Sound like what you want is a regular camera, but aside for recording what it is pointed at then they have nothing in common with a dash camera.
1: A dashcam are supposed to always be there in your car, so you don't forget it and go " well its just a short drive to the shop" and then have your crash on the way there.
2: The dashcam are supposed to come on and off with the car, so you don't forget to press record before you set off and dont forget to turn it off when you get to your destination.
3: The dashcam are supposed to work for any length / duration of a drive, so you can do a strait 12 hour drive but maybe only have 10 hours of it on your memory card due to its size, but the 10 hours you have will be the previous 10 hours, so the first 2 hours of your drive have been written over to make room for more recordings. ( this all depending on memory card size of course )
4: To wire in a dashcam with the normal power source ( a plug in your dash or centre console cigarette lighter plug ) take a short time, i can install a camera in my car in under 20 minutes.
BUT ! if you go with the conventional power source, you will of course have the wire going across your dash to where it go out of sight, in my case i most times route to the Right and behind / over my glove box, and then up the R side A pillar, then along / above the headliner to the middle of the windscreen.
And only to take the plastic trim off my A pillar do i need a tool ( screwdriver ) the rest are tool free, or maybe use the little plastic pry bar that often come with cameras.
So after a install like that i have 30 CM / a foot + of wire i can see ( from the lighter socket and to where wire disappear in under my dashboard, and then the few inches of wore that are between the top of the windscreen / headliner and the camera. / surplus wire just tucked up over the headliner to be out of sight, but you can also bundle that up under the dashboard and zip tie or tape it to something there.
I agree with you that you do not want any wires dangling down in front of the windscreen, that's actually illegal in Denmark though it is one of many laws that appear to not be enforced.
And you do not want any form of battery in a dashcam, the hot car interior in the summer time are not good for batteries, same go for cold if you live in a place that get really cold in the winter time.
So cameras based on capacitors for emergency power are the best, and those are just to properly finalize recordings in case power get dislodged in a violent event.
And of course you want to install your dashcam as stealthy as possible, often in the ideal place at the top of the windscreen you will have a dotted sun shade, if you mount on this you can just have the lens peeking out below the dotted area and so only really see 1/3 of a already small camera
View attachment 50620
Right now on my 27" 1080p computer screen, this pic is a 1:1 size of my dashcam / lighter and USB drive
As i recall the LCD screen are 1.5" diagonal, so that tell a little about the size of the thing,,,,, cuz many think dashcams are really big from looking at pictures, but they are at least as small as your gopro cameras ASO.
