Identify no-name cheap cam

[Old Grey]

This is all I can afford - no income - and the problem I'm having is this cams poor night performance - too dark - and whether it's inherited or a fault, but it's hard finding any info on it because I don't know what it is.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/182014930544
I don't know if it has a light sensor to switch between day/night or it's faulty, because it always displays a yellow Sun in the display day or night.

 

[niko]

Welcome to the forum !
Unfortunately there are not much we can complain or demand from this dashcam. It's factory wholesale price is around 3.50-4usd.

 

[efoo]

This is all I can afford - no income

Sorry to hear that. If that is your current situation, don't bother with a dash cam. You still have road registration and third-party compulsory insurance you need to pay, save your money for those essential fees. Stop wasting time mucking around with cheap crappy dash cams.

 

[Old Grey]

Saving $18 is going to make a big dent in $1000 of reg/insurance, but $200 isn't. I'm sure that makes sense, just not on this planet.

You guys should open up a no-brand section in the forum because they probably sell triple of them and it would increase traffic here, plus it would help the less privileged poor people that really need help.

This thing works surprising well, so I'm happy with cheap, it's just that at night it's darker than my old expensive cam.

From what I can figure it's some sort of G30 copy - probably the same electronics because electronic parts are worth nothing, like iPhone6 16GB is worth $200 but sold for $600 -, just with open source OS.

 

[efoo]

You guys should open up a no-brand section in the forum because they probably sell triple of them and it would increase traffic here, plus it would help the less privileged poor people that really need help.

The problem with no-brand section is how are members going to search and identify the models they are using? Plus a lot of them are crap waste-of-time and we don't bother recommend them. I have one myself (see my avatar) and I did a review on it, it's a no-brand cam I bought from Newfrog for AU$24 (more for curiosity sake). It's a 720p camera and it is the second worst digital cams I own, the image is soft, blurry and dark. The worse cam is the one on my Syma X5C-1 drone, also a 720p cam.

 

[Old Grey]

That's simple, just put a sticky at the top of each section with a picture so that everybody with a similar looking cam can have a group discussion.

Or make a legend at the top with the pictures so that you can be directed to the forum topics.

Expensive cams have faults too.
If it dies, which can happen because of heat - my old one expensive one has a intermittent heat problem -, that's a ton of $ down the drain.
It is more susceptible to snatch n grab - look for broken glass at railway stations -, which I have seen in broad daylight at a busy boat ramp.
Electronics evolves so fast that expensive models are worthless in a short time, and that means a lot of money is lost.

This thing is 10 times cheaper than the expensive stuff, and no way is it even close to 10 times worse, so I'm not complaining, and in fact I'm very happy how clear it is.

When you have been buying electronics for 35 years, you learn not to buy expensive - My 1980 PC cost as much as a new car back then -.

 

[niko]

That's simple, just put a sticky at the top of each section with a picture so that everybody with a similar looking cam can have a group discussion.

Or make a legend at the top with the pictures so that you can be directed to the forum topics.

Expensive cams have faults too.
If it dies, which can happen because of heat - my old one expensive one has a intermittent heat problem -, that's a ton of $ down the drain.
It is more susceptible to snatch n grab - look for broken glass at railway stations -, which I have seen in broad daylight at a busy boat ramp.
Electronics evolves so fast that expensive models are worthless in a short time, and that means a lot of money is lost.

This thing is 10 times cheaper than the expensive stuff, and no way is it even close to 10 times worse, so I'm not complaining, and in fact I'm very happy how clear it is.

When you have been buying electronics for 35 years, you learn not to buy expensive - My 1980 PC cost as much as a new car back then -.

I agree with you, even with most expencive dashcams or well known brand name may happen faults, no argue here.
Most important for ANY purchase to be safe is to buy from LOCAL well known dealer / re-seller who has no hassle warranty policy.

Regarding your "no name proposal" for dashcam section there will be a big dilemma and confusion, because same looking with same printed specs there are dozens "underground" factories in China who do them and not every one uses fully same hardware or firmware. Some has different CPU, some different lens, firmware, etc. Even from same "underground" factory, or same e-bay amazon reseller who sells this junk you can get two internally different units depending on production. We have seen many of those cases with well known G1W-series "copy-cats".

 

[Old Grey]

Those problems are merely semantics, because even some help is better than no help.

I thought this was supposed to be the best and most comprehensive dashcam forum on the web, but it looks like it's only for the rich who talk down to the poor.

I rather drive around for 6 weeks than buy a $100 dashcam, so I'm quite happy with my junk because it is the junk that I can afford. And really who needs 4K in a head-on accident.

They should really tell you at the start this is run by dashcam retailers, because that is what it feels like.

 

[niko]

Those problems are merely semantics, because even some help is better than no help.

I thought this was supposed to be the best and most comprehensive dashcam forum on the web, but it looks like it's only for the rich who talk down to the poor.

I rather drive around for 6 weeks than buy a $100 dashcam, so I'm quite happy with my junk because it is the junk that I can afford. And really who needs 4K in a head-on accident.

They should really tell you at the start this is run by dashcam retailers, because that is what it feels like.

I also started from low-end and some time no-name dashcams long time ago, so there is nothing wrong here, nobody "accuses" you, you probably misunderstood.
Any dashcam ( even so called junk ) is better than no dashcam at all, so you do the right thing of using even some sort of DVR in your car. It's just support for those no-names could be misleading due to their nature / origin. However any questions are welcome and forum members replay depending on their knowledge and experience.

 

[jokiin]

Those problems are merely semantics, because even some help is better than no help.

I thought this was supposed to be the best and most comprehensive dashcam forum on the web, but it looks like it's only for the rich who talk down to the poor.

I rather drive around for 6 weeks than buy a $100 dashcam, so I'm quite happy with my junk because it is the junk that I can afford. And really who needs 4K in a head-on accident.

They should really tell you at the start this is run by dashcam retailers, because that is what it feels like.

it's always possible to get help here, regardless of what camera you have, that's not an issue

the challenge with the generic product is there are multiple versions of the same looking product and they change often, it's very hard to offer blanket advice based on looks unfortunately, the advice could turn out to be flat out incorrect if the look of the product was all we had to go on so having dedicated sections for each of these cameras is not really practical

if you have problems or need help you will get asked for more detail to try and work out what you have but by all means ask away if you need assistance

 

[Deleted member 24437]

I agree with you, even with most expencive dashcams or well known brand name may happen faults, no argue here.
Most important for ANY purchase to be safe is to buy from LOCAL well known dealer / re-seller who has no hassle warranty policy.

Regarding your "no name proposal" for dashcam section there will be a big dilemma and confusion, because same looking with same printed specs there are dozens "underground" factories in China who do them and not every one uses fully same hardware or firmware. Some has different CPU, some different lens, firmware, etc. Even from same "underground" factory, or same e-bay amazon reseller who sells this junk you can get two internally different units depending on production. We have seen many of those cases with well known G1W-series "copy-cats".

Incidentally, elProducente, Philipp showed that there are three different Internal superstructures in Xiaomi Yi cams varying with serial numbers!

 

[Old Grey]

I was hopping this forum was more like an interactive YouTube comments section.
In Youtube someone posts a review of a item, so you look for the similar item so that you can ask questions. Even if it is a different iteration, people with similar items can talk about it and work things out.

I have a cheap voice recorder that I wanted to set the date on so I found the YT video. They have different embedded firmwares so the advice doesn't work on all of them, but now there is a common location for discussion, and coupled with the small information of the original video people try different things, and if they find a solution they post it for others.
It was what I was hinting at with topics with a general pictures, because that is what is already happening on YouTube. The only problem with YT is that it isn't that interactive.

I'm not that interested in high end technical specifications, just a general overview if people with similar looking cams experience dark night vision, or if there is a trick to get it better.
My instruction don't tell you how to switch on the IR LEDs, but a YT video showed different instructions so I now know how to turn it on - haven't tested it yet as I do limited driving -.

 

[niko]

I was hopping this forum was more like an interactive YouTube comments section.
In Youtube someone posts a review of a item, so you look for the similar item so that you can ask questions. Even if it is a different iteration, people with similar items can talk about it and work things out.

I have a cheap voice recorder that I wanted to set the date on so I found the YT video. They have different embedded firmwares so the advice doesn't work on all of them, but now there is a common location for discussion, and coupled with the small information of the original video people try different things, and if they find a solution they post it for others.
It was what I was hinting at with topics with a general pictures, because that is what is already happening on YouTube. The only problem with YT is that it isn't that interactive.

I'm not that interested in high end technical specifications, just a general overview if people with similar looking cams experience dark night vision, or if there is a trick to get it better.
My instruction don't tell you how to switch on the IR LEDs, but a YT video showed different instructions so I now know how to turn it on - haven't tested it yet as I do limited driving -.

Forget about IR leds on dashcam if it's mounted inside car, - it is childish Chinese "marketing trick". The only situation where IR leds may help a little is for taxi-drivers if they want to record at night interior. Other than that IR are totally useless.

To "improve" your night footage the only way if you try VLC filter trick on your original video to see if you can get more out of it:

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threa...h-more-details-from-night-video-footage.8255/

 

[Old Grey]

Yeah, all the other IR cams I've got don't have much range, so I wasn't expecting too much.

Yeah, I was going to fix it in post as I've got 20 years there.

I found out what I wanted to know from Youtube, that the videos from similar, and non similar cams with the same firmware, were all dark at night.