Why so few dashcams with wifi

[dwpc]

A smart phone app is convenient for both reviewing a video and settings but there are only a handful of wifi dashcams that are discrete and have the popular chipsets. I found a few "B40-ish" cams that had wifi but had no GPS logging capability so I passed on them. I found no mini style cams with wifi. The models offering both wifi and GPS are mostly the big ones on suction cups.

I bought a tiny wifi diagnostic reader for my cars for under $20, so cost and size don't seem to be the issue. Maybe one of the cam vendors can explain why wifi is not offered in the most popular cam configurations.

 

[thancam]

A smart phone app is convenient for both reviewing a video and settings but there are only a handful of wifi dashcams that are discrete and have the popular chipsets. I found a few "B40-ish" cams that had wifi but had no GPS logging capability so I passed on them. I found no mini style cams with wifi. The models offering both wifi and GPS are mostly the big ones on suction cups.

I bought a tiny wifi diagnostic reader for my cars for under $20, so cost and size don't seem to be the issue. Maybe one of the cam vendors can explain why wifi is not offered in the most popular cam configurations.

1) Dashcam record and have wifi at the same time is very hot.Ex: blackvue. And every cam running hot will be not reliable. Then they have to turn wifi off when record Ex: F750 thingware.
2) A video with high bitrate will be too big for tranfer though wifi. Image: You want to playback a 5 minutes of video, but you have to wait for 10 minutes for download the file to your phone. Too long.
Many brand have to resize of video file, or low bitrates, or compress the file.... so we can playback video and don't need to wait (streaming direcly with no delay, no lag). But everything has it cost. The image quality become worse.
Hope it can help.
And sorry for my english is suck.

 

[dwpc]

Thanks for the reply. I would have no need for wifi while recording (driving), and I doubt that many users would. Perhaps a few seconds only to confirm a view was recorded. I'd also be content with a lower video transfer rate for quick view on the phone provided that the full HD is recorded on the memory card. I think the first manufacturer to market a compact and discrete wifi HD camera with GPS input option for under $150 will have a popular product. A wifi mini-80X with a GPS mount under $150 would be winner in my book.

And your English is far better than my second language skills, which are nonexistent.

 

[CDNinHH]

I originally thought that WiFi and the ability to see/show the video on my iPhone/iPad would be very useful. But after my experience with the Joovuu X being shall we say less than ideal, I have abandoned that idea, at least for now.

 

[kamkar]

Current A7 based cameras have a lot of lag if you want to watch the "live" signal, this should become better with cameras to come.

Lag or not i allso dont find it usefull, my asus tablet with the screen at full brightness get washed out more or less by the sun.

But in general i do not need to see on a little scren what i allso see by looking out the window of my car

 

[Ralph2]

WiFi would be useful if.. it was WiFi in the traditional sense of WiFi.. The ability to connect to your LAN. As in.. I can, with my laptop.. connect to my LAN, access any of my computers (and tablet) and stream video that is stored on those computers. Or.. move files etc.

 

[dwpc]

But in general i do not need to see on a little scren what i allso see by looking out the window of my car

I agree completely. After the newness wears off the new toy, I'd expect I only use the phone view screen for making settings. My audio/DVD head can show the rearview camera view on the screen while driving...I never use that button.

 

[Lbs]

I just received my Le Dash Cam 1S today, it is WiFi only with no screen. I plan to use the ipad app to set up the camera and aim it, once that's done I'll see how the app works for other uses. As far as set up goes, changing settings on my ipad was much simpler then rolling through screen after screen on a 2 inch display. (Even though the app was in Chinese only. Thank goodness for pictograph icons.).

 

[JooVuu]

A smart phone app is convenient for both reviewing a video and settings but there are only a handful of wifi dashcams that are discrete and have the popular chipsets. I found a few "B40-ish" cams that had wifi but had no GPS logging capability so I passed on them. I found no mini style cams with wifi. The models offering both wifi and GPS are mostly the big ones on suction cups.

I bought a tiny wifi diagnostic reader for my cars for under $20, so cost and size don't seem to be the issue. Maybe one of the cam vendors can explain why wifi is not offered in the most popular cam configurations.

We have WiFi

 

[megapixle]

I may be the outlier, but for me personally I want FEWER features in my dashcam. Really I only want two things: 1) good image quality (nice 1080p), and 2) reliability. All the extra stuff is extra complexity and something that can go wrong.

Do I want a screen? Nope, my phone/tablet/PC has an infinitely better screen
WiFi? Nope.
GPS? Nope.
Other bells and whistles? Nope.

All I want is a dashcam that I can count on, just plug it in and forget about it until I want to pull the card out and look at some recent footage.

 

[Maddog1974]

I may be the outlier, but for me personally I want FEWER features in my dashcam. Really I only want two things: 1) good image quality (nice 1080p), and 2) reliability. All the extra stuff is extra complexity and something that can go wrong.

Do I want a screen? Nope, my phone/tablet/PC has an infinitely better screen
WiFi? Nope.
GPS? Nope.
Other bells and whistles? Nope.

All I want is a dashcam that I can count on, just plug it in and forget about it until I want to pull the card out and look at some recent footage.

Sounds like the Thinkware F50 will fit the bill for you, it's expected in the near future. Lovely little unit and pretty much fit & forget (Even the Memory card doesn't need formatting) http://thinkwaredashcam.uk/product/thinkware-dashcam-f50/

It should be as reliable as the rest of the range, we have sold them for about 10 months now which is hundreds sold and we have 12 failures. Very impressive compared to other brands we have sold.

 

[thancam]

Sounds like the Thinkware F50 will fit the bill for you, it's expected in the near future. Lovely little unit and pretty much fit & forget (Even the Memory card doesn't need formatting) http://thinkwaredashcam.uk/product/thinkware-dashcam-f50/

It should be as reliable as the rest of the range, we have sold them for about 10 months now which is hundreds sold and we have 12 failures. Very impressive compared to other brands we have sold.

Can I ask ? Exactly, how many hundreds ?

 

[megapixle]

Sounds like the Thinkware F50 will fit the bill for you, it's expected in the near future. Lovely little unit and pretty much fit & forget (Even the Memory card doesn't need formatting) http://thinkwaredashcam.uk/product/thinkware-dashcam-f50/

It should be as reliable as the rest of the range, we have sold them for about 10 months now which is hundreds sold and we have 12 failures. Very impressive compared to other brands we have sold.

Maybe...I like the form factor but have no use for the "Road Safety Warning System", visual alerts, voice warnings, etc. That's a prime example of a bell and whistle I don't want.

 

[Ralph2]

We have WiFi

True WiFi? that connects seamlessly to a LAN?.. or WiFi light that only connects to a phone or tablet?

 

[dwpc]

True WiFi? that connects seamlessly to a LAN?.. or WiFi light that only connects to a phone or tablet?

I'm speaking of "Wifi light" type for now; full LAN wifi can follow in the future.

 

[Maddog1974]

Can I ask ? Exactly, how many hundreds ?

Honestly i have no idea how to run that report from our system as it's not something i ever do. But it has to be a minimum of 600+ units.

Also 2 of the F750 returns i thought had died because of being powered down during update and when i checked the cards the upgrade package was on both.

 

[USDashCamera]

WiFi would be useful if.. it was WiFi in the traditional sense of WiFi.. The ability to connect to your LAN. As in.. I can, with my laptop.. connect to my LAN, access any of my computers (and tablet) and stream video that is stored on those computers. Or.. move files etc.

You can with the new blackvue dr650gw models. the downside is you can only connect to one saved SSID/hotspot, and currently I believe you can only access your camera from an android/iOS device, no PC support to connect over the internet yet.

 

[arekm]

I like wifi feature (if implemented correctly) for:
- automatic synchronization of date/time when phone connects to the camera
- downloading clips without having to take sd card out
- easy, online firmware upgrade

 

[jokiin]

I like wifi feature (if implemented correctly) for:
1 - automatic synchronization of date/time when phone connects to the camera
2 - downloading clips without having to take sd card out
3 - easy, online firmware upgrade

1 - nice feature for cameras without GPS
2 - can be a challenge due to file sizes, occasional one off access is certainly useful, saving an incident to show police or insurance or whatever, any volume transfer of files isn't really practical though
3 - some risks involved depending on the platform and how it's managed, I much prefer the surety of copying a file to card and booting with that card to perform an upgrade