I need your help identifying this dashcam model.

[CurlyBlonde]

Hello, new member here.
I am trying to identify this dashcam and from what I've seen on the internet so far, there are a couple of models that differ ever so slightly so it's really hard to pin point it.
As you can see from the images I've included, the same form factor differs from one to the other in the lenses , some being ultra wide while others being just regular, some having an HDMI port on them ( which I don't know what it's used for) and some , also have an auxiliary jack for plug-in a rear-view camera , and also I've learned that there are different qualities all together in this particular model, some having a 2.4" screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, while others have a 2.7" screen with a 16:9 aspect ration, the one with a 2.7" screen being the "superior" one that actually records in at least HD @ 720p or interpolated FHD @ 1080p , and also they differ when it comes to the night vision capability , the cheaper model having regular LED's up front that just light up a white light thus being irrelevant, while the better model actually having IR LED's that might help with illuminating at night up to 1 meter in front of the car.

I am interested in identifying this product , finding out whatever I can about it , and if possible , find out if there were any firmware upgrades done to it by the manufacturer , that would slightly improve it's functionality.

So if you have owned one of these or you know anything about it, please help me out .

Thank you in advance.

 

[Vortex Radar]

It looks like the Scosche DDVR2ST. I'm guessing multiple companies are rebadging the same dashcam.

 

[CurlyBlonde]

Scosche DDVR2ST

Yes, it can be found under so different names , and that makes it difficult to find anything useful about it.
I'll go ahead and see if the model you named has any firmware upgrades or anything about it on the internet.

 

[country_hick]

A dash cam should NOT have led's on it. They are likely to cause glare in the windshield.
Good quality dash cams do not offer led's as they can see well enough by using your headlights.

 

[Dadi_T]

Those are old and very poor performance dashcams with no support whatsoever.
You woldn't have found firmware updates not even 10 years ago.

 

[Dashmellow]

Yeah, those are known as "generic" Chinese dash cams. We don't see quite as many as we used to but they are still very common. In some cases, you'll find identical looking cameras like these but they may have different components. Maybe a different sensor, lens or processor, a different port...whatever. Basically, whatever the manufacturer can source for a good price in order to put the camera together inside a common housing, often called a "public housing" since a manufacturer can buy them in the open market like any other component they need to build cameras.

If you look closely at the photos above you'll notice all the cameras have different lenses, as mentioned by the OP. This is typical of generic cameras.

It's rare to find firmware updates for cameras like this. Manufacturers building cameras like this put them out onto the market and then usually move on to something else.

 

[CurlyBlonde]

After getting all 4 and playing with them, opening them up , I found that two of them were made by a brand called Novatek and the model was suposedly G30 , they were from 2014 ~ 2015 and they were the "quality" ones, while the other two, I suspect were a replica of the Novatek ones, if indeed Novatek was the original, since it's possible that they copied the design from someplace else too.

I've connected them all to the pc and viewed them in OBS since they have the option to be used as a webcam, they all maxed out at 720p resolution & 30fps , as for the viewing angle , it differed slightly , some were wider, some narrower, and the LED's up front were IR leds on all of them and it did make a difference turning them on at night.

Mind you, I'm not taking from a dashcam perspective , since i got them to turn one into a door peephole of sorts , so for that specific function, they work flawlessly , but as a dashcam, I wouldn't know .

Also, the older Novatek models, seem to have more quality components in them, from the camera chip itself, to the main board and overall construction, even found a Samsung memory chip on one, while the cheap Chinese ones were very basic and poorly thrown together.
Also, you cannot interchange parts between them, you can't put the lcd display from the cheap chinese ones on the Novatek ones, it simply wont show an image, same goes for the camera module, which is a shame since two came with their displays broken so can't use them unfortunately.
Oh and one of them , has a "HDR" function , which seems to increase the contrast a bit in the image itself , both in normal and in night mode , which is good , also has the zoom in function .

Overall, they are good as cheap projects for those that want to play around with a camera, all 4 of them costed me $10 from a second hand seller and since they use a M12 mount for the lenses, i was able to use one of the mounts and put it on a Logitech C920 webcam and get a wide angle view on it so I'm happy with that.

For those that want to use it as a door peep hole like me, note that the ribbon flex cable that connects the camera module to the motherboard, is only 6cm long, so it's too short considering that it needs to bend to fit into the connectors as well, they use a 24pin , 0.5mm pitch, same-side pins type of cable.

 

[Dashmellow]

I found that two of them were made by a brand called Novatek

Novatek is a brand of dash cam processor found in many different brands and styles of dash cams but Novatek does not manufacture dash cams on their own. Sounds like some manufacturer sourced some older Novatek processors to use in the cameras. That's how cheap generic cameras are usually made.