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      09-27-2016, 12:44 PM   #1
vsix
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Advice needed for dash cam

Friends,

I didn't expected it would happen but it happened.

I sold my beloved and highly respected, well kept ( babied ) M3 E92 and bought an M4 F82.
I know...I know...car will be delivered in a few weeks so yay!

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Pictures will explain more then plain words, so stay tuned

Anyhow, the reason for this thread is:
I want to get myself an plug and play, easy to install, dashcam.
So no lowlife can fuck around with my new toy.
Seen recently alot of benzos keyed in my area and was shocked, so your help is highly appreciated.

I've been reading a few threads allready, where it ends with get BMW dashcam but I don't want an afterwards "open heart surgery" on my new car. I want an easy and fast to install aftermarket sollution.
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      09-27-2016, 12:53 PM   #2
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How clean of an install do you want? You mind some sort of wire coming down and plugging into the cig lighter?

Do you want to record video while you're parked and away from the car?
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      09-27-2016, 01:14 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EALm4
How clean of an install do you want? You mind some sort of wire coming down and plugging into the cig lighter?

Do you want to record video while you're parked and away from the car?
Yes, these are important questions.
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      09-27-2016, 02:00 PM   #4
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I do believe almost all of them will be pluggable into the cig lighter, but if you want parking monitor, only real option will be a hardwire. I'd also suggest a 2 camera setup for front facing on front windshield and then do a rear facing on the front windshield so you can see the sides of the car (I mounted mine on the rear view mirror) this way if anyone comes up from the side or behind the car, I can see them and their faces should they do something stupid.
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      09-27-2016, 03:14 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EALm4 View Post
How clean of an install do you want? You mind some sort of wire coming down and plugging into the cig lighter?

Do you want to record video while you're parked and away from the car?
No I don't mind and yes exactly your mentioned scenario.
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      09-27-2016, 03:16 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe240 View Post
I do believe almost all of them will be pluggable into the cig lighter, but if you want parking monitor, only real option will be a hardwire. I'd also suggest a 2 camera setup for front facing on front windshield and then do a rear facing on the front windshield so you can see the sides of the car (I mounted mine on the rear view mirror) this way if anyone comes up from the side or behind the car, I can see them and their faces should they do something stupid.
I would be definately interested what your final decision looks like.
Please share a picture or two of your cams.
I allready red that there are actually some cig lighter parking cams around, just don't know wich one to get.
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      09-27-2016, 03:17 PM   #7
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You won't be able to record while your car is off unless you hardwire. I have a very basic one and I wish it recorded when I was away from the car.
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      09-27-2016, 03:19 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bimmette View Post
You won't be able to record while your car is off unless you hardwire. I have a very basic one and I wish it recorded when I was away from the car.
Hmmm...but that is what I'm up to. Beeing away from the car and still have the option to check whats going on by having an app on my iphone. So hardwires the only way, allright got it.
Any suggestion wich one of the hardwiring cam kits to consider?
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      09-27-2016, 03:48 PM   #9
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I'll take a picture of the setup tomorrow (it's 11pm here). I have the Thinkware F770 with the added rear camera. I don't think any of the dashcams let you watch while you're away from the car, but they have parking mode that will record while you're away. Mine tells me when I get in how many motion detections there were and how many incident detections there were (such as the car being bumped or even the door being opened). The picture quality is pretty nice as well and you interface with it via an app when you're inside. Little pricey, but worth it imo. $460 to help protect my $50k investment.
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      09-27-2016, 05:00 PM   #10
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I've got the Yi Cam. Pretty sweet for the price.

For mine, I ran the camera wire along the top edge of the windshield, down the passenger A-pillar, through the dash, and out into passenger footwell. There's a hidden outlet down there, which can be used to power devices. No wires, works when car is on.

Planning tapping a into something in the dash, when I get some time.

If you don't feel like tapping a wire to run power, but want to record constantly, then a battery cell with USB pass through is an option. Cell-link B (or something like that) is a company that cells packs specifically for dash cams. Basically goes in between the camera and outlet. Charges up when car is on, and provides power to camera when off. Probably could do something similar with a power bank that supports USB pass through.
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      09-27-2016, 06:20 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vsix View Post
No I don't mind and yes exactly your mentioned scenario.
www.blackboxmycar.com
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      09-27-2016, 06:53 PM   #12
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Bought 5 of these for 3 cars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-D...%2Bpro200&th=1
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      09-29-2016, 05:10 AM   #13
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Here's the pictures of how I have it mounted. I made the mistake of mounting it to the right of the mirror though because I wanted it higher up. It was a mistake because you see the black part of the mirror in the camera view and I already ran the cables so I'd have to pull everything just to move it below the mirror. The back facing camera can see all the occupants of the car (so there's accountability if you get into an accident, good or bad I suppose), and you can also see the sides and back of the car for any movement. Unfortunately can't see any faces from this angle, but I back into all parking spots because of the front lip so most people will be coming from the front of the car where I can see a face there and also license plates of any cars driving by.

If you really want to see a full picture of the side of the car, unfortunately you'd have to buy 2 camera sets with 2 cameras each (no one makes a 3 or 4 channel setup for dash cams at the moment that I know of).

I downloaded 2 videos (front and rear facing of the same instance) but can't email to myself at work because they're over 100mb. So I'll have to add those when I get home.
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      09-29-2016, 10:31 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe240 View Post
Here's the pictures of how I have it mounted. I made the mistake of mounting it to the right of the mirror though because I wanted it higher up. It was a mistake because you see the black part of the mirror in the camera view and I already ran the cables so I'd have to pull everything just to move it below the mirror. The back facing camera can see all the occupants of the car (so there's accountability if you get into an accident, good or bad I suppose), and you can also see the sides and back of the car for any movement. Unfortunately can't see any faces from this angle, but I back into all parking spots because of the front lip so most people will be coming from the front of the car where I can see a face there and also license plates of any cars driving by.

If you really want to see a full picture of the side of the car, unfortunately you'd have to buy 2 camera sets with 2 cameras each (no one makes a 3 or 4 channel setup for dash cams at the moment that I know of).

I downloaded 2 videos (front and rear facing of the same instance) but can't email to myself at work because they're over 100mb. So I'll have to add those when I get home.
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation! This camera looks really tiny and might be considered as one of the possible candidates.
Really curious about the brand and then of course the vid quality.

Again Thanks a bunch!
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      09-29-2016, 10:35 AM   #15
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Congratz on your new purchase. Don't forget us E9xers
Buy my dashcam lol
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1304761
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      09-29-2016, 11:32 AM   #16
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i've been curious about this:
https://www.amazon.com/CYHY-support-...QBXWQ45DTFN5BW
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      09-29-2016, 11:46 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vsix View Post
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation! This camera looks really tiny and might be considered as one of the possible candidates.
Really curious about the brand and then of course the vid quality.

Again Thanks a bunch!
Blackboxmycar.com is where I got mine. Thinkware and Blackvue are the top 2 brands. I watched some videos comparing the two and ended up with the thinkware because of the night vision and because both cameras are 1080p. It works awesome in my opinion and compared to the blackvue with 1080/720 setup, better all around video quality as well. The other bonus is the thinkware has a built in battery monitor whereas the blackvue you need to get one to hardware in and then plug the camera into. I got the thinkware hardwire kit instead of the blackboxmycar wiring kit.

Here's an install and review by another member: http://www.2addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1297419
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      09-29-2016, 12:04 PM   #18
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Check this one out I think this just came out. Found it browsing last week.

https://www.waylens.com/

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      09-29-2016, 12:19 PM   #19
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Here is a food for thought. I never had a need to use a dash cam just because I have two GoPro's in my possession. With my 128GB SD card I can get 8 hrs of recording time in HD. Never have worry about if it's recording while parked or deal with any wires.

Now if you mounted two sessions it would be even smaller.
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      09-29-2016, 02:53 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by R3dliner View Post
Here is a food for thought. I never had a need to use a dash cam just because I have two GoPro's in my possession. With my 128GB SD card I can get 8 hrs of recording time in HD. Never have worry about if it's recording while parked or deal with any wires.

Now if you mounted two sessions it would be even smaller.
Couple problems with this setup though:
1) once battery dies, it won't record at all (should you forget to take it out to charge)
2) might forget to bring with you to the car and don't remember till you've already left.
3) if you want one mounted on the back window, you have to now climb into the back seat every day (if you have a coupe that is more of a hassle)
4) I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the GoPros don't have loop recording. I personally haven't completely filled my GoPro memory before I've pulled the videos so I'm not 100% sure.

With my Thinkware, it has a 64GB micro SD card and will do continuous recording front and rear at 1080p while I'm driving, dividing the videos into ~1 minute increments where I can access it via my app and download from the camera to my phone so I can email the file should I need evidence. It also will do either motion sensing parking mode where it will record 10 seconds before and 10 seconds after it detected movement (camera is always rolling, it just saves that specific time frame). It also does incident recording while parked should the camera detect any vibration in the cars such as being bumped by someone leaning on your car, or hitting it with their door. Incident recordings are saved separately from motion detection recordings. The other option to save storage space is to do 1 frame per second parking mode where it does just that, a constant frame per second you can also review with. Today I was able to go back on my continuous recordings to Sunday (25 September) to pull some videos. Only 4 days, but I also have motion sense parking mode enabled so it records a lot of traffic while I'm at work (both pedestrians and vehicles). If I did the frame per second parking mode then I'd have a ton more continuous recordings on the SD card. Best part is that it will loop record over the oldest file with the newest video so I never have to dump files. Oh almost forgot, I can also set what voltage for it to detect on the battery before it will cut off and not record anymore (so I can still start my car). I currently have it at ~11.8v which is roughly 2 continuous days of sitting parked from what others have said (my car is a DD so it never sits that long).

Trust me, I'm not bashing the idea of using GoPros, it's not a bad idea if only using one camera and I almost went this route because I have one. I just didn't want the hassle of having to take it in and out for charging and clearing videos.

Last edited by Joe240; 09-29-2016 at 03:01 PM..
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      09-29-2016, 03:14 PM   #21
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I do see your concerns about the GoPro. I think Iam almost sold to your idea. Since so many scumbags and low lifes are running around these days a certain type of legal protection has to be considered. More so when mentioned suspects don't understand your "motivation message"and want to get jiggy with your car. Also one of the best scenarios that I could imagine, would be to be able to find out who actually tried to be an scumbag and left his love marks on your car. Priceless the moment to surprise him shortly after the incident. Coolest thing for me would be a sort of motion detection that would inform me over inet! Unfortunately I didn't found anything that could come close to my...yeah call it wish

Anyhow, great help so far hope to get a lill more input.
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      09-29-2016, 03:31 PM   #22
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I'm sure there's something out there that will do what you want it to do (message soon motion sense with live feed). I have a camera in my house that I can connect to anywhere (even when I was back in the states and I currently live in Germany) so I can keep an eye on my house and also on my dogs when I'm out and about (they can be mischivious sometimes) and it's a live feed in SD or HD with 2 way audio. Maybe it's something you could use a house camera for but modify the wiring to connect to the car. You'd still need a wireless hotspot with a ton of data though to connect it to so you could then connect via an app on your phone. SD video doesn't take much data, but HD does and it could save HD to the memory card, but you could stream SD to your phone when viewing.

Heh, 2 way audio with the camera connected to a loud speaker: (guy leans on your car) You - "Get the F@CK OFF MY CAR YOU LOWLIFE PIECE OF ****! I got you on camera!"
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