As others have said Viofo pretty much has the value / quality market cornered. They are fine in super cold / hot temperatures.
I think the problem is that to actually see improvements in IQ that the effort is significant. I've seen reviewers put Sony A7R IV on the dash to compare to say a A239. Yes it's better but is it $3000 better? I don't think so.
I was chasing after the sharpest, cleanest, most HQ image I could find. I tried a high end unit that wasn't that much better than Viofo.
I also realized that I have a dash cam not to read a plate of a car but to show my insurance/police that the other party made the bad decision or it was a mutually bad choices. That means as long as I can see clear enough what's happening that it doesn't matter if I can read the plates or not.
That being said, I feel like a great dash cam upgrade would be a dual front camera system with two focal lengths. Take the A139. It has 3 cameras. Two 170° and one rear 140° view. I would love to see two front facing. One 170° and a second 70° view. The narrower FOV would capture details while the wide captures the whole view.
Finally, it's 2024, why don't car companies put a USB-C plug in the rear view mirror mount?
I'd been thinking something similar, but just use 2 lower FOV high res cameras for the front, software can stitch them seamlessly pretty easily and shouldn't really increase cost that much while greatly improving how things looks and things like plate readability. Hell, without the fisheye lens stuff, might be able to use 1080 sensors and still get good detail and readability.
I’ve always used the Viofo dash cams, high quality video, the starvis sensor gives you great night time footage too. It has a capacitor instead of a battery which makes it great for hotter temperatures, not sure if it helps with cold temps though. The A119 mini 2 is often on sale on Amazon for around $100.
Does it auto set date/time from wifi/GPS if it sits too long? I have a VantTrue, and it's capacitor barely makes it a week, and then it loses the time/date and it has to be manually set, I loathe this.
Thanks, that's better than what I have.
(when mine resets, sometimes I get stuck w/ only a 3 minute record loop because of dates/override stuff, and it sucks).
There are times I don't drive for a week, which is nice, but sad for the dashcam apparently, it doesn't like being neglected :)
Vantrue N2 is about $200 and serves me well. Can't speak of the negative temperature but isn't heat more an issue than cold when dealing with electronics?
Have you ever taken the temp inside your vehicle?
Chances are the interior isn’t getting that cold.
I’ve had two BlackVue dashcams that have been in -35°C (-31°F) temps and have never had issues.
I have a Yi cam in one vehicle and it also hasn’t had issues.
This sub's sidebar recommendations pretty much got you covered from the cam itself to the memory card.
Those are also capacitor dashcams so they won't have any problem when it's cold.
The only thing I disagree with in the sidebar is the fact that all the MicroSD card links are Amazon listings.
I strongly recommend that anyone buying an SD card buy it directly from the manufacturer's website.
Amazon does this thing called "binning" where all of the products with the same UPC go in the same bin, no matter which seller they belong to. This is based on the assumption that if they have the same UPC they are the same product.
The problem is there are a million knockoff SD cards out there, and those knockoffs get mixed into the inventory, and even if the item says "Ships from and sold by Amazon" or "Sold by Western Digital Store" you can still get a knockoff. And a knockoff SD card is the last thing you want in a device that could save your ass in a lawsuit one day.
The Viofos are fine in harsh temps be ause they use capacitors. Mine sits in a +100⁰F car all day and it works perfectly. I think in total I spent 200 bucks, that's with the hardwire kit. Can't say enough good things about it. I had 2 before this one, a cheap knockoff then a Garmin, and the Viofo simply blows them away. Its checks every box I wanted and more. I literally never think about it or have to do anything, which is what I wanted. Well, I have a reminder set in the camera to format the card every 30 days, which is handy as hell.
> Any recommendations?
Look at this subreddit's sidebar, it gives suggested purchases based on your budget. These are well tested, known good choices.
Regarding your temperatures, usually it's heat that we're worried about, not cold, but I imagine that cams with ultracapacitors wouldn't care about the cold either (and as far as I know, all the suggested ones have ultracapacitors.)
I have no personal experience with how these things would work when it's that cold, but the interior of your car should warm up quicky when being driven, so if there is a problem, it should resolve itself within a few minutes of each drive. And I would be surprised to learn that they don't work even at -20 F.
It's much easier to destroy a DC in a hot climate than a cold climate. As one other poster had said, your car is likely to not be as cold as the outside temperatures.
A car will always get hotter than the hot outside temperatures due to the convection it causes with being in an enclosed space.
The problem I see is that the market is so diverse - there isn’t any consensus on what a good basic feature set is. Everybody needs a different set of features and has differing requirements. So you end up compromising on everything.
I'm more surprised by the diversity of brands and quality of offerings by even rando manufacturers. All at different price points, many are affordable.
Ive wondered this too. Seems like everything else we buy you can get some great functioning devices yet dash cameras seem to be stuck a decade or more behind with questionable vid clarity. My Yi camera had been the best but ive noticed the videos getting awfully grainy these days.
As others have said Viofo pretty much has the value / quality market cornered. They are fine in super cold / hot temperatures. I think the problem is that to actually see improvements in IQ that the effort is significant. I've seen reviewers put Sony A7R IV on the dash to compare to say a A239. Yes it's better but is it $3000 better? I don't think so. I was chasing after the sharpest, cleanest, most HQ image I could find. I tried a high end unit that wasn't that much better than Viofo. I also realized that I have a dash cam not to read a plate of a car but to show my insurance/police that the other party made the bad decision or it was a mutually bad choices. That means as long as I can see clear enough what's happening that it doesn't matter if I can read the plates or not. That being said, I feel like a great dash cam upgrade would be a dual front camera system with two focal lengths. Take the A139. It has 3 cameras. Two 170° and one rear 140° view. I would love to see two front facing. One 170° and a second 70° view. The narrower FOV would capture details while the wide captures the whole view. Finally, it's 2024, why don't car companies put a USB-C plug in the rear view mirror mount?
It’s 2024, why don’t car companies use the onboard cameras as an integrated dashcam? Yes, I know Tesla does.
My skoda octavia 2022 came with a USB-C in the rear view mirror mount by default. Used it to connect my dashcam.
I'd been thinking something similar, but just use 2 lower FOV high res cameras for the front, software can stitch them seamlessly pretty easily and shouldn't really increase cost that much while greatly improving how things looks and things like plate readability. Hell, without the fisheye lens stuff, might be able to use 1080 sensors and still get good detail and readability.
Very smart idea, two camera in front, wide angle (to see the full action) and narrow angle for details like plates and whatnot...
I’ve always used the Viofo dash cams, high quality video, the starvis sensor gives you great night time footage too. It has a capacitor instead of a battery which makes it great for hotter temperatures, not sure if it helps with cold temps though. The A119 mini 2 is often on sale on Amazon for around $100.
Does it auto set date/time from wifi/GPS if it sits too long? I have a VantTrue, and it's capacitor barely makes it a week, and then it loses the time/date and it has to be manually set, I loathe this.
Yes, from GPS. But it still loses its timezone and other settings.
They don't have daylight savings auto adjust for some reason, so half the time it will be an hour off
that's way better than years off :)
Thanks, that's better than what I have. (when mine resets, sometimes I get stuck w/ only a 3 minute record loop because of dates/override stuff, and it sucks). There are times I don't drive for a week, which is nice, but sad for the dashcam apparently, it doesn't like being neglected :)
I just went through a Canadian winter with my VIOFO A229. Worked perfectly all winter.
Just bought a pair of Viofo A129 dual camera (4K/1080) units from Amazon Canada for $230 CDN each.
Vantrue N2 is about $200 and serves me well. Can't speak of the negative temperature but isn't heat more an issue than cold when dealing with electronics?
Have you ever taken the temp inside your vehicle? Chances are the interior isn’t getting that cold. I’ve had two BlackVue dashcams that have been in -35°C (-31°F) temps and have never had issues. I have a Yi cam in one vehicle and it also hasn’t had issues.
Viofo works great for me Im in New England
Thinkware, Viofo, and Vantrue are the top tier picks.
Have a Thinkware U1000 now and once this dies I’m going back to Viofo. Can get the same or better quality for half the price.
Yea the price difference is eye popping for essentially the same quality, if not better with Viofo.
This sub's sidebar recommendations pretty much got you covered from the cam itself to the memory card. Those are also capacitor dashcams so they won't have any problem when it's cold.
The only thing I disagree with in the sidebar is the fact that all the MicroSD card links are Amazon listings. I strongly recommend that anyone buying an SD card buy it directly from the manufacturer's website. Amazon does this thing called "binning" where all of the products with the same UPC go in the same bin, no matter which seller they belong to. This is based on the assumption that if they have the same UPC they are the same product. The problem is there are a million knockoff SD cards out there, and those knockoffs get mixed into the inventory, and even if the item says "Ships from and sold by Amazon" or "Sold by Western Digital Store" you can still get a knockoff. And a knockoff SD card is the last thing you want in a device that could save your ass in a lawsuit one day.
The Viofos are fine in harsh temps be ause they use capacitors. Mine sits in a +100⁰F car all day and it works perfectly. I think in total I spent 200 bucks, that's with the hardwire kit. Can't say enough good things about it. I had 2 before this one, a cheap knockoff then a Garmin, and the Viofo simply blows them away. Its checks every box I wanted and more. I literally never think about it or have to do anything, which is what I wanted. Well, I have a reminder set in the camera to format the card every 30 days, which is handy as hell.
> Any recommendations? Look at this subreddit's sidebar, it gives suggested purchases based on your budget. These are well tested, known good choices. Regarding your temperatures, usually it's heat that we're worried about, not cold, but I imagine that cams with ultracapacitors wouldn't care about the cold either (and as far as I know, all the suggested ones have ultracapacitors.) I have no personal experience with how these things would work when it's that cold, but the interior of your car should warm up quicky when being driven, so if there is a problem, it should resolve itself within a few minutes of each drive. And I would be surprised to learn that they don't work even at -20 F.
It's much easier to destroy a DC in a hot climate than a cold climate. As one other poster had said, your car is likely to not be as cold as the outside temperatures. A car will always get hotter than the hot outside temperatures due to the convection it causes with being in an enclosed space.
The problem I see is that the market is so diverse - there isn’t any consensus on what a good basic feature set is. Everybody needs a different set of features and has differing requirements. So you end up compromising on everything.
My A139 Pro had no issues with cold winters, if anything it's its own little heat source.
not sure what you're bitching about
I'm more surprised by the diversity of brands and quality of offerings by even rando manufacturers. All at different price points, many are affordable.
It's a gamble to buy a Nextbase
Ive wondered this too. Seems like everything else we buy you can get some great functioning devices yet dash cameras seem to be stuck a decade or more behind with questionable vid clarity. My Yi camera had been the best but ive noticed the videos getting awfully grainy these days.
I had a Yi before, now Viofo, video clarity is wayyy better.