Dash Cam

[Firefly]

Royal

My Dashcam is SmarTure B200 1296p 2K Ultra HD. £35.99 from Amazon, SanDisk Ultra £12.46. Great set up, no need to spend more.

Jackie

[Devil]

Result of this thread: my dashcam was installed 3½ years ago and gave good results. I've been sleeping on both ears and not checked its working for 2 years ++. Yesterday, I brought in the memory chip, put it in the 'puter. It was not even detected! I don't know yet whether the problem is just the chip or also the gizmo - will check.

Thanks for alerting me by this thread.

Update: put in a new chip and it, too, gave up the ghost. It seems the gizmo is indeed faulty. I'll be replacing it but am not sure yet by which model.

WARNING: Many of the models on offer do not record GPS data. Without this, insurance companies may not accept the videos as evidence in the event of a ka-boom!. With GPS, co-ordinates (your position), exact time, speed history etc. are also recorded for the time leading up to the accident, frame by frame.

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[Devil]

After much deliberation, have ordered the following on eBay (£12 cheaper than Amazon)

2017-08-28_130122.png (28.69 KiB) Viewed 7515 times

NB It has GPS!!!

[PaphosAL]

That looks to be an excellent choice of dashcam, Devil !!

I think you will be impressed with the mount design, where the usb power cord plugs into the mount itself, rather than into the camera body. Also, the camera attaches to the mount magnetically.

Apart from GPS, it also has Wi-Fi, so it can download stuff to your smartphone! Some of the dashcam reviews advise against Sandisk cards. For your 32gb SDHC or SDXC Micro SD, Kingston or Samsung come highly recommended. But ensure a genuine OEM guaranteed source is used (as there a lots of chinese clones on the market!)

Cheers- AL

[JimX]

I have never needed to format the card, in any dash camera I have had at any time, as you say they just loop and continue to record over the last recording, mine is set to ten minutes before the next cycle starts, if you wish to stop just pull out the power cable, then save the recording to your PC. 8MB card

[PaphosAL]

What make and size SD card is yours please, Jim? Cheers- AL

[PaphosAL]

Just pushed the boat out and treated myself to this baby, whilst wide awake on night shift:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/e46/Garmin-D ... B01AY6PMMK

Checked the same model on fleaBay and it's trending from £230 to over £300, so I think that £160 is a steal !!! Particularly as I can collect it from my local Post Office on the way to Tesco tomorrow... Checked the spec out very carefully before committing to buy, and it sure ticks all the boxes for me, given that Garmin is a very respected name as well in Satnav.

Another tenner for a hard wiring kit, and AL will be a very happy chappy, LOL!

[PaphosAL]

Yes thanks. I have got it now from that link. Never had a dashcam before and think it might be more useful on the rear window but how do you fit it. My rear (back) door opens and the back window opens and closes. I like it fully open during hot weather so it can't be fitted to the glass.

Think I've found your solution, Austin, during my multiple searches for my combined 5" Satnav and Dashcam Garmin self-Birthday prezzy at silly o'clock this morning, LOL!

Spotted a picture of a rear camera mount. Look at the rear headrests on your car and their round steel pillars. Cam clips to one of them near the centre. Voilá!

Cheers- AL

[trevnhil]

Sounds like a good idea, though it may be difficult to hide the wiring, and keep it out of the way if you ever fold the seats down..

[Firefly]

Just checked my Dash Cam today and it does indeed have all the necessary time, date, etc recorded. No need for more expensive models it seems.

Jackie

[PaphosAL]

Just checked my Dash Cam today and it does indeed have all the necessary time, date, etc recorded. No need for more expensive models it seems.

Jackie

By "etc" do you mean the vital GPS coordinates at the point of the event, Jackie?
Cheers- AL

[trevnhil]

Whilst GPS coordinates are possibly good to have, the actual video will show where you have been and where the person crashed into you .

[PaphosAL]

Trev- have you forgotten Devil's post he made in this thread 27 Aug 2017 09:08, to which you replied to as "unsure"??

He is warning us that if your Dashcam does NOT have GPS coordinates support, then the insurance company can refuse to accept your video footage as evidence... Have you checked your trusty dashcams yet, to ascertain whether or not they have GPS support?

Cheers- AL

[trevnhil]

No I have not forgotten Al. But all insurance companies are not the same. I checked here and I was told it would be accepted if the location could be seen from the video footage..
When all is said and done, a crash involving the insurance company will have their representatives at the scene taking photographs of the vehicles and their location, and they are accepted.
I doubt many still cameras have GPS

Things crash wise are a little different here than in the UK. The Police do not always attend..

[JimX]

AL/devil my insurers never asked for GPS at the time I made use of video evidence, my older camera did not have GPS function, it was excepted and proof of the lady drivers guilt, so this maybe the case in the UK but not it seems as in my case on Cyprus. (My insurer is Abbygate).

Trev good morning, my small digital camera does have GPS function it is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10 super little camera although little used now as I always have my Samsung phone with me, that also has GPS.

[trevnhil]

Interesting to hear that your insurers accept video footage without GPS..
As you know, the insurance companies representative attend all crashes here.. And vehicles are NOT moved until the photos have been taken..

[Dominic]

It is possible to use a smart phone as a fully functional GPS, even with data turned off. The GPS functionality is independent of the SIM card, though a network connection will make the reading more accurate.

What you have to do is create an offline copy of your map though.

If there is sufficient interest in phone as GPS, I can start a separate thread in the tech section. I don't use the tech myself (I have a dedicated handheld GPS) but a lot of people in the geocaching community do, and I can funnel some of their expertise here, if that makes sense.

[JimX]

Trev our vehicles were moved before the insurers arrived they agreed for us to do this, they never wanted GPS, I uploaded the video to Utube where it still remains, mine was a fairly minor collision.

[Dominic]

Why would they want GPS info? For the film footage to be relevent, you would need to be able to accurately identify the other car, presumably by it's number plate or the fact that the driver could be seen. Once you can do that, the GPS data is irrelevent, surely?

[Devil]

1. the assessors cannot see what led up to an accident; in one case, with a touchette, the other (faulty) driver was the wife of a notable - guess who lost?
2. the reason I bought a dashcam was that I was forced off the road by a white van that was overtaking a car with damage to my car caused by a bollard (€900, thank you!). No time to note the van no. and he whizzed off illico presto. If I had had a dashcam I could have identified him and possibly had him up for dangerous driving. Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have let him bash my car (and me?).
3. Not all accidents involve another vehicle (e.g., an animal). I once had a near miss with a stray goat on a country road miles from anywhere. If I had hit it, should I have waited for an assessor?

IMO, I think the extra for GPS is a worthwhile insurance.