sanjsrik
New Member
I'm not an expert in dashcams. I have nothing but my own experience and that's what I'm writing about here.
I have a 2021 Prius AWD XLE, purchased in May 2024. It's a nifty little car and I like it. It has almost no miles on it and I don't drive it that much as I live in NYC. I have a garage that I park it in that has a valet that fetches the car when you want it. Yes, it's a schmancy thing and probably the most fanciest thing I do but it's because parking in NYC is hard without a driveway.
October 11, 2024, I decided to purchase a Vantrue N4Pro with the rear and internal camera directly from the company because I had a discount code. Not sure if it saved me a lot of money but that's what I did. It shipped and arrived in short order (delivered October 18, so about a week, not bad considering it came directly from China according to DHL)
October 17, 2024, I decided to use their installation service because from their website they had a local (NYC, Queens) installation company they recommended that only cost $50 (believe it or not when I last checked about a week ago, the price is now $150, now, this is insane that they tripled the price in less than a month, although I just checked the link again as I'm writing this, and the installation service is now $100 "on special")
October 19, 2024, I went to the place in Queens that installed my unit in about 40 minutes. The guy was really nice and showed me how to use it and that I had to use the WiFi to connect to download video from the unit. Here's the issue with the installation however, they installed the rear camera upside-down. Now, this is SUCH A KNOWN ISSUE that there's a workaround in the mobile app. This is the company that Vantrue recommended that I use and yet they couldn't install the rear camera right-side up.
October, 25, 2024, I got an email from Vantrue that said if I posted a review with 3 photos or a 15-second video they'd give me a $50 gift card. Who am I to pass that up. I posted my review on November 7, 2024, it's still on the page for the N4Pro bundle.
I've never received anything from Vantrue in terms of a gift card or even acknowledgement after following their rules for obtaining a gift card and sending them proof. Goes to show you, they're really not that honest.
November 18, 2024, I went to get the car from the garage and the attendant said that the battery was dead. The car wouldn't even turn over. He was nice enough to bring another car around and we were able to jump the Prius. Off I went. Since I've bought one of these mini jumper batteries. Amazing thing.
The culprit for draining my battery was the parking mode in the Vantrue N4Pro. Every time someone passed by in front of my car during the weekend or the attendant moved the car or did anything to the car, the parking mode kicked in and stayed on. This drained the battery. I now know that when I park the car in the garage I need to remove the camera (which defeats the entire purpose of parking mode but it's in a secure garage so that's fine).
The camera itself works "fine". It has LOTS of gaps. I drove out the Rockaways and it failed to even record a single moment of my trip yet DID record me parking the car? How is that even possible? There are a LOT of gaps in the recording that I have noticed whenever I check the memory card. Plus the fact that it records tiny little recordings rather than a continuous one is maddening because of the proprietary file naming system (it's outlined in their manual but you have to decipher it as well).
My bottom line is for something so expensive, why doesn't it work all the time as expected? Why are there so many gaps in recording? I've gone all through the settings and asked a bunch of questions in forums to see what could be causing the problem but it's random. Just random. The battery draining issue. That's annoying but I guess I have a workaround for when I park it in the garage.
I'm posting pictures from the unit (yes both of the rear camera images are upside down, this is before I applied to software fix in the app for the known installation issue).
I have a 2021 Prius AWD XLE, purchased in May 2024. It's a nifty little car and I like it. It has almost no miles on it and I don't drive it that much as I live in NYC. I have a garage that I park it in that has a valet that fetches the car when you want it. Yes, it's a schmancy thing and probably the most fanciest thing I do but it's because parking in NYC is hard without a driveway.
October 11, 2024, I decided to purchase a Vantrue N4Pro with the rear and internal camera directly from the company because I had a discount code. Not sure if it saved me a lot of money but that's what I did. It shipped and arrived in short order (delivered October 18, so about a week, not bad considering it came directly from China according to DHL)
October 17, 2024, I decided to use their installation service because from their website they had a local (NYC, Queens) installation company they recommended that only cost $50 (believe it or not when I last checked about a week ago, the price is now $150, now, this is insane that they tripled the price in less than a month, although I just checked the link again as I'm writing this, and the installation service is now $100 "on special")
October 19, 2024, I went to the place in Queens that installed my unit in about 40 minutes. The guy was really nice and showed me how to use it and that I had to use the WiFi to connect to download video from the unit. Here's the issue with the installation however, they installed the rear camera upside-down. Now, this is SUCH A KNOWN ISSUE that there's a workaround in the mobile app. This is the company that Vantrue recommended that I use and yet they couldn't install the rear camera right-side up.
October, 25, 2024, I got an email from Vantrue that said if I posted a review with 3 photos or a 15-second video they'd give me a $50 gift card. Who am I to pass that up. I posted my review on November 7, 2024, it's still on the page for the N4Pro bundle.
I've never received anything from Vantrue in terms of a gift card or even acknowledgement after following their rules for obtaining a gift card and sending them proof. Goes to show you, they're really not that honest.
November 18, 2024, I went to get the car from the garage and the attendant said that the battery was dead. The car wouldn't even turn over. He was nice enough to bring another car around and we were able to jump the Prius. Off I went. Since I've bought one of these mini jumper batteries. Amazing thing.
The culprit for draining my battery was the parking mode in the Vantrue N4Pro. Every time someone passed by in front of my car during the weekend or the attendant moved the car or did anything to the car, the parking mode kicked in and stayed on. This drained the battery. I now know that when I park the car in the garage I need to remove the camera (which defeats the entire purpose of parking mode but it's in a secure garage so that's fine).
The camera itself works "fine". It has LOTS of gaps. I drove out the Rockaways and it failed to even record a single moment of my trip yet DID record me parking the car? How is that even possible? There are a LOT of gaps in the recording that I have noticed whenever I check the memory card. Plus the fact that it records tiny little recordings rather than a continuous one is maddening because of the proprietary file naming system (it's outlined in their manual but you have to decipher it as well).
My bottom line is for something so expensive, why doesn't it work all the time as expected? Why are there so many gaps in recording? I've gone all through the settings and asked a bunch of questions in forums to see what could be causing the problem but it's random. Just random. The battery draining issue. That's annoying but I guess I have a workaround for when I park it in the garage.
I'm posting pictures from the unit (yes both of the rear camera images are upside down, this is before I applied to software fix in the app for the known installation issue).
