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Am considering forward facing dashcam for my daily commute. Work rotating shifts so my commute to and from work is 6am, 7am, 2pm, 3pm, 10:30pm, and 11pm. My concerns are distracted phone zombies and DUI drivers. DUI is far too common where I live in south Louisiana. Are the $50 and less cameras worth it for a dashcam novice for my daily commute needs? Would i be better off not buying the dashcams at this price range at all? Can’t really justify spending more than this for an 8 mile commute at this time because of current budget expenses like medical bills for example. How easy is it to upload the video from these low price models to a phone, tablet, or laptop? Have these devices become a target of thieves breaking into cars to steal them? Do some thieves break into vehicles even if windshield mounted devices aren’t visible but the suction cup mark is still visible? Taking the camera into the home or work is easy but other locations (like grocery shopping) would require hiding the camera somewhere inside the vehicle. I’ve seen aps that turn your phone into a dashboard camera. Have any of you tried them? Are they worth trying? My phone doesn’t have a large amount of memory. Would they allow a certain amount of memory to be used and constantly recorded over until an impact or touch control to save a segment of memory?
I have one for each of my 3 cars. one was $100 and the other two were $50 each on sale. You can research it and determine what features you need. Mine works with a microSD card. So can either just remove the card or connect the entire camera to your computer/tablet via USB. In either case, it just comes up as an external storage so you can move/copy it.
All of the ones I have have a "incident" button. Basically you would press it to save the recording. Normally, it loops and over writes the oldest files when it runs out of space. The only 'gotcha' I've experienced is having the date get reset if I don't drive the car for a long time. When that happens, the time on the camera reverts to the default setting (for example 2014). Now, it'll just keep overwriting the same file since all the other ones will be a more recent date. Not been in an accident or anything, but will often have a footage of interest that I wanted to go back. But then realize it got overwritten because the time was reset.
I bought a $50-60 one by and it goes over the rear view mirror and can do VGA, 720P or 1080P and has been pretty decent.
The brand I use right now on both cars are Pruveeo F5 that mount directly to the windshield and the Pruveeo D700 7in touch screen that foes over my rear view mirror. https://pruveeo.us/products/
Another brand that is a good balance of cost vs quality is the GW1C, which mounts to the windshield, typically about $50, but be careful for the clones out there. Spytech is the genuine one.
A $30-50 one is enough to tell a story of what happened.
Honestly even the cheap chinese ones you can get on eBay for $10 are "1080p" these days. But quality still varies widely. All of them would capture an incident. Just the better ones would be able to get a legible license plate further away and with poor lighting conditions. Check reviews on the specific model you go after. I like for them to have gps logging as well. That way you can navigate to an incident via a route map(hey that funny thing happened at the intersection of..) rather than have to manually scan through a bunch of 5 minute clips.
And it came very handy in the last accident I was in. Proved my no fault 100%.
Both of my cams are cheapo $35 ones. One runs for like 4 yrs by now. I had to replace memory card once, that's about it.
I see no point to spend big bucks on them, as cheapo ones work fine. The only drawback is cable run to it and it falling down off the windshield ever so often in the heat. I also think about getting dedicated one of the rear glass for my NX200T. Don't really want to run long cable from LP mounted one to the front cam, for 2nd video feed. It's easier simply to have one installed onto the tailgate glass and pointed down, there's power outlet in the cargo area.
And it came very handy in the last accident I was in. Proved my no fault 100%.
Both of my cams are cheapo $35 ones. One runs for like 4 yrs by now. I had to replace memory card once, that's about it.
I see no point to spend big bucks on them, as cheapo ones work fine. The only drawback is cable run to it and it falling down off the windshield ever so often in the heat. I also think about getting dedicated one of the rear glass for my NX200T. Don't really want to run long cable from LP mounted one to the front cam, for 2nd video feed. It's easier simply to have one installed onto the tailgate glass and pointed down, there's power outlet in the cargo area.
I got one that was about $150.. But that was 3 years ago now, so comparable is probably $50 today.
Thinkware is the brand I got.. I do recommend sticking with a 'known' name like them.. You buy an off-brand and.. You often get less than what you pay for.
Another important feature is the viewing angle.. Bigger, the better. 130 degree at a minimum.
I do recommend getting one that has GPS, because that not only protects you against someone backing up at a red light and then claiming you rear ended them, but also against a cop who grabs the wrong vehicle.
That's the one the Dashcam forum fawns over, in an almost religious manor. I still haven't bought into the movement (heck, I'm still using a flip phone from 2009), but I'd be hard-pressed to go for anything more. All recommendations say to go with the $10 capacitor "battery" for in-car use.
Absolutely worth it, IMO. Great low light capability with the WDR. That's what drives the price up, I believe.
That looks exactly like me camera, only it is different brand. They seem to sell it under different brand names. Strange?
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