Dash cam advice wanted (dashboard camera)

I would recommend Viofo A129 Duo

I have it and it’s perfect for price.

I second XXX-Man’s recommendation.

I also have one, it’s great, very clear video both front & rear and there is only one wire to run from front to rear.
I did mine under (not over) the doors and it only took me about 10 minutes including having it all hidden and connected to the rear cam in a 5 door Civic.

If you really don’t want to run wires to the rear, there are dash cams with two cameras, one of which points rearward. There are some significant cons to it though.

With a wifi setup like the one above, you might have very little wiring to do if you have a power port or inverter in the back.

My family finally got sick of not having a dash cam...

My mom just ordered a Viofo A119 v3 along with a Viofo Hardwire Kit.

(The Viofo A119 v3 is one of the best bang for your buck dash cams that have just one camera.)

I just remembered -- we need to get a microSD card as well.

I have one bookmarked, so my mom just needs to order it.

Then we will be set.

EDIT:

And it is ordered!

Be sure to spend the few extra bucks on a name-brand ‘high endurance’ microSD card. :+1:

This is the microSD card we ordered:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KXQX3S3

It's supposed to be a good one.

I don't know if it is high endurance.

I’d recommend picking a different card.

‘High endurance’ cards are more suited for continuous recording and being constantly overwritten, as in surveillance and dash cameras.

For example, Amazon has a SanDisk 128GB high endurance model for a couple bucks cheaper than the one you ordered.

The other major brands make ‘high endurance’ cards too. Most will use that term in the item name.

Thank you!

We just cancelled the order for the other microSD card and ordered the one you linked to.

You’re welcome!

I’d also suggest occasionally taking the card out of the dash cam and putting it into your computer to verify that it’s recording properly.

This one is high endurance and they’re usually labeled as such. I used a regular one in my dash cam and it failed after several months. As I understand it, regular ones are not made for the constant write/delete/rewrite cycles. The high endurance ones are and the new ones have lasted almost two years and still going strong.

after having bad experience with few cams, that had great reviews, i only now use cams that stick to the glass, no suction cup mounts, no mirror mounts, they all allow camera to shake\vibrate, it makes lic., plates unrecognizable on the go, even though when the car is stopped, they look very clear. you want rear cam too,

On Thursday, we had a mechanic install the dash cam, but we didn't have him install the hard wire kit.

Today, I changed the settings of the dash cam to where they should be (according to my research).

Also, it's a good thing we only got a 128GB microSD card because that's the largest capacity card that the dash cam supports.

(I really should have looked that up before hand, but we lucked out.)

My mom watched Youtube videos on how to install the hard wire kit, and she's going to do as much as she can herself.

It'll probably take her forever to do it, but we don't want to pay a mechanic to do very much of it.

The mechanic we know charges $105 per hour, and he thought it would be about a two hour job, and he has installed these many times before.

How is the kit wired into the car? I used one that plugs into the OBD port for ease of installation and it provides power when the ignition is off and cuts out completely if low voltage is detected. There are similar kits that plug into the fuse box.

It plugs into the fuse box, which is not that easy to get to in our Toyota Corolla.

I don’t have any issues using a 256gb card in my viofo A119 V3 and A129.

Maybe check if yours needs a firmware update.

For a dashcam “high endurance” is irrelevant as the moniker is meant for something that being writen and rewriten to for extended periods of time ie 24/7/365 type scenario. But for a dashcam a good microsd is all you really need, I personally use an Adata 128GB microsd I got on sale for $10~ been going strong for 7+ years.

Ah, yeah the fuse box ones can be tricky. To hide the wires in my setup, I used expired or dummy credit cards to gently push the wires into the trim.

Very interesting!

I was just going by the manual, though a firmware update would change everything.

Just checked and there is a new firmware update for the A119 released just over a month ago, so I should probably update mine too :slight_smile:

V2.0 Build:20200711

+1, this has been a good dashcam for me. Here’s the rear video from when I got rear-ended last fall by someone that was too busy texting to watch the road. I like how she hurriedly puts the phone down… ok, you can’t actually see the phone, but we all know what’s going on here.

Full view:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AqCUxDBOv74_iQyA73iFWqKtjfzO

And a zoomed/cropped version for your enjoyment:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AqCUxDBOv74_iQsV_79nu_Y810vF