Looking for dash cam with night vision and large display (removable?)

[SawMaster]

I recall where a top State Football player here crashed some several years ago because he was adjusting his car radio, which came factory installed and is of course legal to have in your car. He was charged with the crash as 'reckless driving' simply because he wasn't watching where he was going. Just because it's in your car doesn't mean anything about whether you're allowed to use it while driving or not.

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

I would appreciate a driving aid that saw and alerted me to dangers on the road ahead, it is a constant fear of mine driving at night on a highway ( 80 kmh ) as you could potentially meet a cyclist there driving in the side of the road, but with no light on.
So if the timing is bad and there is a car going the other way, things would get ugly as you can not pull out, so you can go right into the 4 foot 4 foot ditch that often line Danish highways, in which case you and your car go somersaulting into a field.
So a occasional voice saying cyclist on the road ahead i would appreciate as a driving aid, cuz some cyclists here while we Danes pose at the worlds premiere cyclist country, well many are suicidal dangerous idiots, and in fact the reason i got into dashcams in the first place.

But a screen i would have to glance at just the right time to catch a danger, that is still a novelty in my book.

Last night, I was driving home from town in the pitch dark heading up the back road I live on coming up the mountain. I have very powerful bright headlights on my truck but all of a sudden I realized there was some sort of large black thing in the road out ahead of me and I couldn't quite see immediately what it was. It turned out to be a very large bear. I had to slow down and let it lumber off into the woods. I can see where a camera like this might be useful in this scenario where I would have looked over at the screen to get a better idea of what was in the road from a greater distance.

The Lanmodo camera is just a camera with a screen but the high end factory installed systems provide an audio alert when something appears in the road.

Also, another feature of these cameras is that they can see through inclement weather, or so it is claimed. That could be very useful if it works as claimed.

 

[kamkar]

No doubt i would turn in my ABS / ESP / electric windows / maybe even the heated seats, for a vision system like in the luxury cars.
I am pretty selective to the smart things i adopt, so much so when i voice it i am often percived as a tin foil hat wearing weirdo, which is far from the case

 

[DT MI]

The Lanmodo looks interesting as a secondary front facing camera. Mount it on the dash directly in front of the driver it could be useful as an auxiliary night vision aid and looks like it would be low enough to not interfere with the driver's line of sight. A bit expensive at ~$350 though.

 

[Dashmellow]

The Lanmodo looks interesting as a secondary front facing camera. Mount it on the dash directly in front of the driver it could be useful as an auxiliary night vision aid and looks like it would be low enough to not interfere with the driver's line of sight. A bit expensive at ~$350 though.

Well, there's that "Golden Member" offer for $199.00 which brings the camera into the realm of typical dash cam pricing. I agree with you about the idea of using it as an auxiliary night vision cam but the thing I might have an issue with is that it is so huge.

BTW, the new Lanmodo Pro model has a parking mode which could conceivably be very useful if it can see in the dark like that.

 

[Nigel]

Last night, I was driving home from town in the pitch dark heading up the back road I live on coming up the mountain. I have very powerful bright headlights on my truck but all of a sudden I realized there was some sort of large black thing in the road out ahead of me and I couldn't quite see immediately what it was. It turned out to be a very large bear. I had to slow down and let it lumber off into the woods. I can see where a camera like this might be useful in this scenario where I would have looked over at the screen to get a better idea of what was in the road from a greater distance.

And while you were looking at the screen, its cubs would have wandered out from the side of the road just in front of you and out of the field of view of the screen - crash.

The only reason for using night vision assistance is so that you can drive faster than is safe without it, but is that really a safe thing to do?

Here the unfenced moorland has a speed limit of 40 MPH so that you can't legally drive faster than is safe, of course you are not allowed to drive faster than is safe anyway, and 40 is a bit too fast in the dark when there are regularly very well camouflaged horses and their foals on the road!

 

[kamkar]

Then "you" sat gold member, my mind go strait to Austin powers Goldmember, and i chuckle a bit.

 

[Dashmellow]

And while you were looking at the screen, its cubs would have wandered out from the side of the road just in front of you and out of the field of view of the screen - crash.

The only reason for using night vision assistance is so that you can drive faster than is safe without it, but is that really a safe thing to do?

Here the unfenced moorland has a speed limit of 40 MPH so that you can't legally drive faster than is safe, of course you are not allowed to drive faster than is safe anyway, and 40 is a bit too fast in the dark when there are regularly very well camouflaged horses and their foals on the road!

You sound clueless. You have no idea about how far the bear was away from me, or about the particular kind of road I was driving on or my speed. Glancing over at a screen at the speed I was traveling would hardly cause a collision with an animal in the road at the distance where I first observed a dark figure.

The notion that the only reason one would use night vision is so you can drive faster is completely daft! This just sounds like some biased cranky old man opinion of yours.

Personally, I'm not too interested in your draconian British traffic laws regarding moorelands which would be absolutely bizarre, inappropriate and ineffective here in the type of mountainous rural environment I live in.

FWIW, it also happens that I know a thing or two about bear behavior having worked with a well known bear researcher/rehabilitator studying, tagging and installing radio collars on them, so scouting for cubs is a reflex. Black bears are very common here and I have had many interesting encounters with them. We happen to be in the middle of bear hunting season and so they are on the move and one may be more likely to see them crossing the roads at odd times.

 

[kamkar]

Look better than sun bears, who always look like a guy in a bear costume failing.

A black bear, whine not big caliber bear, can still tear your face off before you heart stop to beat.

Nobody is trespassing on these peoples land.

 

[Dashmellow]

I recall where a top State Football player here crashed some several years ago because he was adjusting his car radio, which came factory installed and is of course legal to have in your car. He was charged with the crash as 'reckless driving' simply because he wasn't watching where he was going. Just because it's in your car doesn't mean anything about whether you're allowed to use it while driving or not.

Phil

If he got distracted eating a sandwich or trying to open the lid on a hot cup of coffee he would have been charged with reckless, negligent or distracted driving too if he had a crash. The fact that he was adjusting a factory installed radio is irrelevant.

I do agree that a dash cam with an eight inch wide always on screen could be a distraction though. I like the night vision screens on the dash between the gauges behind the steering wheel as they do seem safer.

 

[Dashmellow]

A black bear, whine not big caliber bear, can still tear your face off before you heart stop to beat.

The black bear in my photos was huge. He likely weighed well over 300 pounds.

A similar sized bear woke me up one night when he was on my back deck getting into the bird feeder. I had forgotten to take it down at the end of winter before the bears come out of hibernation. He was standing on his hind legs hunched over the bird feeder and the bird feeder was mounted on a pole six feet from the floor of the deck! You definately don't want to mess with an animal that big.

Actually, I was about four feet away on the other side of the sliding glass door when he ended up lying on the floor on his back shaking the bird feeder he tore off the pole into his mouth. At one point, I cracked the door open a few inches to take some photos and he got scared and ran away. Then he kept coming back and sheepishly kept poking his head over the stairs and the lower level of the deck to see if it was ok to come back but basically he was more afraid of me than I was of him. This happened well before I ever got to work with bears personally and so it was pretty cool to see a huge bear like that from so close up.

 

[kamkar]

My last animal on road adventure was in 2018, where a horse had gotten out of its pen and was feeding on the grass in the ditch along the road.
2018 summer was very nice warm and long here so seemingly the owners was not feeding the horses right since they needed to break out.

Even having the high beams on, i was pretty close to the animal when i saw it, but still far enough to break if it had been on the road.
O and then the suicidal pigeon i almost ran over a few months ago, did not even flinch as i passed by it 1 foot or so away.

 

[egonvdv]

Well, there's that "Golden Member" offer for $199.00 which brings the camera into the realm of typical dash cam pricing. I agree with you about the idea of using it as an auxiliary night vision cam but the thing I might have an issue with is that it is so huge.

BTW, the new Lanmodo Pro model has a parking mode which could conceivably be very useful if it can see in the dark like that.

I bought the Pro model (promo at 199 usd)
It's very nice to have as night vision while driving, but the recordings are pretty terrible.
You can't make out number plates.
Also the thing is huge, so when you don't use it (during the day) it's better to take it down.
i see it as a nigh vision aid with as bonus a dashcam.

(i also bought it because I'm a gadget geek, but don't tell my wife)

 

[Dashmellow]

I bought the Pro model (promo at 199 usd)
It's very nice to have as night vision while driving, but the recordings are pretty terrible.
You can't make out number plates.
Also the thing is huge, so when you don't use it (during the day) it's better to take it down.
i see it as a nigh vision aid with as bonus a dashcam.

(i also bought it because I'm a gadget geek, but don't tell my wife)

How about posting a few screen shots so we can see what the results actually look like. Maybe a photo of the camera mounted in your vehicle too so we can see how big it really is.

 

[egonvdv]

sure will do so tomorrow!
so far haven't really used it, as home/work traffic is on the highway, so it's stored away
will use it for winter mountains drives etc

 

[egonvdv]

I don't really have footage when driving in the dark, but this works really well (IE looking at the night vision image on screen)
(will try to film it tonight)

But as you can see here, the dascam images are not good (can confirm that quality on youtube is same as on my pc):

And here a pic of the dashboard . i know it doesn't look big like this, but it really does obstruct the view
Especially when you use the suction cup to hang it of the windshield
the way it is on the picture i can still sort of look over it
But discrete it is not (unlike my U1000 which is also in the pic)

 

[Dashmellow]

The video quality is certainly poor but the scene illumination is impressive! Would love to see how this camera performs on a dark road if you get the chance. I notice that the angle of view is quite narrow, but that makes sense on a camera like this. If you want to see objects or pedestrians way out ahead of you in a dim or dark scene a slightly telephoto lens would be the best approach. The camera screen is rather large but it doesn't look as bad as I was expecting. Maybe it looks different depending on the setting and what time of day it is?

 

[egonvdv]

Ok this is the best i can do on short notice -
it's not really a drive on very dark roads, but it gives a very good impression of what the night vision can do:

the angle is narrow right in front of you, but that's where you have good vision anyway with your headlights.
It's mainly of interest to see what's further ahead and the cam does that very well

It seems that the best place for it is right in front of the driver . (in the footage i start out in the middle, but then moved it to the left

The lens on the back can be moved, so you can have the screen at an angle facing towards you, while the lens points straight ahead.

there's a new model coming out soon that has a separate lens.
so even more "stuff blocking your screen, but maybe the dashcam side of it will be improved.
if you jump on board early, you can get it for 200 usd .

if u want to order the vast pro, it seems this code gets you 30 usd off: SIMPLY30OFF

Still, it was on sale last month at 200 usd, so 339 usd is NOT a steal...

 

[Dashmellow]

Even though the detail isn't so great it is really impressive in how much it can illuminate darkness out in front of your vehicle. It actually works! This leaves me wanting to know more about the technology they are using.

 

[HonestReview]

@egonvdv

What's the point of the monitor on the console? I guess to have a screen for cameras that lack one?

That video is definitely oversaturated. You can see everything but nothing in detail. Lots of pixelation.

1. The one benefit - You'd 100% capture a car hitting you at night with that overly bright picture with little definition in the images captured
2. Downside - You couldn't make out a plate from that video what so ever! Image is a complete mess.

I guess if you ran this camera as a secondary one knowing the only strength is a very bright image at night, it may be "useful". You could see an "object" hit you which could be surmised as a car. But this camera would definitely make a poor primary unit. And a poor purchase in general.

That unit is 100% Reason to avoid cheap Dashcams