Why you should own a dashcam
The most important reason: for your personal safety – a dashcam is the impartial witness that you always have in your car in the unfortunate case of an accident.
Another reason to buy a dashcam – use it as evidence in front of the police officer.
Another way to use a car camera is to film the traffic chaos. It’s a very good painkiller for the nerves we accumulate in traffic.
You may also find a much better reason to use such a device – road trips. record landscapes from your trip, monuments and all the wonderful places you discover.
How to choose the best dashboard camera?
The most important features of a good car camera recorder
It may sound weird, but it shouldn’t have a battery or, at least, not a big battery. Why? There are three factors leading to dashcam’s overheating: continuous shooting, sun heat and the battery that is constantly charging. Over-heating leads to battery swelling and destruction of internal components.
If you want to leave the dash camera in the car overnight (for parking surveillance) you need a different setup as the typical battery has an autonomy of 2 hours. You need a direct connection between dashcam and car battery, but we will talk about that later.
A good car dashcam must have WDR (Wide dynamic Range) or HDR (High dynamic Range) technology to shoot quality images even at sunrise or sunset.
That’s because usually we are driving to work very early in the morning and come home late at sunset. These are the two periods when you will most commonly use your car dvr camera.
Choose a dashcam that works well at night.
The producers go two ways: a more expensive and light-sensitive sensor or a lens with a smaller F. Some cheap models have a less expensive sensor and use a lens with lower F number. The only way to figure out if a dashcam is filming well at night is to search YouTube reviews made by real drivers. And be careful to be filmed at night not immediately after sunset.
Also, it must have wide angle lens, at least 130 degrees.
Because it’s a car gadget, it must be very easy to mount and remove from the car holder.
Most dashcams start recording automatically when you start the engine. Check camera’s specifications to be sure auto start is present among dashcam’s features.
Also, a reliable car dvr camera must be able to protect video files.
It should be able to mark some recorded files as “Read Only”. We are talking about important files – accident recordings, etc. Speaking of recording, the dashcam must record around 7 hours of filming on a 32 Gb microSD card.
Parking surveillance is a good feature also.
When the camera enters parking mode it still shoots but starts recording and saving files only when motion sensor or G sensor are activated. This saves you a lot of time if you must search for something on the overnight recording
I do not recommend the action cameras mounted on the car. Those gadgets are not designed to be permanently installed on a car (even though some models have received this function through a firmware update). Continuous charging combined with the sun heat can result in battery destruction and even damage to the camera.
GPS is useful if you want to record the speed on your trips.
Some GPS enabled dashcams have options like: lane change warnings on the motorway and forward collision warnings. There are several models of car dvr cameras can warn you about speedcams using preloaded POI’s.
Best Car Dash Cams
Best dashcams producers in our opinion: Vicovation, Goluk and Mio. The main criterion for which these three brands have been selected is reliability. All dvr cameras from these three manufacturers have a failure rate of less than 1%.
The Vicovation dashcams have the best video quality on the market, are very robust and have no batteries. They only have two very powerful capacitors that keep the camera on for a few seconds from stopping the engine to save the files.
The Goluk dashcams are small and discrete, they don’t have a screen and can be configured through a smartphone app.
The Mio models have a good video quality, cover a larger priced beach, are very robust and use low-capacity batteries (230-300 mAh) to save files when you turn off the engine.
All car cameras can be charged at 12v or 24v (for trucks).
Best Dash Cam – Vico Marcus Opia 2
- Records with WDR and HDR technology
- Max resolution of 2k and can film at 60 FPS at Full HD (1080p)
- 160 ° Wide Angle
- Parking Mode
Optional accessories:
- The CPL filter that is mounted on the Quick Mount (is a standard CPL filter of 52mm and does not necessarily have to be from Vicovation).
- Gps mode that activates lane departure warnings and allows you to display the speed on recorded films.
Vico Marcus Opia 1 is the second top model from Vicovation.
- includes a SONY sensor with high dynamic range and increased sensitivity at night
- it canshoot at 60 FPS at Full HD (1080p)
- 145 ° Film Angle
- Parking Mode Included in the package:
- 3M self-adhesive clamping system .
Optional:
- Quick Mount – for quick installation/dismantling of the camera.
- The CPL filter that is mounted on the Quick Mount (is a standard CPL filter of 52mm and does not necessarily have to be from Vicovation).
- GPS
Goluk T2 – A compact Dashcam with Wi-Fi (includes 32GB card)
- Cylindrical shape – smaller than other dashcams on the market
- Wi-Fi connection with your smartphone (Android or IOS)
- 150 ° wide angle lens
- has a maximum resolution of 1080p (Full HD)
- Separate button to save important files
- No display
Goluk T3 – Compact Dashcam with Wi-Fi (includes micro SD card)
- Cylindrical shape – is more compact than other car cameras on the market
- Compared to Goluk T2, Goluk T3 has a weaker sensor and is therefore cheaper.
- includes which 16 or 32 Gb microSD card.
- Wi-Fi connection with your smartphone (Android or IOS)
- 150 ° angle lens
- has a maximum resolution of 1080p (Full HD)
- Separate button to save important files.
- No Display
Goluk T1 – Compact Dashcam with Wi-Fi (includes 16GB card)
T1 is the cheapest model at Goluk.
- Wi-Fi connection with your smartphone (Android or IOS)
- 150 ° angle lens
- Has a maximum resolution of 1080p (Full HD)
- Separate button to save important recording in a different folder.
- No Screen
Mio MiVue 608
The cheapest Mio car dvr camera
- Filming with WDR technology
- Full HD 1080p
- 140 ° Wide Angle
- Has two micro SD card slots – if you need to record a lot of videos
- Parking mode
- Lane departure warning
- Parking Mode.
Mio Mivue 618
Features versus Mivue 608:
- Has only one micro SD slot
- integrated GPS
- Shoots at 1296p (20% higher than Full HD 1080p).
- Uses WDR technology
- 140 ° Wide Angle Lens
- Parking Mode
Mio MiVue 658 with Wi-Fi
- Wi-Fi connection
- HDR Technology
- Touch Screen
- 150 ° Wide Angle Lens
- 1296p resolution
- Allows you to connect a smartphone and download recorded files from dashcam.
- Speedcams warning
Mio MiVue 688
- comes with Sony video sensor
- 140 ° wide angle lens
- Full HD resolution
- Lane departure warning
- No Wi-Fi and No Touchscreen
- No HDR technology, only WDR
- Speedcams warnings.
Best Front& Rear Dashcam – Our choice
Mio MiVue 698 Dual Camera
It’s a normal dashcam but has a secondary camera which can be mounted on the rear of the car
- Filming with WDR technology
- Front camera shoots at 1296p (Extreme HD resolution)
- Rear camera shoots at 1080p.
- 140 ° Wide Angle Lens
- Parking Mode
- Two micro SD card slots
CPL Filter explained
The CPL filter is the invention of the century in terms of filming in the car. In most cases, the car’s dashboard is reflected pretty much in the windshield and images recorder with a dashcam may contain these shadows or reflections
How to connect your dashcam to car battery
For a proper Parking Mode, you should connect your car camera directly to the car’s battery.
There are two systems that help you with this that can be used with any car model:
Mio MiVue Smart Box
The Mio system connects to your cars fuse box and has a mini USB output. You can connect your camera or other devices to that output. The system continuously measures voltage and when sensing low values automatically power of your dashcam.
Vico Power Plus
The Vicovation system connects the same way and has a car cigarette lighter output.
You can connect any device you want to this output, in this case – the car dvr camera.
Using a temperature sensor, it can detect overheating. If the temperature increases too much in the car, it automatically switches off protecting your dash cam. Also, this gadget includes a timer and a small display
Most asked questions about dash cams
Why does the camera save many files with a few minutes of shooting instead of saving a single file with all the footage?
The answer is quite simple. For various technical reasons, the camera may miss writing on SD card at some point and lose the recording. In this case it is better to lose only two minutes of registration than to lose all the footage. For example, at GoPro and other action rooms, you save large files of 2GB.
It’s very good that these cameras are saving smaller file sizes. However, the newer generation cameras (such as those listed in this guide) do not lose any of the record between files and most video editing software nowadays know how to “paste” the records.
How much can you record on a micro SD card?
A 32 GB card can store about 7 hours of Full HD Video (1080p). Anyway, all the auto video cameras today know how to overwrite old recordings with new ones. Basically you always have the last 7 hours of shooting in the case of a 32 GB card for example. In addition, decent dashcams have a Save button (emergency button) that copies files on a separate folder or protects important files from deleting or rewriting.
Do GPS car cameras have navigation system functionality?
No. The GPS module is only to retrieve information from satellites and establish speed and GPS coordinates while shooting.
A dash camera can be powered by an external battery?
Yes, most car cameras can be charged with an external USB-output battery connected to the camera via a USB-mini USB cable. A 6000 mAh battery could power a car camera for about 5 hours. A 10000 mAh might power it all night long.
Night vision- fake marketing
There are all kinds of car cameras on the market, especially cheap ones, which promote a so called “Night Vision”.
It’s a lie. The real night vision cameras are:
1) infrared cameras
2) thermal vision cameras.
There’s no way you can buy something like that for 100 dollars. Those cameras are ten time more expensive and are found on military vehicles or are sold as a premium feature by various automotive manufacturers.
Fake Night Vision Cameras have those LEDs around the lens. Some have LEDs that emit infrared but are so weak that it’s barely reflected in the windshield and the resulting image is completely dark.
The best car camera for night shooting is a camera with a good sensitive light sensor.
I hope you buy the best dashcam for your needs and at the right price.
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