Dashcams

I’d like to get one, can anyone recommend one please?

Ta.

I don’t have a dashcam but am looking myself.  The Viofo range seem to get good reviews.

Whichever one records at the highest frame rate for your budget.
In the unfortunate event that you need to retrieve footage of something that happens at speed then a high frame rate will likely be  more useful than high resolution.
If things go breasts ascending then it usually happens in fractions of a second.

I just replaced my viafo one with a nextbase front and rear.
Seems to work really well with clear video.
Thankfully not had to test the footage so far though.
The viafo seem to be pretty old style cams though as mine was routed via the fuses, the new one plugs into the obd port

i’ve had a Nextbase 622 (i think) and currently got a garmin Mini 2.

I think the image is better on the nextbase, but the garmin voice response is second to none.

I’ve never ‘needed one’, but nice to have vid evidence either way.

DrP

I’ve got a Road Angel ‘halo’.

It’s OK… but not stellar. Hides behind the drivers mirror so not obtrusive when driving. Uses an App to set up rather than on the device itself.

My biggest moan is that the instructions are shiite and the wording in the instructions doesn’t match the wording in the App, and both are ambiguous, so I’m always left unsure if what I did actually set up what I want.  Only stuff on YouTube is marketing bollox and no real world user stuff, so that’s no help.

Suspect if I was buying again, I’d go for Garmin – better the devil I know, etc. !

Edit.  I HAVE used it 2x to report total utter knobhaeds who tried to kill be and others on the roads in the 2 years of ownership. (a  total dickwad in the Highlands in a Navaro pickup on the wrong side of the road with oncoming cars and chevrons in the middle, everyone had to take avoiding measures to prevent a multi-fatality crash, and still reaching Aviemore only 20 yards before I did.

And a knobjockey in a shed of a   Celica that ballsed up an entry to a roundabout, went OVER the roundabout, swerved in front of a Landy then brake-ckecked them. At Chapel.   People like that  need astration for driving that badly to make sure the world’s population starts to improve).

Techmoan on YouTube used to do a lot of reviews but not so much now, he did recently do an update on the ones he uses personally and that’s probably the most honest video you’ll find.

After a very near miss with a motorbike two weekends ago (mercifully he missed me doing a stupid overtake but 5 minutes up the road he killed himself and closed the road for 10 hours..), I bought a “Jarviscam” 4k front and 1080p rear from Amazon. Less than £100 and seems OK.

Fitted it on Thursday and looked at some footage from the weekend and it all seems pretty clear.

So far I would recommend. Hope I never have to use it in anger.

@scruff9252 is fitting straightforward?

Very – the thing that took the longest was finding an appropriate fuse that powered off with the ignition. Whole thing start to finish took around an hour.

I did need to buy an additional had wire kit as I didn’t want a trailing cable to the cig socket. All in I think I paid £105 or so.

If they do a model that works for your car i recommend the fitcamX.  Its not got all the functions etc of some but what it does have (which is shy its subject to having the right car) is fit and forget in 5 mins.

They are designed to wire straight into the auto wiper electical connection behind the rear view mirror and quite literally are plug and play.  I fitted mine to my wifes Mini Cooper in 5 mins in the dark one evening.  It replaces the plastics already there so you dont even see it.  Linked to ignition and even comes with its own sd card.

I’m not one to go through the functions of a dash cam but its nice to know its there.  Ive checked every so often and yes it records everything it needs to.

Not NextBase. I’m on my third 522GW, they are unreliable.

Literally every time I’ve ever needed it, I’ve looked over and it’s been sitting there frozen, not recording or just off.   Shame because the features are good etc.

I hear Garmin are the ones to have.

I’ve got Nextbases front and rear in both cars, I was also going to mention the recent Techmoan update video, some very sharp footage on there.

The Nextbases are ok, not outstanding, good enough to just about pick out a nearby numberplate in the dark and wet on a motorway with the front lit by headlamps, rear in the dark unlikely to catch number plates… Reliable though

Not NextBase. I’m on my third 522GW, they are unreliable.

This – every NextBase we had died within a few years.

Now using Ring https://shop.ringautomotive.com/rsdc4000-smart-hd1440p-slim-dash-cam.html front-facing (and it’s great), with a RSDCR1000 for the rear (which is a bit shit)

Nextbase look to be rebranded import cameras with flakey aftermarket software loaded on. Often get slated by real world reviews. Even if the media seems to love them.

I usually just go on Amazon and pick one in budget with good reviews.

Have not had a bad one yet.

People’s experience of Nextbase cameras being unreliable is interesting.  Toyota offer them as an accessory.  This should link to advert from one dealer:

https://www.rrg-group.com/toyota/service-parts-offers/integrated-dash-cam/

I had front and rear cameras fitted when I bought my second-hand Toyota.  They were much more expensive than the ones I bought from Amazon and fitted to my previous car, but I think that they will be covered by the Toyota warranty.  Every annual service extends the warranty by 12 months / 10,000 miles up to 10 years or 100,000 miles (for things that are not considered ‘consumables’, I would expect).

If they keep packing in, could lead to some interesting discussions with the dealer…

Thinkware are decent, a member of my family had to use their front and rear cameras in anger after being hit and they worked very well, perfect footage that led to prosecution of the other party.

Got a nextbase 622gw, been faultless for a couple of years. But for some reason both Halfords and the SEAT main dealer couldn’t fit the rear camera – something to do with the wiring fot the towbar.