Nextbase IQ

[Agie]

As many have said it does appear to be a bit of a disaster. As yet I’ve been unable to find any footage of the park safe features or how they work, the picture quality etc. From the units that where sent out for “field testing”, there was little or no constructive criticism or fault finding that I saw. That said, it. Is may well be that Nextbase did not want to hear.

100% they don't care, it's ridiculous. All about the profits and no concern for The customer.

 

[152bobby]

In UK stores like Halfords you have very little choice. They stock and display 99% Nextbase and I would guess the majority of dashcam buyers will go to Halfords

Buyers will accept the shortcomings that we know can be solved by shopping around and viewing reviews here

Nextbase should have taken our posts into consideration after the unreliable 2 series, they did visit here regularly. They are capable of much better.

The only reasonably good thing about buying a Nextbase from Halfords, is if it goes wrong and you take it back, they will replace it, so no posting it to Nextbase UK etc. I see that you are in Reading, John Klies in Reading (I have used them a few times for stereos, parking sensors and dashcams) stock more choice and they will tell you if a specific brand is crap or not, as they hate people going back with issues, so they only fit tested and good reviewed products. I think they may still do a fit only if you supply your own item, but like I said, if it's crap (in their opinion), they won't touch it....and they are a wee bit too expensive for me and if I need an install, I tend to use a a reputable mobile service.

 

[Kremmen]

Fortunately my 2 Viofo's are performing perfectly and will stay with the car as the mount is hardwired

I see no point in changing

 

[Decking]

My 522 I see has a usb C power plug, it’s hard wired. I might see if the N4 pro works if I plug it in

 

[Vortex Radar]

My issue with supplied sample footage is that it's always either almost stationary, as above, so no vibration, or moving, but on silky smooth roads

Neither demonstrate typical footage on typical urban roads that are often less than perfect. Of course manufacturers are going to supply their best footage.

I understand your concern, but I used that clip as a preview (and stated as such) simply because it had a bunch of plates at different distances and was low hanging fruit for a quick resolution comparison.

Most of the video they sent me was while driving. In fact the shakiness of the footage was kinda surprising with how bad it was and I was surprised that that's what they sent me. Anyways, the video is almost ready and I'll release it shortly. Feel free to check out all the sample footage when it goes live later today.

 

[kamkar]

when it goes live later today.

I will ever so carefully dip the tip of a finger in it, and see if its anything i like.

But this often result in Lemon face from me

 

[Decking]

I’ll more than likely watch out of morbid curiosity, I’m not expecting to see ground breaking footage.

 

[Vortex Radar]

I’ll more than likely watch out of morbid curiosity, I’m not expecting to see ground breaking footage.

To be honest, the point of the video is NOT the video quality. It's a technical discussion about the dashcam's many features. There is discussion on video quality, sensor selection, HDR, image stabilization, optimizations to capture license plates, and so forth so that's certainly part of it, but what interests me about this dashcam is everything else about it. Video quality itself is mandatory and given what we're seeing so far, I think it's gonna be hard to recommend it since all the extra fluff stuff doesn't make up for or excuse bad video quality, but yeah.

Anyways, time to get this posted, lol. I'll post the link when it's live.

 

[Vortex Radar]

Alrighty, video is now live from my interview with a Nextbase Product Architect who helped design and create the iQ. It's over half an hour long with a lot of technical discussion.

To give you an idea of topics we covered, here's the video outline:

0:00 Intro
0:56 Development
1:36 Video Quality
3:14 Image Sensors
5:18 HDR
6:43 Image Stabilization
7:47 Alexa & Voice Control
8:26 Radar
12:55 AI & Computer Vision
14:22 Parking Mode Power
18:54 Cloud while Parked
21:21 Video Compression
23:02 Memory Card
24:38 Battery vs. Supercapacitor
25:19 High Heat
26:06 Witness Mode
27:09 Cloud Notifications
27:46 Warning Alarms
28:25 Cloud LTE vs. WiFi
28:47 Firmware Updates
29:43 Cloud Latency
30:20 Roadwatch AI
32:45 Guardian Mode
33:47 Biggest Challenges Creating a Dashcam
34:59 What Justifies the Price?
35:57 Wrapping Up

 

[Nigel]

He appears to be sitting in front of an image quality test card...
I'm not impressed by the image quality of his camera

 

[Agie]

So no HDR? Strange decision, at least give the user the chance to choose for themselves...

Noticing white van in interior camera footage driving past on the side, couldn't make out the licence plate. Will be interesting to see if they can make licence plates out at night time either with headlight reflections, which Starvis 2 sensors have gotten a lot better at.

Don't know, just not convinced they've got the best sensors and implementation here in this product.

 

[Vortex Radar]

Given the video quality we're all seeing, I'm not convinced about their implementation and sensor choice yet either. On one hand I'm glad to see companies trying to do something unique and creative and give us more than a simple box that records video while driving and parked, but on the other hand if you're going to go after the premium market like this, IMO the video quality HAS to be on point. From our discussion it sounded like they've put thought and consideration into this too and they said that video quality is important to them, but so far we're not seeing that in terms of execution.

 

[Agie]

Also not convinced when he talks about working and having custom firmware for the microSD card. And the bad sectors mention too, that's not rocket science. Even though microSD doesn't work with SMART like traditional HDDs/SSDs too, there's tools out there to detect file system errors and bad blocks. All they'd have to do is program the iQ to detect the hardware ID of the nextbase branded microSD card and not others.

That's it like you say. Great ideas, poor execution. I feel like some of what he says is on point but others just seem like trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Which makes sense because even if he's not a product marketing manager, he's still trying to spruik the dashcam.

And also never buy a product on the promise of features to come. Because they may come or it may fall through

 

[Nigel]

The 4K seems to have the worst image quality!
On the plates, it does have the best resolution, but the overall image is nicer on the others.

So no HDR? Strange decision, at least give the user the chance to choose for themselves...

"Sometimes you get chromatic errors" - that is what Sony said when they explained how fantastic Clear HDR is, because it doesn't have chromatic errors.
I have never understood how you could possibly get chromatic errors from DOL HDR, and we have not been seeing any on the Viofo dashcams that use DOL HDR!
Happy to be corrected...

On one hand I'm glad to see companies trying to do something unique and creative and give us more than a simple box that records video while driving and parked,

Yes, but it is often the simple solution that gives the best results.

I like Low Bitrate Parking Mode, it is simple, and never misses anything, audio or video.

Of course it does use a lot of power, so combining it with radar sounds a good idea, but do I really want an AI radar that is going to throw stuff away because it didn't recognise it as suspicious, or is it better to have just a simple radar that records everything whenever there is movement?

My car doesn't get damaged often enough for it to be a big problem to scan through the files when necessary, and I don't really want my meal interrupted by a vandalism notification, that may or may not be valid, I would rather enjoy my meal and then sort the potential problem out when I get back to the car. The chances of preventing any damage or theft due to receiving a notification and me reacting promptly seem very low.

 

[Agie]

I think any implementation of HDR will do in this instance. Its been shoved down our throats with TVs, displays and phones for years and when pretty much everyone else in the dashcam market is doing it, then they should be too.

I don't want the manufacturer to choose for me whether they want to implement HDR or not (because they couldn't be ****ed), but give me the choice whether to enable it on my dashcam or not. The quality might be terrible or it might be great, but give me the choice, don't make that choice for me.

 

[Kremmen]

I don't get all those features ..... why ? They will produce more problem reports

What is wrong with a simple QuadHD dashcam, not on a stalk and the only feature is a CPL

If only Nextbase had developed their 380 with the latest hi-res sensor and a CPL

 

[Decking]

Well as VR said, in the way of footage there was not a lot to see, and I suspect what we did see was the best. Marveled how they managed to get all three variants (4k-2k-1k) on one screen, in exactly the same place and time.
But I was fascinated about all those little attached boxes latching onto oncoming and overtaking vehicles. Is that what the user is eventually going to see having paid a ransom monthly or was that just for advertising purposes? My own personal feelings here are that Nextbase have lost the plot, because if ever I felt I needed that level of protection to drive around, I would have bought a tank.

 

[Agie]

Well as VR said, in the way of footage there was not a lot to see, and I suspect what we did see was the best. Marveled how they managed to get all three variants (4k-2k-1k) on one screen, in exactly the same place and time.
But I was fascinated about all those little attached boxes latching onto oncoming and overtaking vehicles. Is that what the user is eventually going to see having paid a ransom monthly or was that just for advertising purposes? My own personal feelings here are that Nextbase have lost the plot, because if ever I felt I needed that level of protection to drive around, I would have bought a tank.

I agree, I feel like it could be the real deal or for marketing purposes. When they had their previous video banging on about their own branded microSD cards, and the Blackmagic read speeds of 2GB/second, that was ridiculous. I don't doubt for a second they're trying to look all futuristic and nerdy in the hope customers will fall for it.

The promise of AI across a lot of fields is just getting ridiculous. Granted there is some utility there, but this ain't it Gary.

 

[Nigel]

But I was fascinated about all those little attached boxes latching onto oncoming and overtaking vehicles. Is that what the user is eventually going to see having paid a ransom monthly or was that just for advertising purposes? My own personal feelings here are that Nextbase have lost the plot, because if ever I felt I needed that level of protection to drive around, I would have bought a tank.

I assume that once you have paid your monthly subscription (The expensive one, not the cheap one), then you will be able to upload your videos to the Nextbase cloud (Obviously not the 2K or 4K video), then the cloud will add those boxes, and you will be able to play your video with boxes from the cloud. You might even be able to download a copy. The examples in the video clearly are not the real thing though.

You are correct that they are fascinating, but are they any use?

Nextbase said: "Not accurate, I certainly wouldn't want to stand up in court..."

If you look at the image at 32:17 in Vortex's video, it is pretty obvious that the speeds are nowhere near accurate, you have a car doing 74MPH and the car in front, which was probably going about the same speed is marked up with 172MPH.

When it comes to the law, the speed other people are doing is generally irrelevant to you, them being above the speed limit doesn't give you an excuse for causing an accident, so I don't see how you can benefit from these boxes. The police might be interested in using them against the other person, but that doesn't help you, and given that Nextbase said "Not accurate, I certainly wouldn't want to stand up in court...", the police are not going to be using them either.

They are facinating though

 

[Nigel]

I agree, I feel like it could be the real deal or for marketing purposes. When they had their previous video banging on about their own branded microSD cards, and the Blackmagic read speeds of 2GB/second, that was ridiculous. I don't doubt for a second they're trying to look all futuristic and nerdy in the hope customers will fall for it.

The promise of AI across a lot of fields is just getting ridiculous. Granted there is some utility there, but this ain't it Gary.

Some AI is very useful, maybe the clearest example we have is Viofo's Voice Control feature. That uses AI to understand your voice, but Viofo don't make a big fuss about it, they don't even mention AI in their advertising!