recording once power is available. In some vehicles this will be when connections are made, for others the iN-CAR CAM will power on once the ignition has been turned on"
 
TonyP said:
Generally speaking, do these dashcams require a switched live or permanent live?

On my DD Polo the ciggy lighter seems to be permanently live, does this mean that the dashcam will be recording all of the time or are they smart enough to recognise when they have been stationary for a while & stop recording even if on a permanent live feed?

I don't want to permanently wire in a switched (or unswitched) connection as the car is 14 years old with 160k miles on the clock & wont go on forever.

I have the Nextbase 212 in mind, this is from the manual & seems ambiguous to me...

"The iN-CAR CAM will automatically power on and start recording once power is available. In some vehicles this will be when connections are made, for others the iN-CAR CAM will power on once the ignition has been turned on"
Click to expand...

I have the nextbase 212 in our x3. If your cigarette lighter socket is permanently live then the camera will not shut down so you will need to unplug it each time you switch the engine off as it'll drain the battery otherwise.
The other option is a hardwire kit that nextbase do that allows you to connect direct to the fusebox and that way can pick up a live that is only active when ignition is on.
Finally you can pick up the switched live inside the light cluster near the rear view mirror in the z4 so maybe the same for other cars? I think there's a how to on installing a dashcam somewhere on the forum.
 
I'm looking at the Thinkwear F50. I'm going to get hardwire kit and use parking protection mode. Most of the times our cars get damaged seems to be when they're parked. In my opinion there's no point in getting a dash cam that can't record these types of instances. The good thing about the F50 is that it has an internal battery drain cut off. If it senses your car battery drops below 12.2 volts (you can set the level) it will shut down. It will only record in parking mode if it senses movement.

I've done a little research and this is ticking my boxes so far.
 
Thanks all, will have a look inside the courtesy light fitting to see if there's a switched live.
 
I like the idea behind these, ie to capture video images of an accident

My question is the field of view must be reasonably limited if just one cam and mounted on the windscreen?

So would potentially not capture:

Shopping trolley dings
Door being opened against your car in parking
Any rear end impact

I suspect the most common damage is made in a car park when you come back and see with horror a dent in a passenger door or scrap on back panel with somebody getting into or out of their parking bay.

Still tempted though.

Has anyone got any good news stories to share where the cam saved the day?

Cheers :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Dashcam wired in
Replies
7
Views
321
TIMMOS29
T
Rockhopper
DAB/Dashcam issue
Replies
0
Views
185
Rockhopper
Rockhopper
A
Dashcam
Replies
9
Views
2K
Scubaregs
Scubaregs
F
Removing 'A' Pillar to install Dashcam cables
Replies
4
Views
467
FZ4%M40i
F
chanlon1
Recommend a good dashcam please.
Replies
4
Views
340
Scubaregs
Scubaregs
Back
Top Bottom