Why install a dah cam?
You've seen them on the news, crime programmes and some of the footage even goes viral on social media. And they're becoming increasingly popular with motorists in the UK. In fact, from research we carried out, dash cam ownership has gone from 1% to 15% in just 4 years.¹
They're an effective way to see how we and others drive and useful for finding out who was at fault in a car accident. And if you ever break down, dash cams can act as a GPS tracker which can help emergency services find you, and get you out of harm's way.
If you suspect you've been a victim of a crash for cash fraud, submitting dash cam evidence could help you be properly compensated and prevent it happening to others.
ou’ve probably heard the term “defensive driving,” which refers to a style of driving that involves constant vigilance against the unsafe behaviors of other drivers. The theory is that if you’re on the lookout for aggression, mistakes, and other issues with other drivers on the road, you can take corrective action and keep yourself out of trouble. None of that would be necessary if every driver on the road was as safe and conscientious as you are, but the fact is that there are some pretty lousy drivers out there.
The police already use dash cam videos in their cars and the footage they record is often taken as evidence when prosecuting bad or dangerous drivers.
Three important factors in purchasing dascam
The larger the camera angle, the wider the range that can be recorded. Now the mainstream dash cam has a viewing angle of more than 120 degrees, and a better model can reach 170 degrees and 360 degrees without dead ends.
However, the larger the camera angle, the wider the shooting range, and the farther away from the object, the less likely it is to see the details.
300mm lens: Birds dozens of meters away, the feathers on the body can be seen clearly, but the whole picture, only this bird
16mm： wide-angle lens: birds, trees, mountains, streams and sky can be photographed, but can not see the feathers on the bird
Therefore, you need to know what you want. If you are worried about the other party's escape after the accident, you should buy a recorder that can see the license plate at a distance.
If you want to completely record the surrounding body, the inside of the car, etc., you are more suitable for 170 degrees, even 360 degrees of the camera.
Image Quality
The image quality of the recorder depends on the quality of the lens, sensor quality, system mix, light intensity, angle, and speed.
Under the same conditions, the higher the pixel, the better.
Currently, the recorders on the market generally have a resolution of 1080p, and a better model can reach 4K (but this type of recorder is also very expensive)
In the driving recorders I have used, the pixels reach 1080P and the price is below 100 US dollars. The video is smooth and there are campark dash cam and toguard dash cam. The price of campark dash cam is a little cheaper, under the same parameters.
Night vision quality and aperture
The quality of night vision depends mainly on two factors: the aperture size, the range of the sensor ISO. The larger the aperture, the higher the ISO, the more sensitive it is to light, and the brighter video can be recorded at night.
If you often walk the night and the light is not good, you should choose a dash cam with a large aperture. Record brighter video in the same light. But objects that are too far or too close will vanish. If you rarely walk the night, then you don't have to choose a large aperture for the pursuit of night vision quality. The small aperture dash cam has more depth of field, and the objects that are a little farther or closer are clearer.
Common features of mainstream Dashcam
Wide Dynamic Range refers to a higher degree of tolerance for imaging quality. The wider the dynamic range, the more detailed the dark part and the overexposed part in the same light; if the dynamic range is very narrow, the dark part is dark and nothing can be seen, and the overexposed part is white, and the same is not clear. .
Most driving recorders save a file every few minutes instead of saving a huge file until the storage space is exhausted. It can usually be set to save every 3 minutes, 5 minutes or 10 minutes, but some models can only be saved once for 3 minutes (or 5 minutes). After the storage space is used up, the system will automatically overwrite the oldest video file and continue recording.
In the event of a collision, the driving recorder senses a sudden change in position and automatically locks the current video to prevent it from being deleted by the system after the storage space is full. Most driving recorders also have a manual save function that locks the current video with a button.
Motion sensing Motion Detection
Even if the vehicle is in a flameout state, if there is an object moving within a certain range in front of the vehicle, such as someone walking past and other vehicles approaching, the driving recorder will automatically wake up and start recording. Park Mode records after being hit, and Motion Detection starts recording when other vehicles are near and have not scraped.
It should be noted that the driving recorder itself only carries a small amount of battery. The daily work requires an external power supply, usually a cigarette lighter in the car, and the cigarette lighter has no power supply, so the driving recorder will not work. To use the Park Mode and Motion Detection features
In the recorder I have used, the Campark has the best automatic stop monitoring function.
When the campark R10 dash cam (backup camera) is parked, even if the camera is not turned on, it can automatically sense the vibration of the body, and record the video one minute before and after the high speed.
GPS GPS
Add location information and speed to your recorded video. May be useless for most people
There is an accident, and you usually don't have to rely on the driving recorder to locate it.
If you don't have speeding, adding speed to the video of the driving recorder won't help, because you shouldn't have speeding.
If you are speeding, adding speed to the video of the driving recorder may cause you trouble, which is against you.
A driving recorder with a cost of around $100, some built-in GPS modules, and some have to buy a GPS module to support this function.
Fortunately, I bought the campark R10 and have this module, no need to pay for it again.
WiFi function
In my opinion, it is a function that is not useful. The driving recorder is just in case, usually it is used in an accident. Usually, you don't have to open the view frequently. I don't watch it once in a year. I don't want to buy a WiFi function: the more functions, the same quality price. The more expensive; the same price, the more features mean the cheaper each module. And I don't think WiFi is more convenient than viewing it on a driving recorder or computer.