Dash cams, what to get and where to get it (Q&A only)

Selling my Audi A4 Estate after almost 7 years!!

http://www.adverts.ie/car/audi/a4-avant/2003-audi-a4-avant/10100897

Daily roadsvoyager,app for phone,free,good dash cam,saw it on fifth gear,am happy with it

http://www.adverts.ie/10193925

My Saab !

The car is sold already so these Discs just taking up Space, also have a mk5 gti engine cover with a crack on top left corner, free with the discs.

If a fellow boardsie want to buy, they can have the lot for half price.

http://www.adverts.ie/exterior-parts/golf-gti-mk5-2006-brake-discs/8983660

The night time picture on the Xiaomi above is excellent, as is the sunlight/shadow performance (HDR). I work with automotive cameras and it's a particularly difficult thing to get them to work well in all ranges of circumstances.

http://touch.adverts.ie/car/volkswagen/passat/2003-volkswagen-passat-for-sale-nct-d-and-txed/10060950

Have done good bit of Work on it.

micks_address wrote: »

Hi folks,
I have a mini 806 that is hardwired to the back of my double din unit. Radio installer wired it to Blue wire on the original aerial on my civic 9g..

I don't think the power to the camera is stable. It sometimes boots and shuts down again.. Often in a loop and then eventually powers up. It also looses power when the auto stop kicks in. The radio doesn't stop though so I can't figure it.

I tried plugging my phone into the usb cable to the camera and it won't charge my mobile... Should it?

I've tried two different micro sd cards with similar results..

Any suggestions?
Cheers,
Mick

Hi, just saw this. We have mini801s (I think) in both cars and I've noticed that the mini-USB connection on the screen mount is not that tight which can cause small power glitches/red light flickering - seems to worsen with age. On one car we've plugged the cable into the camera directly which has made it more reliable, on the other I've positioned the cable in the headlining to put some inward pressure on the connection, if that fails I'll look at fixing the USB lead to the mount in some way.

I actually thought there were hardware problems with the units but I think it was just the power intermittency.

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

I think my issue was that the charging was intermittent so the unit was continually trying to charge - the red light would be dim and/or flicker. I did check the footage and it was OK this time, the previous time it happened I had bought a 4m USB->mini USB lead which I think was too long so the voltage dropped aswell and this was enough to make the unit lose some settings, reset the clock for example, although it did record with a few jumps.

Mine has been loosing the date and time too.

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Seems that the Xiaomi Yi dash cam produces possibly the best image to date, it's truly excellent.

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

Only thing that's putting me off is the lack of english menus (english coming soon apparently) and the size of the mount. I need my cameras tiny, i'd have to come up with a custom mount to keep it all compact.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

The night time picture on the Xiaomi above is excellent, as is the sunlight/shadow performance (HDR). I work with automotive cameras and it's a particularly difficult thing to get them to work well in all ranges of circumstances.

The above Xiaomi Yi camera is being released with english software next week, I emailed the manufacturer.
Will pick one up and try and fabricate a much less intrusive mount. It might even 3M tape to the rear view mirror.

It does, the lane departure warning is interesting, as is the wifi preview/setup like on a GoPro. He told me they'll be on their Amazon store, I followed up asking if it will be on Amazon UK, no reply yet.

Under €100 delivered. Probably hit with VAT & duty though.

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Xiaomi-Yi-2-7-165-Degree-Full-HD-1296P-Car-DVR-Recorder-Dashcam-Support-ADAS-/301884629413?var=&hash=item4649b9e1a5:m:m0Xh1DNY4hZm7iqIeeC4fdg

English one could be more...

clint_silver wrote: »

Do you leave the cam in the car all the time and only take it out when you want to look at the vid or remove every night for security?

I do, i have a mini 0806 & a mini 0801 front & back, and with them both being relatively discreet, I never take them out, I have doubles of all SD cards, so if I need to review video, I'll just swap the cards.

clint_silver wrote: »

Do they auto start recording when you turn on engine and is it a rolling hour of video or whatever your card can handle or do you have to start the cam?

The cameras usually start by themselves, mine are plugged into a socket which only gets energised when the ignition is turned on. when the ignition is turned off, they lose power and shut down (most dash cams would have a battery, but only a small one good for about 5-10 minutes, this is simply so when the power is turned off, the camera has time to save the last file and shut down properly.

clint_silver wrote: »

Does the memory card over write or do you have to manually clear it off

Usually the cameras record video in blocks of either 1, 3 or 5 minutes (you decide), and once a memory card is full, the camera simply overwrites the oldest files on the card (with my 0806 & 64GB card, I get about 10 hours of recording before it goes back and starts writing over the oldest files, so I'll always have my last 10 hours of driving saved)

clint_silver wrote: »

Do they charge from the car or run off the car, as in, if car isn't started can you still record?

some of them do this, it's a function called parking guard that starts the camera recording if it feels a bang or movement of some sort. I don't bother with it, as you either need a camera with a decent battery, or a camera that's always connected to your cars power supply, this would them mean manually turning on/off when you start driving.