Dashcam with occasional parking mode!

anky

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hi Guys,

New to this forum, wanted your expert opinion for the dashcam.

requirements.

1. Dual Channel (front and rear) and should have audio recording.
2. It should be as discrete as possible. If it has a screen,, it should be small enough to not be a distraction to the driver.
3. Parking mode (will only be used when the car is parked outside of home, example shopping malls or somewhere else).
4. Budget - 250 GBP

Car parking at home already has cctv cameras and is well lit up as well to cover the security part. I mainly to do this because I will hardwire it so that it can at least keep working in parking mode when the car is parked outside the home, or is it a better option to just hardwire it and forget about it? I drive at least every alternate day for minimum of 15 mins, but this is not guaranteed and may and will probably go down in future.

Can I turn the dashcam off physically when I park at home ? any cons to this approach?

thanks in advance.
 
I am not a dash cam expert but here is my little suggestion which may help you in getting a good dash cam for your needs.

1. You can get some dual channel dash cams like Viofo A129 Plus Duo (2k) or Viofo A129 Pro Duo (4k). Both are very popular and best dash cams you can get in your budget I think. Or you can look into some more expensive Street Guardian which is worth for the accessories provided and the support for 2 years or BlackVue and Thinkware both comes with a cloud storage which helps you review the footage without taking out the card or cam eveytime outside your car. Zenfox U1 is one more web cam worth considering and you can check it's video performance on a thread recently published in DashCamTalk forum.

2.Viofo cams have small screens and form factor so they can hide behind your rear view camera and mostly invisible from outside. Cams like Rove R24K, Apeman C860 etc are quite visible from outside and from inside they may obstruct your view a little bit because of big their big screens and flat square form factor with suction mounts.

3.I also don't need Parking mode when I park my car at home. So, instead of hardwiring the cam I am using my Anker 20000 mah power bank which I can carry in my car whenever I go outside. I just simply plug in my dash cam to this power bank when I park my car and connect to the 12v charger when I start my car. This way we no need to worry about the car battery depletion, get rid of the more hassle hard wiring task. And even after such a hardwork I have seen lot of complaints with batteries running out of power and issues with fuses etc.. you can check in the forums here. So simple and safe to go with powerbank in your case would be a better option I think.

4. In your budget I think you can get Viofo, Zenfox U1 cams and you can also check other cameras like BlueSeaSky, Rexing etc. I don't know Street Guardian, Next Base, Thinkware and BlackVue cams can fit your budget so, you can take a look on these cams too and pick one which fits your budget.

I think you can switch off the dash cam in case you don't need recording even when you hardwired it. Or simply you can unplug the cable connected to the front cam so it will not record when you parked your car.

Hope this helps you
 
I am not a dash cam expert but here is my little suggestion which may help you in getting a good dash cam for your needs.

1. You can get some dual channel dash cams like Viofo A129 Plus Duo (2k) or Viofo A129 Pro Duo (4k). Both are very popular and best dash cams you can get in your budget I think. Or you can look into some more expensive Street Guardian which is worth for the accessories provided and the support for 2 years or BlackVue and Thinkware both comes with a cloud storage which helps you review the footage without taking out the card or cam eveytime outside your car. Zenfox U1 is one more web cam worth considering and you can check it's video performance on a thread recently published in DashCamTalk forum.

2.Viofo cams have small screens and form factor so they can hide behind your rear view camera and mostly invisible from outside. Cams like Rove R24K, Apeman C860 etc are quite visible from outside and from inside they may obstruct your view a little bit because of big their big screens and flat square form factor with suction mounts.

3.I also don't need Parking mode when I park my car at home. So, instead of hardwiring the cam I am using my Anker 20000 mah power bank which I can carry in my car whenever I go outside. I just simply plug in my dash cam to this power bank when I park my car and connect to the 12v charger when I start my car. This way we no need to worry about the car battery depletion, get rid of the more hassle hard wiring task. And even after such a hardwork I have seen lot of complaints with batteries running out of power and issues with fuses etc.. you can check in the forums here. So simple and safe to go with powerbank in your case would be a better option I think.

4. In your budget I think you can get Viofo, Zenfox U1 cams and you can also check other cameras like BlueSeaSky, Rexing etc. I don't know Street Guardian, Next Base, Thinkware and BlackVue cams can fit your budget so, you can take a look on these cams too and pick one which fits your budget.

I think you can switch off the dash cam in case you don't need recording even when you hardwired it. Or simply you can unplug the cable connected to the front cam so it will not record when you parked your car.

Hope this helps you
Wow! Thank you so much for your reply. It is very helpful. I have one question on the powerbank setup. Can I set it up in such a way that the wiring remains hidden or wires can onlly be hidden in hardwired mode only?
 
Wow! Thank you so much for your reply. It is very helpful. I have one question on the powerbank setup. Can I set it up in such a way that the wiring remains hidden or wires can onlly be hidden in hardwired mode only?
Wires we can hide in non hardwire setup also the same way how we hide in a hardwire setup. Because hanging wires from the dash cam on the windshield to the 12v connector is distracting and an eyesore to look at. So,we should hide the wires in normal dash cam setup also. There are lot of youtube videos on installing dash cams by hiding the wires under the head liner and the A pillars of the car. You can just follow them.
And coming to the Powerbank there is no need of any setup once you are done with the dash cam setup. Just remove the USB A connector from the 12v connector and plug it into the powerbank after you parked the car. Before starting the car connect the cable to 12v connector back. So, it's just unplugging the cable from 12v and connect to powerbank and viceversa. The wire setup is same and no need of permanent powerbank setup. (Please keep in mind your dash cam should have USB A connected to 12v to use a powerbank. Rexing dash cams comes with cable permanently attached to 12v so, you cannot unplug it and cannot use it with powerbank) After you park the car at your home just take the powerbank with you and charge it for next day use. Usually you don't need to charge daily if you don't use power bank for long periods of time in parking lots.
 
3. Parking mode (will only be used when the car is parked outside of home, example shopping malls or somewhere else).
Then you want a dashcam with geofencing, to quote Viofo:

Viofo said:
Hello,

You can set the Parking Recording Geofencing on in the setting menu. When you turn it on, the A139 dash cam will automatically acquire the location and shut down parking mode with car flameout in the area within 1km.

With this function, you don’t need to turn on and off the parking monitoring frequently, which will also protect the car's battery more effectively.
("flameout" means "turn ignition off")

I'm not sure which @VIOFO-Support dashcams currently support geofencing though?
 
Hello,

Currently, only the A139 3CH dashcam supports the function of geofencing. But it's still a beta function in firmware V1.6.
 
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