Powerbank Dashcams

[Nigel]

The specs do state 14.6v input voltage.

Which means "up to a maximum of 14.6v".
I'm not saying that 15v is a problem, just that I don't know why he is bothering with a step up converter when it doesn't appear at first sight to be necessary...

 

[PeteTheGreek]

A few weeks ago I advised our friend to follow my setup and install power supplies to his Dashcam rather than the more cumbersome method of hardwiring.
He is so glad he listened.
Yesterday, with his wife and two young kids in his car he was involved in road rage.
Attempting to escape the idiot driver, he drove off the motorway and into a service station.
The idiot followed him in and stopped his vehicle before exiting and walking quickly towards my froends vehicle.
Without time to think and obviously, while thinking of his families safety, our friend pulled the key from his ignition, exited his own vehicle and locked it with the remote. He obviously wanted to keep the man from getting to his wife and kids.
He then had no choice but to confront the lunatic at the front right side of his vehicle. An argument pursued before the man suddenly became violent. They grappled for a while but luckily a couple of guys ran over and pulled them apart.
The argue and confrontation went on for almost ten minutes before police arrived.
The entire footage was recorded on his Dashcam despite the man claiming our friend had started the altercation.
On watching the video, the police arrested the culprit.
With hardwired dashcam, the recording would have ceased to exist as the camera would have turned off after removing the key.
The ravpower enabled the dashcam to keep recording right up until the police arrived and more.
Watching the video, you can quickly see who was at fault.
His wife and kids were badly shook up but the ravpowers kept the cameras rolling.
Without them, who knows what our friend would be facing. Possible assault charges instead of self defence?
This is the Beauty of Ravpower and why no hardwired dashcam can ever match it.
Once the police have finished with the footage our friend said he will youtube it.
I will bang a link up on this forum.
I'm so glad I spread the word!

*** I think people are getting confused. I am NOT saying my method is the best. An example would be- I am a photographer and I use one particular lens that costs around £2500 specifically for macro photography. I could go on a photography forum and rant all day about how great the lens is and how it's the bees knees BUT how many people can afford one. So I recommend that if they can't afford it, they use a dsl 250. That costs around £60 as opposed to £2500 and in effect is a clip on magnifying glass. It's not ideal and is a far cry from my Sony lens but it allows people to get a similar setup on a budget.

There's no point showing people a Dashcam setup if it's unaffordable to them. We all know the technology is out there for a better and an even better setup but there has to be a tradeoff due to cost.
My setup gives two dashcams complete with two power banks, sd cards etc, all in for £280. It works great and so far is fitted in five vehicles that I know of without any hiccup.
Now I know there's better setups but for those who don't have the budget, what's their option?

 

[PeteTheGreek]

I regularly get 15+ hours with my Viofo hardwired to my starter battery. Viofo has different parking modes you can select from. If you use the low bitrate mode, then it will record all the time at a reduced resolution.

The downfall of powerbanks or secondary batteries is that the storage card becomes the new chokepoint. It doesn’t do any good to be able to run your cameras for three days, if the storage card starts overwriting itself before you’re able to check on your car for damage.

My card capability with nextbase is as follows-

Medium (default): 1280×720 10 fps

7 days

Lowering the fps still gives me a full seven days recording. Usually we'll enough for over weekend parking etc.
Even at 30fps I get just over three days. If I upgrade to 128gb it will give me a whole week of recording before overriding.
To be honest the card paid for itself in the first week because without constant recording I would never have been able to prove where the dust that covered my car came from (£50 valet voucher).

 

[Nigel]

I'd certainly be interested in that if the price could be matched, all in for £280.

Currently, from the Viofo Store on Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/page/5F68F962-6130-4543-B89B-DD643BF67EBE

£169.79 A129 Plus (Quad HD resolution front + Full HD resolution rear)
£17.49 HK3 hardwire kit.
£15.95 CPL for the front camera.
Total = £203.23

This will use the car battery for parking mode, so may not be ideal if you want 24/7 coverage or have a BMW! But for covering parking in supermarket car parks where you don't need 24/7, it should be fine.

My card capability with nextbase is as follows-

Medium (default): 1280×720

Maybe I didn't need to go for a Quad HD camera, if you are only using 720 resolution! But that only records a quarter of the detail, and I would prefer to read the plate of the car that hit mine in the supermarket car park. Of course I could of gone for the Viofo A129 Pro with 4K resolution and still have been well within your budget, and that would give me 8 times the detail, so that I read the plate of cars colliding in the next couple of rows of the supermarket car park! Although I think the current firmware on that only does FHD for parking mode since reading plates 2 rows away is not required and it is better to get 4x the recording length.

 

[PeteTheGreek]

Currently, from the Viofo Store on Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/page/5F68F962-6130-4543-B89B-DD643BF67EBE

£169.79 A129 Plus (Quad HD resolution front + Full HD resolution rear)
£17.49 HK3 hardwire kit.
£15.95 CPL for the front camera.
Total = £203.23

This will use the car battery for parking mode, so may not be ideal if you want 24/7 coverage or have a BMW! But for covering parking in supermarket car parks where you don't need 24/7, it should be fine.


Maybe I didn't need to go for a Quad HD camera, if you are only using 720 resolution! But that only records a quarter of the detail, and I would prefer to read the plate of the car that hit mine in the supermarket car park. Of course I could of gone for the Viofo A129 Pro with 4K resolution and still have been well within your budget, and that would give me 8 times the detail, so that I read the plate of cars colliding in the next couple of rows of the supermarket car park! Although I think the current firmware on that only does FHD for parking mode since reading plates 2 rows away is not required and it is better to get 4x the recording length.

Is that price for two cameras, front and rear and two 64gb sd cards?

The 720p is only for when parked up for between 4-7 days.

Had I had the camera set to normal res, I probably wouldn't have caught the brick dust cloud and been compensated.
Also, its not only trolleys that damage your car, there is wanton vandalism too, such as paint spray, brake fluid and marker pens. Lots of implements can be used that don't cause the G sensor to activate. I'd sooner a low res of an incident, than non at all.

People have wised up to how dashcams record. We had a neighbour last year who parked outside a house in Luton.
The residents were annoyed with people parking outside their home and decided to spray paint all down the side of his pride, slk. He knew it was them because his wife spotted them peeking through the curtains as they left.
There is no way they didn't see his Dashcam stuck on his front windscreen but they damaged his car anyway.
His Dashcam, which was hardwired, recorded nothing.

There are pros and cons to all dashcams and setups. I would just sooner record in a lower resolution than not at all and my 720p did the trick as it got me compensated and that's what matters at the end of the day.

I used to install cctv and people used to say they want all the bells and whistles. I used to reply, "sometimes a toy is just a toy but if you want hard evidence, that's another story".

If you look at all the reviews online in the UK, Viofo have just two and a half stars and nextbase five and a half. Personally I don't think one is better than the other but I do always purchase based on reviews. One of the biggest issues with hardwired dashcams is dead car batteries (despite what the makers say. The vast neg reviews show the hard truth). My system eliminates that completely.

Like I say, it's swings and roundabouts but FOR ME, hardwired has let me down many times with failed recordings etc. My system has been in six months and has caught an incident and got me compensated- I can only go by that.

 

[gamesfrager]

ich means "up to a maximum of 14.6v".

I'm not saying that 15v is a problem, just that I don't know why he is bothering with a step up converter when it doesn't appear at first sight to be necessary...

I have a 12v power supply at home for another project. When I used it to test the battery charging, I noticed even after 4 hours the charge indicator didn't move beyond 1/4. So I figured it must be because the supplied voltage was lower than required 14.6v
That's why I bought the converter. And sure enough, when I used the converter, it started going up in the charge indicator.

The total cost could have been lower if I bought everything from Aliexpress, but it would have meant longer wait time.

- $85 battery - Amazon
- $18 converter - Aliexpress
- $12 fuse taps - Amazon
- $11 barrel connector extensions - Amazon
- $12 barrel connector splitter - Amazon

I can probably shave $20 or so if I reconsider the needed wires and order everything from Aliexpress. But I'm still pretty happy with the end result.
I do have the Cellink NEO on our SUV. It's a very nice plug and play solution but way too expensive.
My dashcam was $280 CAD on sale from Aliexpress Viofo store.

 

[gamesfrager]

Ugh .. can't we edit posts for spelling errors!?
* Home not hope

 

[Kremmen]

You should have a blue "edit" at the bottom :

"Report, Edit, Delete"

 

[IAmATeaf]

Which means "up to a maximum of 14.6v".
I'm not saying that 15v is a problem, just that I don't know why he is bothering with a step up converter when it doesn't appear at first sight to be necessary...

Why would you assume that?

My laptop spec states 19v input voltage and in the past I’ve accidentally tried a 12v charger and guess what it doesn’t charge.

 

[Nigel]

I have a 12v power supply at home for another project. When I used it to test the battery charging, I noticed even after 4 hours the charge indicator didn't move beyond 1/4. So I figured it must be because the supplied voltage was lower than required 14.6v
That's why I bought the converter. And sure enough, when I used the converter, it started going up in the charge indicator.

If the powerbank doesn't have its own step-up then it would need 14.6v to get to a full charge, 12.8v for a half charge, so if your alternator produces 14.6v then you don't need the step-up, although on many cars the alternator does produce 14.6v, but only for the first couple of minutes, then reduces to 13.8v, which would mean you would only ever get a 3/4 charge.

Does anyone know if the other brands such as Cellink have the same issue? I had assumed they had a step-up voltage converter built in, but after seeing some images of the PCBs, I'm suspecting not...

 

[Nigel]

Ugh .. can't we edit posts for spelling errors!?
* Home not hope

You might be missing edit functionality due to newbee restrictions.

 

[gamesfrager]

You might be missing edit functionality due to newbee restrictions.

Yep, that was it. It became available after a couple of posts.

 

[Nigel]

Is that price for two cameras, front and rear and two 64gb sd cards?

The 720p is only for when parked up for between 4-7 days.

Had I had the camera set to normal res, I probably wouldn't have caught the brick dust cloud and been compensated.
Also, its not only trolleys that damage your car, there is wanton vandalism too, such as paint spray, brake fluid and marker pens. Lots of implements can be used that don't cause the G sensor to activate. I'd sooner a low res of an incident, than non at all.

That was for a dual channel camera with front and rear views, plus everything needed except for the memory cards. I would suggest 128GB memory cards, but everyone has different needs and makes different choices on that.

Viofo cameras record parking mode video at low bitrate but full resolution, which normally gives a much better result than 720p, and maybe longer record times depending on which parking mode you use and what you compare it with.

If you look at all the reviews online in the UK, Viofo have just two and a half stars and nextbase five and a half. Personally I don't think one is better than the other but I do always purchase based on reviews. One of the biggest issues with hardwired dashcams is dead car batteries (despite what the makers say. The vast neg reviews show the hard truth). My system eliminates that completely.

Just checked the Amazon.co.uk stores, choosing Viofo's A129 Plus that I linked above against the Nextbase 622 which I take as a roughly similar quality camera, Viofo has the higher stars at 4.3 against 4.2, while the Nextbase costs an extra 76%. Against the Nextbase 522, it is 4.4 against 4.3 in favor of the Nextbase, and the Nextbase is 40% more expensive:

VIOFO

VIOFO

www.amazon.co.uk

Nextbase

Next-base dash-cam

www.amazon.co.uk

But remember, Nextbase uses batteries instead of super capacitors, so after 1-2 years, you are going to have to buy a new one, or swap it for a remanufactured one at half price, while the original Viofo will still be working fine.

 

[PeteTheGreek]

That was for a dual channel camera with front and rear views, plus everything needed except for the memory cards. I would suggest 128GB memory cards, but everyone has different needs and makes different choices on that.

Viofo cameras record parking mode video at low bitrate but full resolution, which normally gives a much better result than 720p, and maybe longer record times depending on which parking mode you use and what you compare it with.


Just checked the Amazon.co.uk stores, choosing Viofo's A129 Plus that I linked above against the Nextbase 622 which I take as a roughly similar quality camera, Viofo has the higher stars at 4.3 against 4.2, while the Nextbase costs an extra 76%. Against the Nextbase 522, it is 4.4 against 4.3 in favor of the Nextbase, and the Nextbase is 40% more expensive:

VIOFO

VIOFO

www.amazon.co.uk

Nextbase

Next-base dash-cam

www.amazon.co.uk

But remember, Nextbase uses batteries instead of super capacitors, so after 1-2 years, you are going to have to buy a new one, or swap it for a remanufactured one at half price, while the original Viofo will still be working fine.

That's really great info. It's very easy to get sucked into the nextbase trap.
What about returns with viofo if you get a bad one. I got the nextbase from a local store. It went faulty eleven months in and they upgraded it to a later model foc. What are viofo like for returns?
Any ideas on that one. I always like to buy techy stuff from stores in case of fault with ease of returns. Thanks for that really helpful info.
I opted for two separate cameras because my rear window is tinted. To be honest, even the nextbase cam is struggling to see through with exposure on full.
Not too worried about the nextbase battery. They are only about £10 and fairly easy to change. I just did my Tom Tom one. It cost £13 on auction site. If you have the splitters to split the cases and a soldering iron the dashcam batteries can be changed in around ten to fifteen minutes.

 

[Kremmen]

I agree that Nextbase support is superb. Tiffany and now Millie are on the ball.

My issue is the Nextbase, on a stalk, battery, non stealthy design. If they followed the design of their 380 which was stealthy, had capacitors and was easy to mount/unmount and had HD resolution I'd look again.

 

[Nigel]

What about returns with viofo if you get a bad one. I got the nextbase from a local store. It went faulty eleven months in and they upgraded it to a later model foc. What are viofo like for returns?

If you buy from the Amazon store then delivery is quick and returns are very easy, just go through the standard Amazon process, easier than returning to a physical store!

Not sure if orders are fulfilled by Amazon, the arrangements seem to keep changing.

If buying from the Viofo website then returns are not quite so quick and easy, but they seem to work OK. You are essentially buying from China, although delivery often seems to be from the UK, I suspect they normally come from the same place as the Amazon deliveries.

If buying from other places, you need to do your research, some of the ebay shops may disappear before you need to return so be careful there, although some ebay shops are fine.

I opted for two separate cameras because my rear window is tinted.

A dual channel camera should deal with rear tint OK, although tint is a hindrance to image quality.

Not too worried about the nextbase battery.

Yes, if you have the tools and skills to change a battery then it is not a big issue. If only they had used a standard plug in battery instead of needing a soldering iron!

Still, with a Viofo camera you do not need to worry about the batteries at all, they don't have any.

It went faulty eleven months in and they upgraded it to a later model foc.

Seems they design them to fail at 13 months, but then if we get a hot summer they end up failing at 11 months and they have to send out a load of free upgrades instead of charging everyone to fix them!

Maybe that wasn't the issue, but we seem to regularly hear of failures at 11-13 months, and if you google "Nextbase battery" then there are plenty of people with issues.

 

[PeteTheGreek]

If you buy from the Amazon store then delivery is quick and returns are very easy, just go through the standard Amazon process, easier than returning to a physical store!

Not sure if orders are fulfilled by Amazon, the arrangements seem to keep changing.

If buying from the Viofo website then returns are not quite so quick and easy, but they seem to work OK. You are essentially buying from China, although delivery often seems to be from the UK, I suspect they normally come from the same place as the Amazon deliveries.

If buying from other places, you need to do your research, some of the ebay shops may disappear before you need to return so be careful there, although some ebay shops are fine.


A dual channel camera should deal with rear tint OK, although tint is a hindrance to image quality.


Yes, if you have the tools and skills to change a battery then it is not a big issue. If only they had used a standard plug in battery instead of needing a soldering iron!

Still, with a Viofo camera you do not need to worry about the batteries at all, they don't have any.

Seems they design them to fail at 13 months, but then if we get a hot summer they end up failing at 11 months and they have to send out a load of free upgrades instead of charging everyone to fix them!

Maybe that wasn't the issue, but we seem to regularly hear of failures at 11-13 months, and if you google "Nextbase battery" then there are plenty of people with issues.

Great info thanks!

 

[PeteTheGreek]

Posting this just to show my setup. Will refrain from using company names because I don't want to be accused of being an agent for them (this made me smile).
So I will just upload some pictures. The power supplys sounds like Ravioli (just the first three letters. The two dashcams are Next....e 122 (rear) and 522 (front).
The power supply's have pass through. They power the dashcams for three months before needing a charge.
The Rav...... R Power supplies have worn labels, so unsure of the techy stuff.

 

[StrayCam]

Thanks for sharing pics. It's great to see this is a viable option for external dashcam batteries.

I believe the external "ravioli" lithium batteries will/can last quite a while (years)... that's good to hear!

 

[Nigel]

Kind of an odd request, I already own a yi dash cam. With it's usage experience, Do anyone know of a dash cam with

1. super capacitor instead of lithium ion batteries to survive the tropics. (Ddpai has models but they don't satisfy the next requirment)
2.(weird requirement incoming) Bluetooth connection to sync time instead of disrupting internet with wifi or manual steps on every power on when not hardwired. Or any other solution so that time need not be set up everytime ( not hardwired) for every drive.
3. regular dash cam features like number plate legibility , accident detection, rotate videos automatically etc.

Please recommend any dashcam with minimal hands-on effort, heat tolerance and not needed to be hardwired.

Thanks

1. Lots of dashcams use super capacitors these days.
2. Most dashcams set the time using GPS, no need for phone, internet or manual time setting.
3. Again, that is most dashcams.

See:

Best Dash Cams of 2022 - DashCamTalk

When looking for a new dash cam, check out our main page for the best bang for your buck dash cams. Beyond that, for 2022 these are the best dash cams to

dashcamtalk.com