What Are the Most Important Dash Cam Features?

[Fari]

Hey folks,

What are the most important dashcam features for you?
There are hundreds of dashcams you can choose from, but few have solid features.
Could you share your opinion on that matter in a short survey?
The lucky respondent will win a smart home security camera.
The survey is valid until Aug.28th.
Click the link here:

SurveyCake

Make your survey a piece of cake!

www.surveycake.com

Thank you for your time

 

[country_hick]

What does my age and occupation have to do with my desired dashcam features?
I do not fill out surveys with those kinds of questions. Therefore I have no idea what page 2 of the survey asks.

Offer:
1. supercapacitor NOT a battery
2. glass lens in a housing that will not distort when it gets hot. To many dashcams lose focus when they get hot.
3. Spend the extra $.27 to install a high quality part instead of the cheapest part available.
4. Make the camera all black. In the USA we want stealth (not chrome or a white logo).
5. Make the dashcam small and easily hidden.
6. offer at least a 1 year warranty.
7. offer firmware updates
8. do not incluide IR lights unless it is a dual cam with one cam designed specifically to record the car cabin.
9. be sure the dashcam records clearly in the dark when only headlights illuminate the road. Some of us use roads without any other illumination.
10. Make it reliable. A MTBF number would be great. Knowing the Mean Time Between Failures can help us know if the cam should last a long time or is likely to die inside of a year.

 

[Nigel]

I do not fill out surveys with those kinds of questions. Therefore I have no idea what page 2 of the survey asks.

Page 2 was probably your name, address, email and telephone numbers (with the excuse that they are needed for the prize),
Page 3 your bank account details...

I'll add:

11. 360 degree view with sufficient resolution to easily read number plates at 3 car lengths away.

 

[Teksaz]

They ask for your E-Mail, but you can leave this field blank.
I don't care for the offered prize, so i did.
And posting here took me more time than answering those questions. (I left all text fields empty. )

Many features are missing... like discreet mounting options and stuff like that.

My ranking would be:
1. Video quality
2. Discreet (e.g. small)
3. SD card size (at least 256GB)

 

[jokiin]

Many features are missing...

that's what happens when the survey is based on what they might think is important for the product, probably more valid feedback in the first couple of posts here, in fact you don't even need to ask, spend the time to go through the forum and before too long you can see which features are important and which aren't

 

[DT MI]

I'll add 0.5 to get in front of number 1.

0.5 - Reliability, other features are meaningless if the camera doesn't function as it should.

 

[Dashmellow]

The most important features for a dash cam are high quality video and absolute reliability. Period!

Virtually everything else is secondary.

 

[arcticfire]

I'll second reliability, even a poor video clip is better (and potentially evidence providing) than nothing at all.

Then quality, especially low light, including that which can capture important details like registration plates so perhaps resolution, exposure and frame rate would be pretty important.

 

[Fari]

They ask for your E-Mail, but you can leave this field blank.
I don't care for the offered prize, so i did.
And posting here took me more time than answering those questions. (I left all text fields empty. )

Many features are missing... like discreet mounting options and stuff like that.

My ranking would be:
1. Video quality
2. Discreet (e.g. small)
3. SD card size (at least 256GB)

That's why your opinion matters. Thanks for the input!

 

[Fari]

What does my age and occupation have to do with my desired dashcam features?
I do not fill out surveys with those kinds of questions. Therefore I have no idea what page 2 of the survey asks.

Offer:
1. supercapacitor NOT a battery
2. glass lens in a housing that will not distort when it gets hot. To many dashcams lose focus when they get hot.
3. Spend the extra $.27 to install a high quality part instead of the cheapest part available.
4. Make the camera all black. In the USA we want stealth (not chrome or a white logo).
5. Make the dashcam small and easily hidden.
6. offer at least a 1 year warranty.
7. offer firmware updates
8. do not incluide IR lights unless it is a dual cam with one cam designed specifically to record the car cabin.
9. be sure the dashcam records clearly in the dark when only headlights illuminate the road. Some of us use roads without any other illumination.
10. Make it reliable. A MTBF number would be great. Knowing the Mean Time Between Failures can help us know if the cam should last a long time or is likely to die inside of a year.

I believe your age matters to validate your response.
As for the occupation, if you are a taxi driver, you'll probably use dashcam every day, so your response can be given higher weight.
Thanks for your comments.

 

[SawMaster]

From my own opinion as well as what others here on DCT seem to want:

1- Reliability under every circumstance, even if this is all you can do well. That means super-caps, no overheat cutoff, and quality in the supplied PS's.
2- Best video resolution especially with license plate numbers. High bitrates are necessary for this when in motion. Good nighttime vid quality is needed.
3- Compatibility with the better SD cards on the market. Having only one or two usable card choices sucks, and at least 256GB size is important.
4- Good after-sales support both with cam problems and firmware updates.

This presumes a mid level cam or better. Higher up you'll want more and better useful features like a useful parking mode, either pre-buffered or low-bitrate. Regular motion detect and g-sensor activation takes too long to begin recording and may miss what you need. Better cams should also notify you of recording stoppages such as SD card failures. More basic cams can do with a bit less as long as my second suggestion is met well enough for the price level. No point in adding features which don't work well as today's dashcam buyers are far more educated on the matter than they were just a few years ago- focus on doing the basics well instead.

Phil

 

[Screen name taken]

Sorry but if you are offering this survey to Europeans, like me, you have to comply with the GDPR laws. I bet you do not do you.

 

[DAP]

1 Reliability
2 Clear error messages that stick around long enough to read (could be hours before I exit the freeway and can pay attention to the camera). Error messages should stay until the error message is cleared by the user.
3 High resolution and frame rate 4k 60P is what I would like to get.
4 Clear night vision capable of capturing license plates at night. An over exposed white rectangle is not useful.
5 Support for exFAT file system. I know you need to pay a license fee to Microsoft, but this is what the SD card standard requires for SD cards over 32GB. SD card manufacturers optimize their cards to work with this file format, and many don't work very well with other formats.
6 Support for the largest SD cards on the market. They last longer as they don't overwrite the same sector as often.
7 Larger internal buffer. Newer cards don't guarantee minimum write speed, only average write speed. A buffer is necessary to cover those times when the card is writing slowly.
8 Watchdog timer to re-boot the camera when the software locks up. Note that I said "when" not "if".
9 Add a fan if the camera runs too hot without it.
10 don't use parts with a short life span (batteries, electrolytic capacitors etc.)

Note: I have no interest in dual cameras. I'd rather have two separate cameras so they won't both fail at once.
I currently drive a Tesla that has built in dash cam capabilities. I also run a front facing and a rear facing dash cam as the Teslas dash cams are rather low resolution, over compressed and have been proven unreliable. The Tesla dash cams also have a blind spot directly behind the car.

 

[Fari]

From my own opinion as well as what others here on DCT seem to want:

1- Reliability under every circumstance, even if this is all you can do well. That means super-caps, no overheat cutoff, and quality in the supplied PS's.
2- Best video resolution especially with license plate numbers. High bitrates are necessary for this when in motion. Good nighttime vid quality is needed.
3- Compatibility with the better SD cards on the market. Having only one or two usable card choices sucks, and at least 256GB size is important.
4- Good after-sales support both with cam problems and firmware updates.

This presumes a mid level cam or better. Higher up you'll want more and better useful features like a useful parking mode, either pre-buffered or low-bitrate. Regular motion detect and g-sensor activation takes too long to begin recording and may miss what you need. Better cams should also notify you of recording stoppages such as SD card failures. More basic cams can do with a bit less as long as my second suggestion is met well enough for the price level. No point in adding features which don't work well as today's dashcam buyers are far more educated on the matter than they were just a few years ago- focus on doing the basics well instead.

Phil

Thanks for the input, Phil. What I see from this is that we need more sophisticated dash cams.

 

[Fari]

1 Reliability
2 Clear error messages that stick around long enough to read (could be hours before I exit the freeway and can pay attention to the camera). Error messages should stay until the error message is cleared by the user.
3 High resolution and frame rate 4k 60P is what I would like to get.
4 Clear night vision capable of capturing license plates at night. An over exposed white rectangle is not useful.
5 Support for exFAT file system. I know you need to pay a license fee to Microsoft, but this is what the SD card standard requires for SD cards over 32GB. SD card manufacturers optimize their cards to work with this file format, and many don't work very well with other formats.
6 Support for the largest SD cards on the market. They last longer as they don't overwrite the same sector as often.
7 Larger internal buffer. Newer cards don't guarantee minimum write speed, only average write speed. A buffer is necessary to cover those times when the card is writing slowly.
8 Watchdog timer to re-boot the camera when the software locks up. Note that I said "when" not "if".
9 Add a fan if the camera runs too hot without it.
10 don't use parts with a short life span (batteries, electrolytic capacitors etc.)

Note: I have no interest in dual cameras. I'd rather have two separate cameras so they won't both fail at once.
I currently drive a Tesla that has built in dash cam capabilities. I also run a front facing and a rear facing dash cam as the Teslas dash cams are rather low resolution, over compressed and have been proven unreliable. The Tesla dash cams also have a blind spot directly behind the car.

Very interesting comment. I have never thought about the error messages. Thanks for the enlightenment

 

[Nigel]

Very interesting comment. I have never thought about the error messages. Thanks for the enlightenment

The other way to handle error messages is to have them spoken, if the camera says "Memory card error" instead of "beep", then you know immediately what the problem is without taking your eyes off the road, if it goes beep and displays an error message to be read then most people want to look at that very small writing hidden behind the mirror, and that is not safe while driving.

 

[Fari]

The other way to handle error messages is to have them spoken, if the camera says "Memory card error" instead of "beep", then you know immediately what the problem is without taking your eyes off the road, if it goes beep and displays an error message to be read then most people want to look at that very small writing hidden behind the mirror, and that is not safe while driving.

That's a solid point, but spoken error message could make the product cost higher, and people don't prefer high-cost, yet error informing products

 

[Nigel]

That's a solid point, but spoken error message could make the product cost higher, and people don't prefer high-cost, yet error informing products

Most dashcams are capable of playing a tune at startup, if they can play a tune then they can play some pre-recorded speech for error messages at no extra cost other than the developers having to identify individual error messages instead of just going "beep". Probably worth doing anyway because support is going to be much easier if the user knows what is wrong instead of just reporting that it was "beeping"!

 

[Nath]

What about beep-codes like PCs do? (if you have a speaker...) Then you just have to open a manual and look into sheet of reports. Still better than "ohhhh, it will cost you more because more human friendly interface, boooohooooo" and still better than "beep"/"silence" for everything.

And i think the problem with prerecorded messages is the internal storage capacity. A tune at startup could be generated on the go or be in few bytes of a memory but "human message" (to be able to understand) even in AMR has few kilobytes.

 

[Nigel]

What about beep-codes like PCs do? (if you have a speaker...) Then you just have to open a manual and look into sheet of reports. Still better than "ohhhh, it will cost you more because more human friendly interface, boooohooooo" and still better than "beep"/"silence" for everything.

And i think the problem with prerecorded messages is the internal storage capacity. A tune at startup could be generated on the go or be in few bytes of a memory but "human message" (to be able to understand) even in AMR has few kilobytes.

Even the cheap little Blueskysea B1W with it's very low cost processor and what must be a tiny speaker can speak to me and tell me if the problem is a "Slow memory card" or a "Please insert memory card" so that I instantly know what the problem is and don't have to dig out the manual to look up "Beep Beep Beep Beeeep Beeeep Beeeep Beep Beep Beep" ... Ok, we should all understand that message, but you still need to concentrate on the decoding, when you should be concentrating on the road!