Which DashCam hides the best in the twins?

[steeloyangster]

I'm about to pull the trigger on this dash cam with the hopes of being able to keep it as discreet as possible on the windshield. I was just wondering if there were any recommended dash cams that have been installed more discreetly than this one would out of the box.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41mCotMp2tL.jpg

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZ0GKVS/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=X8HA U1Y4M7HC&coliid=I3EB9I5ALJENLQ"]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZ0GKVS/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=X8HA U1Y4M7HC&coliid=I3EB9I5ALJENLQ[/ame]

Any help or references will be much appreciated!

[extrashaky]

Everything you ever wanted to know about dash cams can be found at Dash Cam Talk. They review almost everything available.

They named the A118 the "Best Discreet with Screen." They named the Mobius camera the "Best Discreet." The Mobius appears to be smaller, but of course it has no screen. They have pics of them side by side on the A118 page. The A118 is the one on the left in the top left pic.



I'm glad you posted this. I have a higher quality cam for my windshield, but I've been thinking of getting a cheaper rear-facing camera as well. I think that A118 would work really well in the corner of the rear window.

[kodyo]

I use a go pro daily and just take it with me when I leave the car. Not as convenient, but can use for other things too.

[steeloyangster]

Originally Posted by kodyo

I use a go pro daily and just take it with me when I leave the car. Not as convenient, but can use for other things too.

I'm really aiming for something that can do rollover recording so I can 'set it and forget it' until I actually need footage. I don't want to have to constantly delete old videos on a daily basis. But the video quality from the go pro is outstanding. Any dashcams that can get close to that quality?

[djmm]

I use dual dashcam (front and rear) and it's not very noticeable especially if you switch off the recording light:
Blackvue DR550GW dual channel.

It is a set and forget thing (apart from occasional card format to clear the "event", protected timeline)

If you want I can try posting the picture of cam inside the car for you to judge. Might have some recording too.

The cam will overwrite old footage unless it's considered as event, such as heavy bump on road. You can change the sensitivity of this too.
Then if the car is parked, it will turn off recording by itself and when the motion detector detects movement (is someone approaches your car), it will automatically start recording.

When you drive it will start recording again automatically.
It usually comes in a package with power magic pro and you can connect this to your car battery so that it aumatically cut off power to the cam when battery reaches certain set voltage. This is to prevent you draining your battery from continuous recording.

[paulca]

You could use an external recorder that does roll over with the GoPro. Just as a thought. Probably impractical though.

[FRSNewb]

Originally Posted by djmm

I use dual dashcam (front and rear) and it's not very noticeable especially if you switch off the recording light:
Blackvue DR550GW dual channel.

It is a set and forget thing (apart from occasional card format to clear the "event", protected timeline)

If you want I can try posting the picture of cam inside the car for you to judge. Might have some recording too.

The cam will overwrite old footage unless it's considered as event, such as heavy bump on road. You can change the sensitivity of this too.
Then if the car is parked, it will turn off recording by itself and when the motion detector detects movement (is someone approaches your car), it will automatically start recording.

When you drive it will start recording again automatically.
It usually comes in a package with power magic pro and you can connect this to your car battery so that it aumatically cut off power to the cam when battery reaches certain set voltage. This is to prevent you draining your battery from continuous recording.

I wouldn't mind seeing what that dashcam looks like

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by FRSNewb

I wouldn't mind seeing what that dashcam looks like

There's a full review of the DR550GW at Dash Cam Talk, complete with pics and videos.



P.S. I have no affiliation with that website. I just came across it when looking for a camera of my own and haven't seen a better resource for dash cam comparisons.

[steeloyangster]

Originally Posted by djmm

I use dual dashcam (front and rear) and it's not very noticeable especially if you switch off the recording light:
Blackvue DR550GW dual channel.

It is a set and forget thing (apart from occasional card format to clear the "event", protected timeline)

If you want I can try posting the picture of cam inside the car for you to judge. Might have some recording too.

The cam will overwrite old footage unless it's considered as event, such as heavy bump on road. You can change the sensitivity of this too.
Then if the car is parked, it will turn off recording by itself and when the motion detector detects movement (is someone approaches your car), it will automatically start recording.

When you drive it will start recording again automatically.
It usually comes in a package with power magic pro and you can connect this to your car battery so that it aumatically cut off power to the cam when battery reaches certain set voltage. This is to prevent you draining your battery from continuous recording.

Sounds excellent. I'd love to see some footage and a picture of how discreet this camera looks in the twins!!

Another point that I'm concerned about is the 'bump save' feature or when the camera automatically saves and locks a video clip because of the 'G-Sensor'. It's a feature that I definitely want to use but I fear that the twins' stiff ride will set it off constantly and before I know it the memory card will be full. Is this an issue that you've come across? Does changing the sensitivity help any??

BTW, I'm really aiming for a discreet camera because I've already had two cars stolen from me within a 6 month period. (Don't drive a Honda and live in Saint Paul, MN.) Even though newer cars, such as ours, has theft immobilizer features it sure as hell doesn't stop them from breaking a window because they see something attached to a suction cup on the windshield. Does the Scion FRS have a car alarm if someone were to break a window and open the door from the inside?

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by steeloyangster

Does the Scion FRS have a car alarm if someone were to break a window and open the door from the inside?

There is a factory alarm, but I'm not sure if it's on the base model. I know it's included on the Limited BRZ (because I have one).

I have mine turned on, but fortunately I've never had to find out whether it works.

[aegisdrgn]

Originally Posted by steeloyangster

Sounds excellent. I'd love to see some footage and a picture of how discreet this camera looks in the twins!!

Another point that I'm concerned about is the 'bump save' feature or when the camera automatically saves and locks a video clip because of the 'G-Sensor'. It's a feature that I definitely want to use but I fear that the twins' stiff ride will set it off constantly and before I know it the memory card will be full. Is this an issue that you've come across? Does changing the sensitivity help any??

BTW, I'm really aiming for a discreet camera because I've already had two cars stolen from me within a 6 month period. (Don't drive a Honda and live in Saint Paul, MN.) Even though newer cars, such as ours, has theft immobilizer features it sure as hell doesn't stop them from breaking a window because they see something attached to a suction cup on the windshield. Does the Scion FRS have a car alarm if someone were to break a window and open the door from the inside?

I have the single video version (DR500GW). You can change the g-sensor trigger threshold in the computer viewer software and in the app. It's a sliding scale from 0 to 1 G. You are correct, the stiff suspension does trigger it over most bumps, but I have it at 1G and it's not too bad.

The memory card will fill up normally while you drive - the video files are either "normal" recordings, "g sensor triggered / event" recordings, or "parking/motion detected" videos <= only available if you hardwire your dashcam to the battery so it runs when your car is off.

You can also set a different g-sensor threshold when the car is parked - for giggles, I set it to 2%, and it was triggered when my friend's STI drove past it (dat low bass boxer rumble!)

By default, the video files are overwritten in this order: earliest recorded, erased first. You can use the computer viewer software to change that, so that event videos have storage priority, etc.

I am very happy with how discreet my dashcam is - in the previous post's picture you will notice that silver band? I just used electrical tape to cover it. That silver ring around the lense? some more electrical tape, or you can even plastidip it.

It doesn't use a suction cup for mounting, it's 3M double sided tape - so its a very small "footprint" on your windshield (just don't mount it too close to your rearview mirror....otherwise it's kinda hard to remove it from it's mount because it slides to the left, out of the silver mount ring, silly me).

As for the alarm, and your history of having cars stolen...I would highly suggest you invest in a LoJack system over a dashcam if you must choose between the two.

Hope the info helps!

[djmm]

Yeah what Aegis said. Camera is not attention grabbing but if someone has malicious intent, they will actively look for things to steal anyway, regardless of size.

[paulca]

For theft you want a camera that uploads via 3G/4G pictures every few seconds of the driver.

You can program a mobile phone to do the same, but getting it hooked up to an alarm might be tricky and I'm not sure the motion sensors in the phone are sensitive enough.

[djmm]

Here are the pics of the cam installed inside the car - sorry for the crap quality - was using missus' iphone in the basement car park.

Front cam from inside



Rear cam from inside



Rear cam from outside - my car is slightly tinted, but really the rear cam is barely noticeable even with the recording light unless you look closely.




Front cam from outside - this one is quite noticeable if you leave the recording light on and if you don't cover the silver part of cam with some black tape or something.




And here are some sample vids I took:

[ame="http://vimeo.com/91063130"]Blackvue DR550GW Sample Footage on Vimeo[/ame]

[ame="http://vimeo.com/91782467"]1 on Vimeo[/ame]

[ame="http://vimeo.com/91782468"]2 on Vimeo[/ame]

[ame="http://vimeo.com/91782469"]3 on Vimeo[/ame]

[ame="http://vimeo.com/91782470"]4 on Vimeo[/ame]

Some of them were taken either at night or at less than optimal condition - ie. raining at night. Considering we don't have rear rain wiper, raining = pretty much forget about rear footage as the rain drops smear the whole screen.
I don't think I've uploaded all of them in HD, so you might want to check Youtube for other sample vids. But at least you can sort of see how it looks like in the 86.

Overall video quality, it will be good enough to determine who's at fault when you have accident, but the bitrate and quality is not sufficient to record say: car coming fast from opposite direction and slightly swiped the side of your car (but I haven't seen any dashcam that can do this).
But for things like proving someone cutting your lane, bump you from behind, doing retarded thing in front of you, it will do the job fine.

Regarding the installation, there is no visible wiring running across from front cam to back cam - was installed professionally.

I was just looking at the website and looks like they have new one with all black cam, which should be less noticeable.