Need recommendation on Dash Cam ASAP: battery life #1

[bediscreet]

Hello all. New to the forums here. Here's the story: My friend is being threatened at work and needs a dash cam to protect her car and possible also her. A week ago her expensive new car was damaged/hit requiring lots of money in repairs. We thought it was perhaps a hit and run but now not so sure. Just the other day, her car received a threatening note on it, pretty much saying there is more to come. All of this occurred while it was parked at work. We have our list of suspects but cannot prove anything just yet. Law enforcement also does not have enough evidence to take any action. Note: the parking lot does not have cameras

She needs:
- A dash cam that has enough battery life to last her full 8 hour shift
- Note on battery: we will not be plugging it into the cigarette outlet, to save the car's battery. We will plug it into an external source instead (maybe a 10,000 mAh USB battery backup?)
- discreet enough so the perpetrator does not discover the camera if he/she decides to vandalize the car more
- I do have an iPhone 4S I'm willing to lend her if this seems like a good option as a dash cam (I believe the battery life should record at least 2 hours before dying). If we go with this option, does anyone know of an app that will lower the resolution (for smaller file sizes) and will allow recording with the LCD off?

We are currently considering the DVR-207 since it allows a larger Nokia battery for about 4 hours of continuous recording. Thank you for all your help!

 

[Sabe]

Hello.
I can tell details only from gs1000 camera because i have one and i have done some testing with it.
It consumes power about 250 mAh when recording.
Internal battery is a joke, but you can use external USB power bank and that gives you more than enough time, and it works right away, just plug and play.
Using 32 GB card and 7kbps data rate you can record 10+ hours.
If you decide to use gs1000 camera it is better to use resolution 1280x720 because for some technical reason image is wider with that resolution, this might be same with all ambarella chip cameras.

 

[FSC830]

Hi,

a dashcam will not help you!
Same issue as here.
You need a tiny hidden cam which is spotting the parking lot, at least where the car stands.

Regards

 

[bediscreet]

Thank you all for the help! I guess when I thought about helping her, my first thought was dash cam but yes the hidden cams seems like a more appropriate measure in this circumstance. We ended up getting the BrickHouse Black Box Micro for $90. Thanks again!

 

[Sabe]

Thank you all for the help! I guess when I thought about helping her, my first thought was dash cam but yes the hidden cams seems like a more appropriate measure in this circumstance. We ended up getting the BrickHouse Black Box Micro for $90. Thanks again!

Good choice if car is in the daylight, but if it's in the garage this camera might be...challenging (i don't want to use word crap) 640x480 resolution is many times too small, in bad conditions it is impossible to recognize any person from it.