Iroczman15
New Member
Hi everyone. My first post here, but I did so some reading on the forums first. Sorry for the large amount of typing, but I figured I would put it all out there initially.
I am looking for a relatively affordable single forward-facing dash cam that I can put into my race/street car. I do currently have a GoPro Hero4 Silver that I have used for years, but I don't always want to have that running when I am just driving around anymore. Mostly because I kinda also want to use the GoPro camera to film different/creative angles of the car while I am racing or driving, so having an independent permanent forward facing dash-cam might be better. Budget is of concern here, and the most I would feel comfortable spending would be $200-250. I definitely do NOT need one with built in GPS. The dash-cam would be something I would simply wire up to the car's 12volt power source. I would NOT want to plug it into a cigarette lighter or have to plug it into anything; so permanently hard wired is a must have. I have a master on-off battery kill switch that I turn off the car's power anytime it is parked, so I am not worried about battery-drain when the car is not in use. I also do not need the motion-activated feature where if the car is bumped when parked/off. If the car is out of my garage, I am with it or nearby and I do not park it in dangerous situations.
I would basically turn on the camera to record if I knew I was going out and driving in a heavy traffic area, or on a fun exciting scenic drive. I would also certainly use it for drag racing, autocross, and any other racing events. *** However, mostly just the fear of a random deer running into the road or a distracted/bad driver crashing into me certainly weighs on my mind as I am driving around New Jersey and over the years there have been some close-calls. Having a dash camera would help me in any such unfortunate incident and the footage wouldn't lie. Some types of cameras can even pre-record 15-30 seconds before being actually activated, so something with a feature that would be a worthy investment. At work we use the "watchguard" camera system and that is recording al the time, but is setup to save 30 seconds prior to an incident/activation/triggered recording.
I don't think I would want a camera with a LCD display screen on the back, because there won't be a need for me to playback video footage right away when I could just simply save it to a computer and play it later. I plan to hide the camera behind the windshield's rear-view mirror out of my eyesight (and keep it there always), so I wouldn't be able to view the display screen anyways. If I needed to have a separate DVR recording unit wired to the camera, I have ample space under the dashboard to mount this. I also would NOT be interested in a camera with an additional lens that faces rearward.
Therefore, small lens, black, compact overall size, good memory storage, a way to hard wire it to the battery(fuse panel) and a pre-record feature are of high importance.
Of NO importance is a GPS feature, speech-activation, wi-fi connection to a phone, a rear facing camera, lane-detection type features, parking monitoring nor a viewable display screen.
Anyone have any thoughts or advice?
I am looking for a relatively affordable single forward-facing dash cam that I can put into my race/street car. I do currently have a GoPro Hero4 Silver that I have used for years, but I don't always want to have that running when I am just driving around anymore. Mostly because I kinda also want to use the GoPro camera to film different/creative angles of the car while I am racing or driving, so having an independent permanent forward facing dash-cam might be better. Budget is of concern here, and the most I would feel comfortable spending would be $200-250. I definitely do NOT need one with built in GPS. The dash-cam would be something I would simply wire up to the car's 12volt power source. I would NOT want to plug it into a cigarette lighter or have to plug it into anything; so permanently hard wired is a must have. I have a master on-off battery kill switch that I turn off the car's power anytime it is parked, so I am not worried about battery-drain when the car is not in use. I also do not need the motion-activated feature where if the car is bumped when parked/off. If the car is out of my garage, I am with it or nearby and I do not park it in dangerous situations.
I would basically turn on the camera to record if I knew I was going out and driving in a heavy traffic area, or on a fun exciting scenic drive. I would also certainly use it for drag racing, autocross, and any other racing events. *** However, mostly just the fear of a random deer running into the road or a distracted/bad driver crashing into me certainly weighs on my mind as I am driving around New Jersey and over the years there have been some close-calls. Having a dash camera would help me in any such unfortunate incident and the footage wouldn't lie. Some types of cameras can even pre-record 15-30 seconds before being actually activated, so something with a feature that would be a worthy investment. At work we use the "watchguard" camera system and that is recording al the time, but is setup to save 30 seconds prior to an incident/activation/triggered recording.
I don't think I would want a camera with a LCD display screen on the back, because there won't be a need for me to playback video footage right away when I could just simply save it to a computer and play it later. I plan to hide the camera behind the windshield's rear-view mirror out of my eyesight (and keep it there always), so I wouldn't be able to view the display screen anyways. If I needed to have a separate DVR recording unit wired to the camera, I have ample space under the dashboard to mount this. I also would NOT be interested in a camera with an additional lens that faces rearward.
Therefore, small lens, black, compact overall size, good memory storage, a way to hard wire it to the battery(fuse panel) and a pre-record feature are of high importance.
Of NO importance is a GPS feature, speech-activation, wi-fi connection to a phone, a rear facing camera, lane-detection type features, parking monitoring nor a viewable display screen.
Anyone have any thoughts or advice?
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