Blackvue DR900S-1CH

I agree with the big sensors, although it also needs large pixels to make the difference, at least for night vision. In think the issue there is at least 2 fold:

i. Big sensors need big lenses, and quality lenses are expensive. On many cameras they're already disappointing in quality (to me) because of the cost, - If I were to select a lens now, the one I would select for a dashcam retails at trade in reasonable quantity at a cost of $55 from memory. I'm not saying that it's the best, it's just the one out of the one's I've seen, based on the specs, I rate the most as most likely to give "pro" results. However, I'm pretty sure many dashcam manufacturers are probably using lenses that cost 1/10th of that, so it's a very big jump up in manufacturing cost, and you can multiply even that cost several times if you make the lens bigger to fit a 1" sensor. It's going to take someone to either break away from the crowd and produce a high end dashcam with high quality lens and large sensor, or it's going to take a shift to removable lenses eg M12 with the intention of fitting an OK lens on a reasonably priced dashcam, but making it easy for the enthusiast customer to swap it out for a higher quality one.

ii. Processor board size / availability - a larger sensor requires a larger camera and thus a larger dashcam. It may be difficult to find a dashcam board that supports 1" sensors (although Sony have an action camera that obviously contains a board that does - RX0).

With regards to theft, I've never heard of one being stolen, but that's definitely one of my concerns.

You know what. Now that I thought about it, the 1inch sensor thing is probably not a solution.

The obvious solution is to have a dual camera setup, just like some smartphones have dual cameras. That way you could have one for daytime use and one for nighttime use and have the camera switch between the two depending on the light situation outside the car. Or you might have to do it manual. But still, a simple solution to much better video quality. Otherwise you are stuck with the never ending issue of daytime and nighttime video quality issues. And the solution is simple for BlackVue, they could just extend the other side of the "tube" and put the second camera on that side.
 
IMX294 is larger than 1 inch (4/3). However, I'm guessing cost will prevent dashcam adoption at least in the foreseeable future.
 
My question is why are the dashcams getting smaller and smaller when a bigger sized dashcam could accommodate a larger sensor and fit better into the rear view / dash areas.. 4/3s mirrorless cameras are not much bigger than many current dashcams and some cost a couple hundred dollars. Yi M1 disaster camera is selling for 130-170$ used.

I have discovered as many others that simply having good specs or bigger sensor is not enough, stabilization and low light performance are key. Many good action cameras like GitUp F1 absolutely go to hell with motion or low light.

One solution I found is having two good 1080P cameras. One is wide view and the other with fixed zoom. A good zoomed dashcam with CPL filter produces great results both day and night. It's also easier to find quality lenses cheap suitable for 1080P rather than 4k.
 
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