Set and forget is exactly what it say, and we have seen so many examples on that in here.
Most times the post go something like this.
" so i put a dashcam in my car 3 years ago, and yesterday i had a accident and i find out the darn thing have not made a recording since April 2018 "
And that's the problem, they have put a dashcam on the windscreen and then forgotten all about it cuz they haven't had any crashes.
And you cant just forget a dashcam like that for a few reasons.
First of all they are working in a harsh environment, most predominant the heat but they also see a good deal of moisture, and in the right place they can even experience pretty cold temperatures in the winter.
And lastly the memory cards which don't have some of the technologies other forms of solid state memory have, and they have their finite number of write cycles also.
Now the life of a memory card you can be lucky with, but also pretty darn unlucky, personally i have been unlucky with a few 64 GB "extreme" U3 cards that at the time was the most expensive memory cards i had ever gotten.
2 of those memory cards i dident even get to fill one time, so in reality they was like 40 Gb disposable memory, which are of course totally out there and not what i paid for at Amazon.
So both had to be replaced, which Amazon also did astounding fast, and the replacements have been working just fine since then, but it just go to show even the most expensive brand memory cards are a risk.
Another angle on the memory cards are the warranty from the factory, due to dashcams working in such harsh environments and the constant writing and deleting ( when full ) all of the memory card makers only give warranty for their endurance models for use in a dash or CCTV camera.
Problem before was these endurance models tended to be a lot more expensive than regular memory cards, so most of us dident use those endurance cards.
And you can also do that just fine with a regular memory card provided you are not unlucky, or live in and do all your driving in death valley.
In general i have gotten at least 2 years of usage on my memory cards, some i even think have served me 4 years, but that have then been the lucky few.
Also here speaking of the lifetime on my memory cards i should mention i don't really drive that much, maybe like 6 hours a week, and Denmark that are like Canada north on the globe don't really see the long really nice summers.
Though 2018 was one such year for us Danes with heat record after heat record being broken, then the rare really high temperatures ( 30 deg C or higher ) was pretty rare even in 2018, but we got plenty of sunshine from April and to September where our summer months are normally June - July - August and farmers normally having no reason at all to complain about the lack of rain.
But 2018 was so dry for us we had a countrywide ban on open fire from like May to August, we even had a few wildfires which our little flat contra rarely have.
Our world famous surfer spot " cold Hawaii " on the west coast of Jutland i am sure wasent really that good for the surfers in 2018, for a change it was warm but the winds that normally drive the fun over there was wayyyy less than in a normal year.
Anyways back to the memory cards, today the endurance models are more manageable in price, but a lot of us still don't use those, cuz even if the regular memory cards are not made for the extremes they still do pretty fine in most cases.
In regard to looking over the memory cards, then i probably do that a little more often than every 1-2 months, cuz when i encounter i idiot in traffic i put him on youtube, so while i have the memory card in the reader anyway i might as well give it a quick look over.
Still some cameras i rarely touch as i at the moment have 10 in my car, and normally it is just one of the dual cameras that cover the front & rear of my car i go to for footage ( new test camera K2S and Street guardian SG9663DC )
The other 3 camera on my windscreen i don't touch as often, but as a tester they are there and running, and my side cameras i also don't touch that often as it is single cameras so a little "painful" to get to those and pull a memory card from each.
Regarding cameras stuck to tint i have read a few cases in here where people have managed to remove those just fine without damaging the tint, but i am sure you have to be a bit more careful and and so it will probably take a bit longer to remove.
Personally i drive a little Suzuki hatchback, and as it is cheap all of the rear hatch frame around the window are bare metal, so i have used a rare earth magnet to hold and space out one of my cameras back there.
The same magnet trick i also use on my R side camera where i have folded over a piece of thin sheet metal so it was able to slide over the headliner, and then i have glued & taped 2 magnets to the camera there.
It don't look that good and i did plan to make some changes, but as it worked just fine, and looks don't bother me that much the camera have been sitting there on the headliner for over 2 years now.
You can take a look in the install photo thread and maybe get some ideas to things you can do in your car in regard to creative install.
I would start in the back as it have the newest installs / pictures and then work your way back thru the thread / time.
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/where-did-you-mount-the-camera-post-your-pictures.502/page-59
I have some pics in there too back around page 55 i think it is.
One more thing in regard to looking over your footage now and then, if you are on a MAC computer those seem to leave some hidden files on memory cards, often forcing MAC users to format the memory card in the camera to get it working right.
Street guardian will give you 2 years warranty if you register your camera online, this also cover the memory card if you buy that bundled with the camera.
Another thing about memory cards, as they have a "set" number of write cycles, then the larger memory card you have the longer it should in theory last as it take longer to fill a larger card and so write cycles should go by at a slower pace, in general i recommend 64Gb for a camera or channel in a dual model, this mean you will have 8 hours saved or in the case of a dual camera with a 128 GB memory card 2 X 8 hours ( front & rear )
And i don't know about you but i never drive 8 hours, little Denmark barely have the size for me to drive for that long and still be in Denmark when i stop
So even if you have a 2 hour commute to and from work, you will still have a couple of days worth of driving, and so a "buffer" if you forget to save a event on the day it happen.
The little i drive i have more like weeks of buffer time on my cameras, which serve my sluggish brain just fine.
I also recommend you to use the event button on your dash camera, this should lock the file / files in a Read Only folder, and files in there the camera cant readily delete.
That is on the newer cameras even the RO folder will see the oldest files deleted to make room for new recordings, but you still need to have a substantial number of event files in there before that happen.
But again as you have experienced this will only be working with correct named files.
Some seem to use the G sensor for triggering events while driving, but this are often hard or impossible to tune right so you don't get a lot of false events from potholes and so on, so i don't use that as my camera record all the time and so everything, and if it is something small i press the event button, and if its a major event where i am knocked out rescuers ASO should as one of the first things turn off my car, so even that catastrophic event should also be saved just fine.
My little sister and my one friend are instructed to go retrieve memory cards in my car if i should get hospitalized in a bad event.
The first Street Guardian they sent to me to test are still working but now in my friends car, i think i got that in 2013 or 14, it have of course seen some memory cards fail in it over that period.
I have never had a camera of theirs die on me but one test camera did have a faulty / sluggish GPS antenna which they will replace in a heartbeat.
BUT ! Others do seem to have managed to make a SG camera go haywire, but i cant say if its in lesser numbers than any other brand out there, what i do know is the company owner and resellers will be all over you to get the problem identified / fixed ASAP.
So from my point of view SG are by far the most assuring brand to work with, and i am also willing to pay a little premium for that.
BUT ! still i would not treat a SG camera as set and forget either, everything can break or start to perform less than optimal, so i am willing to set up a routine where i use a few minutes now and then to make sure my equipment are in fighting order.
I am not going to take any chances with all the low life's you can encounter in traffic today.
You could try to reach out to Jon at
https://streetguardian.cam/ that guy ( too ) have been known to stitch up a good deal for new or returning customers.
you can also PM ( start conversation ) him in here via his user name
@Street Guardian USA
