Not a great first experience with Nextbase

A

Alan_in_Hemel

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Hemel Hempstead
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I have a new car where the dealer has fitted Nextbase 385 front and rear dashcams. A Bluetooth connection is established but when I try and view anything I am told a wi-fi connection is required which fails.
I looked in the troubleshooting and have disconnected from my home wi-fi, turned of my VPN and disconnected from Apple Car Play. (Do they seriously want me to do this every time I want to view anything through this dashcam?)
I finally get very slow thumbnails appearing but the speed to access is very slow and frustrating. How can I access files in more user friendly way say via cloud on my PC.
 
Have you contacted the dealer?
 
Interesting, the 385 appears to be a fleet or an OE automotive model that isn't available for the general public to purchase individually. Nonetheless, I believe the wi-fi connection is intended to be connected to the myNextbase phone app as opposed to trying to connect it to a home wi-fi router or modem. I have owned the 522GW and 622GW models, and if I need to get photos or videos onto my computer, I remove the dash cam from the car, bring it inside, and connect it to my computer. However, the 385 appears to lack the Click and Go mount that makes removal of the camera easy, therefore I would try and remove the memory card and connect it to a reader on your computer.
 
Do you have a VPN going ?
Those will often throw a spanner in WIFI things.
 
Taking the SD card out and and plugging it in your PC will always be faster than WiFi and might be a good solution for you.

You can get very cheap adaptors if your PC doesn't have a card slot.
 
Aftrbrnr said:
Interesting, the 385 appears to be a fleet or an OE automotive model that isn't available for the general public to purchase individually. Nonetheless, I believe the wi-fi connection is intended to be connected to the myNextbase phone app as opposed to trying to connect it to a home wi-fi router or modem. I have owned the 522GW and 622GW models, and if I need to get photos or videos onto my computer, I remove the dash cam from the car, bring it inside, and connect it to my computer. However, the 385 appears to lack the Click and Go mount that makes removal of the camera easy, therefore I would try and remove the memory card and connect it to a reader on your computer.
Click to expand...
I did the same with my last dashcam. This one is glued to the windscreen, and the SD card cannot be removed. It is protected by a cover once the dashcam is in place. I am left with accessing via the wi-fi only. Very inconvenient but one hopes I will not have to do it often.
 
kamkar said:
Do you have a VPN going ?
Those will often throw a spanner in WIFI things.
Click to expand...
I must turn VPN off to get wi-fi access to the dashcam. However, I found when I turned VPN off it immediately turned itself on again. More research found a toggle in the VPN settings to prevent that.
 
mentadent said:
Taking the SD card out and and plugging it in your PC will always be faster than WiFi and might be a good solution for you.

You can get very cheap adaptors if your PC doesn't have a card slot.
Click to expand...
In this model the SD card is secured once the dashcam is affixed to the windscreen. I presume to avoid theft.
 
I tried connecting to the dashcam today while away from the house. Previously I had been parked on my drive, and I think the proximity to my home network might have been an issue even though I had disconnected from that. I disconnected VPN and CarPlay, I was then able to bring up the dashcam footage without any issues.

However, if I want to access the footage, I am more than likely to want to do this when on my drive. So, to have to move away from my house for this to work is a tad inconvenient. Hopefully I will not need to refer to the captured videos very often.
 
I flipped through the 385's manual which you can get off of Nextbase's website. I believe the camera can be removed from the mount by reversing the installation instructions (leaving the portion with the adhesive attached to the windshield behind), which will allow you access to the memory card port. However, it appears there is an optional security screw the installer can choose to put into place to prevent it from being easily removed. I recommend you download the manual to see how it all works, there's no way Nextbase would design something you couldn't access the battery bay to (as the 385 unusually has a user removable battery pack unlike most of their recent Series 2 soldered in ones) or take out the memory card.
 
Thanks for all the advice here. I wish the dealer had spent more time explaining the dashcam, but he was more keen to cover the many features of the new car. I think I have got it now but still not brave enough to try and prise it off of the windscreen.
 
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