I have not been paid to give this review, nor do I expect to be. I just thought you all might like to know about it.
About a month ago, a woman pulled into the lane I was traveling in on the interstate. While I managed to avoid the vast majority of damage to the both of us, we did make contact. We exchanged information and went our separate ways that morning, but she’d later make up a story which blamed me for the accident and cause me about 10 days worth of strife having to deal with insurance companies and body shops and filling out reports.
In the comments to those posts some of y’all proposed that I get a dash camera. I had been thinking of doing that a few months before after watching the antics of my fellow commuters. After I found out about her lie, that settled it.
But which one to choose?
After a moderately exhaustive search, I decided on the Amacam AM-M80
It was the right size, the right price, and had the right features. I ordered it with the wife’s Prime account and got it two days later. I read the instruction sheet and installed it the next morning before leaving for school.
I only have two complaints about the item and the first one is the instruction sheet. It would be more useful as a kleenex. Only about 10% of the instructions you’ll need for it are actually on the page. For the full meal deal, you need to go to their website and download the ten page pdf file, so not that big of a problem.
That afternoon after coming home I did that and it has been smooth sailing ever since.
It accepts a 32gb microSD card and records around three hours of video in increments you can select. It can record more time if you turn the resolution down from 1080p. I have mine recording 5 minute increments and having it delete the oldest file when memory runs short. It also has a microphone to record sound, but I turn that off because I sing when I drive, and no one wants to hear that. Lastly, it has an impact sensor which tells the device to record a still image of the impact. Driving in my Jeep, I’m not sure how ideal that function actually is.
Essentially, once you set the features to your preferences and it’s internal battery charges, you can forget about it, except for the turning it on and off. It imprints the time and date on all images and video, so make sure to set those as well.
The 1.5″ view screen is big enough that you can see what is going on within the recording system but small enough to not distract you while driving. The number of features and your control of them is easy. The window attachment mechanism actually works, and most importantly of all, the video quality is excellent, even in the dark.
My second and only other complaint is that the power input slot location is on the top side of the camera. While this would be great if I were to hard wire it into my fuse panel and run the wire over the top of the windshield and down the A-pillar under the interior window trim, but for more casual use, this is not ideal. I will likely hard wire it into my truck, but I’m not up to doing that in the Jeep.
In conclusion, for $60 plus another $15 for a 32gb microSD card, it is a pretty sweet little package of CYA. I’ll soon be buying another one so that I don’t have to switch my current one between vehicles. I have yet to talk to my insurance company to see if I can get a discount for having a dash cam. I still haven’t decided if they need to know.
I would recommend this item to everyone else I know and like. And I have been.
Only thought I have is some states take a dim view of GPS and other devices that are attached to inside of the windshields that might obstruct vision I would check with State police first.
My onlt thought about that would be to either put it to the right of your mirror or right above the dash as low as you can.
Otherwise, I would tell them that I run a dashcam in my car because towing around a State Patrolman and his cruiser is too heavy.
Get an adhesive mount for it if you are going to permanently install it, and set it to turn on when it sees power, and turn off when the power goes off.
You might also want to turn the sound on, as that may be useful after an adversarial police traffic stop. You can live with the singing embarrassment.
And put it to the right of your mirror, in a spot where the mirror blocks the view from the driver’s seat.
RiverRat: Police never like devices that record traffic stops. Too bad.
I went with one of the ones that clips on over your rearview mirror and has a small display built into it;
http://www.moral-flexibility.net/archives/2013/05/02/dashcam-evolution/
I’ve had the others that suction cup onto the windshield, but in the end went with this type for a few reasons;
Pros:
– no footprint to speak of. It doesn’t obstruct your view of the road, provide another object cluttering up your view or occasional ‘unsuction’ and scare the hell out of you.
– Practically invisible from the outside of your car. I was more concerned with a random lowlife smashing into my car to steal what he thought was a GPS suction cupped to my window – this way it looks like nothing at all.
Cons: You do lose the ‘flip’ feature of your rearview and will thusly be annoyed with high beams behind you.
Same features, looped recording, timestamp. One of our cars has a second camera wired in which sits in the rear window looking backward. Cost $60 for the single camera and $100 for the two camera arrangement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x64ZuH3Mzg
Had a near collision the other day where the other car decided to change lanes through me. Had the collision occured AND had the other driver lied about the event then I could have been held 50% at fault for the accident (or worse).
Had these running for about a year now, so can’t speak to their longevity yet.
$60 (or $100) is cheap for peace of mind though, especially as I pay about $2.5K for insurance for two cars a year now, with an unblemished record.
Hmmmm.
Almost needed one of these yesterday morning, but pointed off to the side.
Great long merging zone after feeder joins freeway. I’d been in the right-hand freeway lane since two onramps ago, and was disinclined to merge further into the dense traffic, given that my destination was the next offramp.
Big shiny new car (which I guess was a Chrysler, but being driven like a big shiny new Mercedes) approaches in the merging lane, tailgating a Honda minivan.
OK, I’ll let the first one (the Honda, being driven sanely) merge in front of me. Am I gonna make way for a Mercedes-driving (I hadn’t gotten a good look at the car yet) jackass? No.
I maintain a sensible distance from the Honda. Jackass keeps trying to get in front of me. Eventually he runs out of lane and merges behind me, without quite scrunching his shiny new car against my old Japanese beater.
A front camera wouldn’t have helped much, had he persisted to the point of collision (though, under the circumstances, it ought to be abundantly obvious who was trying to get into which lane at that location).
Need cameras all around, maybe with Allen Funt bobbleheads.