Discrete budget dual cam? First dash cam user with simple needs

[bstractig]

Hi all! Finally pulling the plug on a dash cam after my most recent accident made me wish I had one. Hindsight, right?

TLDR: I want a discrete, dual cam for under $100 that I can install without cutting open any wires

I'm looking for:
- A discrete camera. I park my car outside in an area where theft is common and I don't want to leave a bulky dash cam in plain sight. Ideally the camera would be small and tucked away behind the shaded rearview mirror mount area, but I also wouldn't mind a camera on a suction cup or magnet mount that I could easily remove and stow in the glove box when parked.
- A dual, front and rear camera.
- $100 absolute max price, but I'd prefer something under that if at all possible
- Easy for an amateur to install. Hardwiring intimidates me, I'd like to just plug it into my 12V outlet or OBD port. I'm not afraid to get under the interior panels of my car for cable management, but I don't feel tech-competent enough to manage messing with my car's electrical system. Especially considering the car is a hybrid prius which runs a high-voltage battery (in addition to the 12V battery) and seems like it can kill you if you mess with the wrong wire?? Scary.

I don't care about:
- Having a screen on the camera is not something I care about, it's not a pro or a con for me.
- Having the best footage quality is not a priority for me. From my research dash cams aren't always reliable about catching license plates anyways, I've got uninsured motorists insurance if I ever am in a hit-and-run. As long as my dash cam can capture the basics of an accident it will have done it's job in my book!
- Having parking monitoring is not necessary. I don't value the concept of it enough to shell out extra for it, cam footage of a parked hit-and-run doesn't seem to change your insurance situation as again license plate capture isn't super reliable with dash cams, right? And I'm an anxious freak who keeps personal items out of my car and keeps it locked at all times so I've never had an issue with theft.
- Temperature sensitivity is not an issue for me. My 2012 prius is dope and has a solar panel system that runs a fan when it's hot out - so it's never too warm inside! Super cool feature.
- Having wifi/app/or viewing from SD card only. If I ever needed footage from an accident I am not pulling it up on-site (for fear of cops taking my entire SD card as evidence and citing me for other driving violations, or causing drama with other driver by them knowing I have dashcam footage), so idc if I need to take out the SD card and plug it into a computer to see the footage. If I showed footage to police or insurance I would send it to them after the fact and never tell the other driver about my footage.

Considered cameras:
- This 70mai pro plus a500s seems perfect https://dashcamtalk.com/70mai-dash-cam-pro-plus+-a500s/ but it's out of stock on amazon! They have it on alixpress but its like $90 for the dual setup (instead of the dashcamtalk advertised $60), and shipping takes over a month. Alixpress shipping I've also not had great experiences with so I'd be hesitant to make such an expensive purchase through that site. Anyone know when this would be restocked or a different place to get it?
- Amazon has a lifechaser dual dash cam for $90 that is 1080p front and rear, but it's quite large. It is installed with a magnet so I could remove it when parked, but not all the reviews are great and the general consensus is that the supported app sucks.

MUCH THANKS! And if you needed a bribe to help a stranger... I will shamelessly trade pics of my adopted senior shiba pup for helpful comments

 

[SawMaster]

Welcome to DCT @bstractig
Given your requirements I am unaware of any cam other than the a500s which I could recommend, and even here you're going to break the budget cap getting a quality SD card of a decent size. I'd highly suggest getting a better cam.

Unless you've got full coverage, your insurance may not cover a hit-and-run. I know a girl in a state where any rear-end collision is automatically the fault of the car in back. She got clobbered waiting at a red light and momentarily knocked unconscious, so the best description she could give was a small red late-model Honda Civic with two hispanic males in it. No front plates in that state and none were seen, and the car/driver was never found. She had liability plus added uninsured/underinsured coverage but they would not pay off because they could not identify the other person so they could attempt to recover their payout. With decent video footage she may have stood a chance as that would have shown something of the driver's face, that making for identifiable evidence. What she had could have been one of 100+ cars locally and one of 5000 people; not enough to go on. Instead she lost her beloved Toyota as it was totaled, and she had to beg money from friends to get a junk Ford so she didn't lose her job. A rear cam doesn't really need to be great but it should be good enough to capture decent details and the one on the a500s doesn't come close to that. Maybe better than nothing but you don't need to settle for such mediocrity when so much better is available at reasonable prices.

The choice is yours, and may you never seriously need your dasghcam footage

Phil

 

[bstractig]

Welcome to DCT @bstractig
Given your requirements I am unaware of any cam other than the a500s which I could recommend, and even here you're going to break the budget cap getting a quality SD card of a decent size. I'd highly suggest getting a better cam.

Unless you've got full coverage, your insurance may not cover a hit-and-run. I know a girl in a state where any rear-end collision is automatically the fault of the car in back. She got clobbered waiting at a red light and momentarily knocked unconscious, so the best description she could give was a small red late-model Honda Civic with two hispanic males in it. No front plates in that state and none were seen, and the car/driver was never found. She had liability plus added uninsured/underinsured coverage but they would not pay off because they could not identify the other person so they could attempt to recover their payout. With decent video footage she may have stood a chance as that would have shown something of the driver's face, that making for identifiable evidence. What she had could have been one of 100+ cars locally and one of 5000 people; not enough to go on. Instead she lost her beloved Toyota as it was totaled, and she had to beg money from friends to get a junk Ford so she didn't lose her job. A rear cam doesn't really need to be great but it should be good enough to capture decent details and the one on the a500s doesn't come close to that. Maybe better than nothing but you don't need to settle for such mediocrity when so much better is available at reasonable prices.

The choice is yours, and may you never seriously need your dasghcam footage

Phil

Thank you for the comment!! Happy to be here That's a crazy story about your friend! That SUCKS, nothing else to say about it. Luckily I do have full coverage with USAA (who has yet to screw over me or any of my family/friends who use it), but I'll be sure to check into my policy soon and make sure it covers hit-and-runs though, what a crappy situation to be in. I should have mentioned that I do currently have a 32gb sdhc card that I was planning to use in the dashcam for now. I figure that if I do end up needing more storage that would be an easy thing to upgrade later and get me by for now! The reason I'm getting a dash cam is for the second time I've been the not-at-fault driver in a collision and having the at-fault driver lie about the situation. Luckily my first incident of this was really minor and happened in a parking lot, so I actually got footage from a security camera that made my case. But this most recent accident, a huge work van ran a red light and tboned my little sedan. I had finally upgraded my 2000 car to a 2010 and only had the car for 3 weeks before it was totaled in this accident, I couldn't even drive it off the scene. AND I'm whiplashed pretty bad as it was a sideways collision from a much larger car (the van drove off with barely a scratch to their bumper, btw ), I am making a medical claim once I get through physical therapy and my symptoms stop. Anyways, the jerk lied to the cops that "his light was green too" and they didn't even ticket him, and the 5 businesses at the intersection all didn't have security footage. I also could not get insurance information from him and my insurance had to track it down with the plate number. My insurance did pay out and I now have a 2012 prius with all the safety ratings to make me feel better, but it's been an insurance nightmare as they're going after the other company for it and it looks like I may have to swallow the $500 deductible as it's a he-said-she-said and I am the younger driver (I'm 21 hit by a guy in his 30s). Between medical costs, making up the difference between my insurance's low appraisal of my totaled car to get the prius, the likely lost deductible, and being a college student with tuition due in a month, I don't have much flexibility for my cam budget right now. I'm also open to just getting a nicer front cam if you think that's a better idea with my budget, I had always thought rear cams were nice but not as neccessary bc if you're rear-ended it's pretty hard for insurance to put you at fault no matter what happens. The reason I was interested in the lifechaser camera was bc of this rear accident footage posted to reddit using that camera

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dashcam/comments/ohpu70

the footage seem legible enough to capture the incident and the price is within my reach (I didn't know any dual cams would be in my budget). Is there another camera you'd recommend that's close to my budget that would fit my needs?

I sincerely do appreciate all the help and kindness Phil! Attached pet tax of my little Milo if your motivations were animal-related

 

[SawMaster]

Say hello to Milo for me. Lost my 4-legged best friend of 12 years not so long ago and not set up to get another where I'm at now I do understand you, I was screwed over by liars 3 times before I got a dashcam. I never realized they were something I could afford, and luckily I found this forum before blowing my money on junk.

Any cam is better than none, and most of the time any cam will do to prove you are not at fault, but details like showing someone was on their phone or that they didn't look kind of makes things go quicker and with less argument, especially once their insurer thinks about what a jury would do if they saw your footage Sp you want as good video quality as you can get, but moreso your cam has to be reliable first and foremost and that is where many of the cheaper cams fail to deliver. I know nothing of the "Lifechaser" cams; might be OK and might not. The a500s is something used and discussed here on DCT so I know something of it. There's a thread on it HERE.

You don't get what you don't pay for, so cheaper cams have to lose something to meet their price point. What you don't want to lose is reliability, and the a500s seems to be reliable- what is lost is in the lens and the vid quality but you won't find better in any other dual cam at this price. There's also near zero factory support but it really doesn't need that since your warranty is with the seller. And with it using the IMX335 sensor the night-time vids are going to be far better than any other budget cam. The Novatek processor used now is also solid hardware without bugs or glitches. It's only real weakness is that it uses a battery and not supercaps to save the last file. That mainly affects really hot climates, it should be OK in Ohio at least for a few years, and really a few years is all you can reasonably expect out of any cheap cam; if you want more it costs more. Build quality with these is good, much better than almost any other cheap cam, so you might get several years from it. The other main drawback is the embedded "70mai" logo in the upper corner of the vids. It shouldn't cover anything you need to see but unlike better cams it's not user-removable and that bothers some folks. This is likely the best cam this company makes overall, as their others seem to have various issues although some do have better vids at a higher cost.

Check out the thread I linked to and see for yourself- just keep in mind that older models used a HiSilicon processor instead of Novatek so those are not what you're going to get today and what is said of them may not apply.

Phil