Dash Cam Recommendations

i have the vanture n2pro you can pick up off amazon for about 120. i like that it records inside and out.

I have had a car parked on the street totalled due to a DUI hit and run, someone back right up onto the hood of my non-moving car in a parking lot and say it was my fault, etc. Not having to play the ā€œhe said, she saidā€ game sure sounds nice for $1-200.

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I spent a little more for 4k image quality to better pick up license plate numbers.

@jay3 Just ordered a set. Thanks for sharing.

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Not sure exactly if this was mentioned before or not but Iā€™ve been using Owl for the last 3 years on my vehicle. Contains guard-mode and records before impact, plugs right into OBD2 and you can basically connect to your camera through their app 24/7/365. It has a two-way talk system, and a flashlight you can turn on at night. The only downside is you have to pay a monthly fee for using their LTE service -around $20 for an unlimited amount of time before that they used to charge that same price per 60mins.

Just swapped my blackvue 4k 2ch into my new car. Still the best image quality i have seen, and love the ability to record while parked too

Always hear good things about blackvue and finally got one but Iā€™m not a fan. Slow to boot up, software finicky, microsd needs constant reformatting and going into parking mode kinda randomly. Had good experiences with street guardian and thinkware. My wife doesnā€™t care but she even commented that it sucks.

Got a Blackvue DR750x-2ch. Installed it, wired to the rear fuse box, easy peasy lemon squeezy. Now I wanted to get a battery pack for park mode installed, because people in malls and parking lots are assholes. Battery pack to car, easy, simple clear. Where Iā€™m getting a little confused is this. The battery pack to camera is designed as 12 volt socket. I obviously donā€™t have a 12 volt plug on the camera, but rather a 3 wire cable. Has anyone tried the setup like to cut off the 12 volt from the battery pack, connect camera power to battery power, camera ground to battery ground, and camera ACC cable still to ACC fuse in the car. This way (at least the theory works in my head), the camera will draw power from the battery pack, but the get a trigger from ACC wire to go into parking mode instead of internal timer + gsensor.

Am I over complicating this?

You are better off posting this on a forum either related to your car or car electronics. Donā€™t think you will find much help on leasehackr.

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If anyone ever comes across this situation, here is what Iā€™ve figured out and got working.

Celllink Neo battery hard wired to the rear fuse block on the cigarette lighter fuse with add-a-fuse and ground to body. In X3 specifically, there is a nice cubby under the fuse block, hidden with a removable cover. The battery fits nicely in there and canā€™t be seen at all.

camera hard wired to a 3 wire output from the battery (additional cable is apparently available). The battery provides 12 volt, ground and Accessory wires. Acc wire turns off at the same time as the power to the battery, which in BMW case is about 6 minutes after car off.

Since the battery is connected to what the car thinks is a cigarette adapter, the draw does not trigger any codes, which happens in BMW if you draw power straight from an always on fuse for parking mode.

The setup works perfectly, switches in and out of parking mode correctly and parking mode is dependent on this new battery instead of vehicle battery. Now just to wait for my blendmount to get rid of the 3m tape on the windshield and the setup will be complete.

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For a low cost dash camā€¦these have been great. I purchased about 8 of them over the past few months for various cars (for front and rear coverage) and have not had any problems at all with them.

Crosstour Mini Dash Cam 1080P FHD Car Camera Recorder with 1.5ā€ LCD Screen 170Ā°Wide Angle, Parking Mode, Motion Detection, G-Sensor, Loop-Recording and WDR https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q38D2K7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_HVWZX7WYNQWD23XPP22R?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

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Any good recommendations for 2021/2022? Looking for 4K with USB power.

The Crosstour Mini Dash Cam is no longer available on Amazon

Not surprising, most of these cheap electronics have a very short sales lifeā€¦

Any suggestions? I never had one, it seems these days this is probably a must to protect ourselves.
I am considering front and rear, want something good, reliable, and not super expensive.

I usually just get one on Amazon that has a lot of positive reviews.

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LTT made a video on this subject recently and have some good recommendations.

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That YouTube video is spot-on. When I was looking to upgrade my dashcam, I realized I could not trust Amazon reviews. Unlike other products, recommendations regarding dashcams are all over the place, and almost all contain fake reviews. And just as the video said, paying more rarely gets you better quality.

(I went to Reddit and read recommendations from Uber and Lyft drivers that swore $300-$400 were all you should buy, but others would then comment on failure rates and lack of company warranty, etc. The companies seem to disappear rather quickly as well)

I would only recommend purchasing one with a rear-facing camera. While sometimes I review footage and can easily make out license plate numbers and signs, at other times, I cannot. So in critical instances, I read the plate number aloud (I am not worried about street signs as you can always go back to the scene if necessary).

The dashcam industry is a terrible one. However, he is 100 percent correct in everything he says, and I would trust his recommendations.

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